Looney Tunes


Looney Tunes is an American animated comedy series produced by Warner Bros. from 1930 to 1969 during the golden age of American animation alongside its sister series Merrie Melodies. It is known for introducing Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Elmer Fudd, Tweety, Sylvester, Granny, Yosemite Sam, Foghorn Leghorn, Marvin the Martian, Pepé Le Pew, Speedy Gonzales, Tasmanian Devil, Road Runner, Wile E. Coyote, and many other cartoon characters.
Looney Tunes name was inspired by Walt Disney's musical series Silly Symphonies. They initially showcased musical compositions whose rights were held by Warner's music publishing interests through the adventures of cartoon characters such as Bosko and, after losing him, Buddy. The animation studio gained a higher profile, however, following their addition of directors Tex Avery and Chuck Jones and voice actor Mel Blanc. From 1942 to 1964, Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies were the most popular animated shorts in movie theaters.
Looney Tunes has since become a worldwide media franchise, spawning several television series, feature films, comic books, music albums, video games, and amusement park rides, as well as serving as Warner Bros.' flagship franchise. Many of the characters have made and continue to make cameo appearances in various other television shows, films, and advertisements. The most famous Looney Tunes character, Bugs Bunny, is regarded as a cultural icon and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Several Looney Tunes films are considered among the greatest animated cartoons of all time, and five have won Academy Awards.

History

On the inception, Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies drew their storylines from Warner's vast music library. Between 1934 and 1943, Merrie Melodies were produced in color and Looney Tunes in black and white. After 1943, both series were produced in color and became virtually indistinguishable, varying only in their opening theme music and titles. Both series made use of the various Warner Bros. cartoon characters. By 1937, the theme music for Looney Tunes was "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down" by Cliff Friend and Dave Franklin, and the theme music for Merrie Melodies was an adaptation of "Merrily We Roll Along" by Charles Tobias, Murray Mencher and Eddie Cantor.

1930–1933: Harman and Ising era

In 1929, to compete against Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse short cartoons, Warner Bros. became interested in developing a series of animated shorts to promote their music. They had recently acquired Brunswick Records along with four music publishers for US$28 million and were eager to promote this material for the sales of sheet music and phonograph records. Warner made a deal with Leon Schlesinger to produce cartoons for them. Schlesinger hired Rudolf Ising and Hugh Harman to produce the first series of cartoons. Schlesinger was impressed by Harman's and Ising's 1929 pilot cartoon, Bosko, The Talk-Ink Kid. The first Looney Tunes short was Sinkin' in the Bathtub starring Bosko, which was released in 1930.
in the intro to one of the Looney Tunes shorts in the late 1930s and early 1940s

1933–1936: Leon Schlesinger Productions

When Harman and Ising left Warner Bros. in 1933 over a budget dispute with Schlesinger, they took with them all the rights of the characters and cartoons they had created. A new character called Buddy became the only star of the Looney Tunes series for a couple of years.
New directors including Tex Avery, Friz Freleng and Bob Clampett were brought in or promoted to work with animators in the Schlesinger studio, with Avery's unit housed in a bungalow the animators dubbed "Termite Terrace." In 1935 they debuted the first major Looney Tunes star, Porky Pig, along with Beans the Cat in the Merrie Melodie cartoon I Haven't Got a Hat directed by Friz Freleng. Beans was the star of the next Porky/Beans cartoon Golddiggers of '49, but it was Porky who emerged as the star instead of Beans. The ensemble characters of I Haven't Got a Hat, such as Oliver Owl, and twin dogs Ham and Ex, were also given a sampling of shorts, but Beans and Porky proved much more popular. Beans was later phased out when his popularity declined, leaving Porky as the only star of the Schlesinger studio.

1936–1944: More star characters and switch to color

The debuts of other memorable Looney Tunes stars followed: Daffy Duck in Porky's Duck Hunt, Elmer Fudd in the Merrie Melodies short Elmer's Candid Camera, and Bugs Bunny in the Merrie Melodies short A Wild Hare.
Bugs initially starred in the color Merrie Melodies shorts following the success of 1940's A Wild Hare, and formally joined the Looney Tunes series with the release of Buckaroo Bugs in 1944. Schlesinger began to phase in the production of color Looney Tunes with the 1942 cartoon The Hep Cat. The final black-and-white Looney Tunes short was Puss n' Booty in 1943 directed by Frank Tashlin. The inspiration for the changeover was Warner's decision to re-release only the color cartoons in the Blue Ribbon Classics series of Merrie Melodies. Bugs made a cameo appearance in 1942 in the Avery/Clampett cartoon Crazy Cruise and also at the end of the Frank Tashlin 1943 cartoon Porky Pig's Feat, which marked Bugs' only official appearance in a black-and-white Looney Tunes short. Schlesinger sold his interest in the cartoon studio in 1944 to Warner Bros. and went into retirement; he died five years later.

