Monday, July 27 marks the 80th anniversary of the theatrical release of the animated short film "A Wild Hare", part of the Merry Melodies series of shorts produced by Leon Schlesinger Productions for the Warner Bros. film studio, which featured the debut of an at the time unnamed lapine (called a "wabbit" by his rhotacism afflicted co-star) who would soon be known as Bugs Bunny. This character would become somewhat popular over the last eight decades.

To celebrate the world's most famous bunny's birthday, the United States Postal Service has released a set of ten stamps featuring Bugs Bunny in multiple outfits he's worn in his over 168 starring roles in the original Looney Tunes/Merry Melodies 1930-1969 run; and that's not counting cameos there and starring roles in cartoons outside that run. Featured outfits include his barber's outfit from "Rabbit of Seville", his Tea-Totaller team uniform from "Baseball Bugs", his basketball team jersey for the Tune Squad from the movie Space Jam, and, in one of two featured drag get-ups, his disguise from often-cited-as-best-cartoon-EVER "What's Opera, Doc?". Ironically not featured is his standard outfit of au naturel except a pair of white gloves; disappointingly, neither is his fox fursuit from "Foxy by Proxy" .

Hello there, and welcome to July’s episode of Digging Up Positivity. This month we will cover some amazing members of our community, lovely videos, and our featurette is a wonderful artist from Berlin known for her outstanding artwork for individuals and companies alike.

A Furry created hashtag trend, #SocialistTeeth, ended up as the top trending tag in the United States after Conservative Bots picked it up to launch criticism at the concept of Socalist policies in general. A Twitter thread by Dream Hyena shows some examples of some of these bot blunders.

Just laughing, apparently #socialistteeth hashtag has the bots really confused! LOL pic.twitter.com/iuO7W5mLmt

As many around the world continue to practice social distancing during this viral moment in humanity, it is of little surprise that some are engaging in unusual behaviors. From collective mooing or howling from their homes, or telling comedy from their backyard, people are finding ways to try and engage with their neighbors from a safe distance. Then there are late show leads Samantha Bee and John Oliver, both known for their time as Daily Show correspondents before getting their own shows on TBS and HBO respectively, who have in a strange turn of events set their sites on the furry fandom in very different ways.

Both have done segments or furry hijynx in their shows, giving our fandom some unusual mainstream attention.

A recent study conducted at Harvard University (scientific paper) to examine working visual memory found that an African grey parrot was able to outperform 6-8-year-old human children. That might not be so amazing on its own — research has already shown various bird species to perform on par with human children — if it weren't for the third group in the comparison. The parrot also performed equally or better than a group of 18-30-year-old undergraduate students in 12/14 trials.

The Fandom is certainly not the first documentary to be done by furries about our own fandom. Over the past decade a handful have been made. Sometimes they focus on a particular incident surrounding an individual such as Rukus. Or perhaps they talk about the group in a way that may be more useful for political discussion within the community rather than introducing us and where we came from such as Fursonas.

I can say that if you were to want to introduce someone to the concept of what the foundations of the community are and its growth in the modern era, then this would be the one you would want to show. It covers our history in the same vein that Joe Strike’s Furry Nation did in book form.

Its release comes at a very appropriate time as the world has been set on pause, so it is a great time to reflect on where we came from and where we are going. This certainly appears to be the goal of this film as it explores the growth of our communal spaces in the world from the 70s to today. You can help support their efforts by buying a copy here.

Contributors this month include dronon, earthfurst (Happy Canada Day!), GreenReaper, InkyCrow, and Mike Retriever.

As conventions have been closed, the charitability of the fandom marches on as Pibble, Chise, Nas, and Wolf (aka Kind7ed) lead a fundraising effort collecting nearly $9,000 for Project Okra and the Navajo Nation. They did this during the stream on Picarto where they played Jackbox games while hanging out and telling stories.

Project Okra is an organization that pays black trans* chefs who provide meals for black trans* individuals who are facing food insecurities, along with other community services. The Navajo have been fundraising to help deal with the impact of the Coronavirus on their people. Each received $4,365 dollars as a result from the stream.

Some truly awesome people - Wolf @woIffangs , Vatika @PIBBLEBITCH, Chise @sailorrooscout , and Nas @nasfk_ !! The $9k you guys raised for two vital charities is incredible and shouldn't be overlooked. I'm glad I got to watch for a bit You're amazing and deserve to be proud! pic.twitter.com/HvdT1bmnlb

— ◽ GHOSTFLANNEL ◽ (@ghostflannel) June 28, 2020

Capital City Fur Con has closed any future gatherings after its premiere in January 2020 due to financial mismanagement. Staffers came forward to discuss the issues caused by the chair’s fiscal malfeasance, and guests have reported that honored guests who were promised compensation were left out in the cold.

The greatest grievance, though, is that it is alleged that the charity they were raising money for, the ALS Association, also were not given their money. ALS has gained infamy in the fandom due to the disease that took the late Tony “DogBomb” Barret, and many conventions over the year have been raising money toward research for a cure since.

More information can be seen on Global Furry Television’s coverage on the below video which is transcribed below.

For many furries, the Fourth of July weekend would be a time that many would make their way to the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in order to partake in the convention of Anthrocon. Due to the current pandemic, most conventions have been canceled for the year of 2020. For those furries looking to reconnect with their community, though, a full length documentary by Ash Coyote is set to release that weekend.

The furry producer did a series of shorter furry non-fiction for her channel which we reviewed here.

Hello and welcome to May’s episode of digging up positivity. This month we have a couple of literal diggers! Online events, animation and our featurette is the guy behind that big event you saw where I was floating in mid-air, playing connect-four with the little ones in the Sophia Childresn Hospital in Rotterdam.

Reporting from Verve indicates that Neopets will be releasing an animated series in 2021. Neopets is known for its Flash based entertainment that held its own with other such animal care based franchises of the 1990s such as Pokemon, Digimon, or Tamagochi.

The owning company JumpStart, who bought it from Viacom in 2014, hopes to use this as a way to refresh interest in the pet based franchise at a time where they are shifting their Flash based interface before most browsers discontinue support for Flash applications by the end of this year.

Released in November 2019, Cassel Games’ Ratropolis sets players in the role of the leader of a post-apocalyptic rat society, attempting to rebuild their once-great civilization after scientific experiments caused its collapse. But in order to grow, the new settlement must defend itself - first from mutated rats that caused the apocalypse, then as the settlement grows, from predators. The goal is to survive 30 waves of enemies using cards that provide an array of tactics, and with the leader’s special ability.