We’ve been here before:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/archive/index.php/t-25808.html
My apologies, Marion Wormer.
I’m still pretty new here and although I’m trying to gradually read up on the old posts, I hadn’t encountered the one you linked to yet.
That was an act of die-a-bow-lick-al sab-o-tajee.
Bugs also has called other characters “im-BEH-cile” and “ultra-MAROON”. Pretty sure it’s just for comedic effect.
Chuck Jones at his finest - the look on the bull’s face as the Rube Goldberg-ian steps play out to have Bugs win (of course you know: this means war!) is priceless.
[Zapp Brannigan]: “You want the rest of the cham-paggin?” [/ZB]
I went to undergrad at the U of Chicago (nickname: the Maroons). The campus film society occasionally showed cartoons before the main movie. Every so often a Bugs cartoon would have the “what a maroon” insult, which would get a nice cheer from the crowd.
I always assumed it was a mispronunciation of moron.
And the extreme of “maroon” was “ultra-maroon” . . . possibly after “ultramarine”, the blue pigment that was standard in WB cartoons.
Quite a party you’ve got going here. Shall I pass around the horse dervs?
A maroon is also a firework. Usually a nautical one used by ships summoning help or by a lifeboat station to summon the lifeboatmen.
He also, as I recall, uses stradge-itty to foil his opponents.
Oh, honey, sorry I came across as pushy. I just thought people might like to read the older comments
(hugs)
I don’t think it was Bugs, but some recurrent WB character used to be vexed by his nemesis a lot. His comeback was to insist “I’ll moidalize 'im” meaning murderize, AKA kill.
Obviously a Marxist…