1944–1964: Golden Age

More popular Looney Tunes characters were created such as Tweety, Sylvester, Yosemite Sam, Pepé Le Pew, Foghorn Leghorn, Marvin the Martian, Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner, Granny, Speedy Gonzales, Witch Hazel, and the Tasmanian Devil.

1964–1969: DePatie–Freleng and Seven Arts era

During the mid-late 1960s, the shorts were produced by DePatie–Freleng Enterprises and Warner Bros.-Seven Arts after Warner Bros. shut down their animation studio. The shorts from this era can be identified by their different title sequence, featuring stylized limited animation and graphics on a black background and a new arrangement, by William Lava, of "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down". The change in the introductory title cards was possibly to reflect the switch in the animation style of the shorts themselves.
The original Looney Tunes theatrical series ran from 1930 to 1969.

1970–2001: Syndication and Return to Television & Film

The Looney Tunes series' popularity was strengthened even more when the shorts began airing on network and syndicated television in the 1950s, under various titles and formats. However, the Looney Tunes shorts were edited, removing scenes of violence, racial and ethnic caricatures, and questionable vices.
Theatrical animated shorts went dormant until 1987, when new shorts were made to introduce Looney Tunes to a new generation of audiences. New shorts have been produced and released sporadically for theaters since then, usually as promotional tie-ins with various family movies produced by Warner Bros. While many of them have been released in limited releases theatrically for Academy Award consideration, only a few have gotten theatrical releases with movies.
In the 1970s through the early 1990s, several feature-film compilations and television specials were produced, mostly centering on Bugs Bunny and/or Daffy Duck, with a mixture of new and old footage. In 1976, the Looney Tunes characters made their way into the amusement business when they became the mascots for the two Marriott's Great America theme parks. After the Gurnee park was sold to Six Flags, they also claimed the rights to use the characters at the other Six Flags parks, which they continue to do presently. In 1988, several Looney Tunes characters appeared in cameo roles in Disney's film, Who Framed Roger Rabbit. The more notable cameos featured Bugs, Daffy, Porky, Tweety, Sylvester and Yosemite Sam. It is the only time in which Looney Tunes characters have shared screen time with their rivals at Disney —particularly in the scenes where Bugs and Mickey Mouse are skydiving, and when Daffy and Donald Duck are performing their "Dueling Pianos" sequence.
Nickelodeon aired all the unaired cartoons in a show called Looney Tunes on Nickelodeon between 1988 and 1999. To date, Looney Tunes on Nickelodeon is the longest-airing animated series on the network that was not a Nicktoon. In 1996, Space Jam, a feature film mixing animation and live-action, was released to theaters starring Bugs Bunny and basketball player Michael Jordan. Despite a mixed critical reception, the film was a major box-office success, grossing nearly $100 million in the U.S. alone, almost becoming the first non-Disney animated film to achieve that feat. For a two-year period, it was the highest grossing non-Disney animated film ever. The film also introduced the character Lola Bunny, who subsequently became another recurring member of the Looney Tunes cast, usually as a love interest for Bugs.
In 1997, Bugs Bunny was featured on a U.S. 32 cent postage stamp; the first of five Looney Tunes themed stamps to be issued.
The Looney Tunes also achieved success in the area of television during this era, with appearances in several originally produced series, including Taz-Mania and The Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries. The gang also made frequent cameos in the 1990 spinoff series Tiny Toon Adventures, from executive producer Steven Spielberg, where they played teachers and mentors to a younger generation of cartoon characters, plus occasional cameos in the later Warner shows Animaniacs and Histeria!.

Current Age

In the early 2000s decade, Warner decided to make the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies library exclusive to fellow Time Warner properties, specifically Cartoon Network. Immediately prior to this decision, Looney Tunes shorts were airing on several networks at once: on Cartoon Network, on Nickelodeon, and on ABC. The latter two had been particularly long-running series, and the Warner Bros. decision forced the two networks to cancel the programs. In 2003, another feature film was released, this time in an attempt to recapture the spirit of the original shorts: the live-action/animated '. Although the film wasn't financially successful, it was met with mixed-to-positive reviews from film critics and has been argued by animation historians and fans as the finest original feature-length appearance of the cartoon characters. In 2006, Warner Home Video released a new and Christmas-themed Looney Tunes direct-to-video film called Bah, Humduck! A Looney Tunes Christmas, a parody of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. Other Looney Tunes TV series made during this time were Baby Looney Tunes, Duck Dodgers and Loonatics Unleashed.
On October 22, 2007, Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons became available for the first time in High-definition via Microsoft's Xbox Live service, including some in Spanish. From February 29 – May 18, 2008, many Looney Tunes artifacts, including original animation cels and concept drawings, were on display at the Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown, Ohio, just off the campus of Youngstown State University, near where the Warners lived early in life.
At the 2009 Cartoon Network upfront, The Looney Tunes Show was announced. After several delays, the series premiered on May 3, 2011. Produced by Warner Bros. Animation, the series centers on Bugs and Daffy as they leave the woods and move to the suburbs with "colorful neighbors" including Sylvester, Tweety, Granny, Yosemite Sam, etc. The series introduced the character Tina Russo, a duck who becomes Daffy's girlfriend. The show also features 2-minute music videos titled respectfully "Merrie Melodies" which features the characters singing original songs, as well as CGI animated shorts starring Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner. The series was cancelled after its second season.
Also, Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner returned to the big screen in a series of 3-D shorts that preceded select Warner Bros. films. There were six in the works that began with the first short, Coyote Falls, that preceded the film ', which was released on July 30, 2010. On September 24, 2010, Fur of Flying preceded the film, ', and on December 17, 2010, Rabid Rider preceded the film, Yogi Bear. On June 8, 2011, Warner Bros. Animation announced that there will be more Looney Tunes 3-D theatrical shorts; the first titled Daffy's Rhapsody with Daffy Duck and Elmer Fudd, the next being I Tawt I Taw a Puddy Tat with Sylvester, Tweety, and Granny. Daffy's Rhapsody was to precede the film Happy Feet Two, until the studio decided to premiere I Tawt I Taw a Puddy Tat instead. Daffy's Rhapsody instead premiered in 2012, preceding '. All five shorts were directed by Matthew O'Callaghan.
In 2012, several announcements were made about a Looney Tunes reboot film titled Acme, in development. Former Saturday Night Live cast member Jenny Slate was said to be on board as writer for the new film. Jeffrey Clifford, Harry Potter producer David Heyman, and Dark Shadows writers David Katzenberg and Seth Grahame-Smith were slated to produce the film. On August 27, 2014, writers Ashley Miller and Zack Stentz were hired to script the film, directors Glenn Ficarra and John Requa were in talks to direct the film, while actor Steve Carell was rumored to be starring in a lead role. Despite this, the film has yet to enter production.
At the 2014 Cartoon Network upfront, another series titled Wabbit: A Looney Tunes Production was announced. Starring Bugs Bunny, the series premiered on both Cartoon Network and its sister channel Boomerang in Fall 2015. The series has had an unusually slow rollout, with the series having moved to the Boomerang streaming service in 2017, and was eventually cancelled on January 30, 2020.
On June 11, 2018, another series, titled Looney Tunes Cartoons, was announced by Warner Bros. Animation. It premiered on May 27, 2020, on the streaming service HBO Max. Its first season features "1,000 minutes of new one-to-six minute cartoons featuring the brand's marquee characters", voiced by their current voice actors in "simple, gag-driven and visually vibrant stories" that are rendered by multiple artists employing "a visual style that will resonate with fans", most noticeably having a style reminiscent of the styles of Tex Avery, Bob Clampett, Chuck Jones, Friz Freleng and Robert McKimson. According to co-executive producer Peter Browngardt, "We're not doing guns, but we can do cartoony violence — TNT, the Acme stuff. All that was kind of grandfathered in." Sam Register, president of Warner Bros. Animation also serves as co-executive producers for the series.

Home media

In the 1980s, the shorts received VHS releases, with the pre-August 1948 shorts released by MGM/UA Home Video and the post-July 1948 shorts released by Warner Home Video. In 2003, Warner Home Video began releasing select shorts on DVD, aimed at collectors, in four-disc sets known as the Looney Tunes Golden Collection. This continued until 2008, when was released. Then in 2010 until 2013, the company released the Looney Tunes Super Stars DVDs. There have been numerous complaints regarding the Super Stars releases however, particularly the first two, having the post-1953 shorts in a 16:9 widescreen format. The last DVD in the Super Stars series was , released on April 23, 2013. 2010 and 2011 saw the releases of The Essential Bugs Bunny and The Essential Daffy Duck DVDs. In 2011, the shorts were released on Blu-ray Disc for the first time with the Looney Tunes Platinum Collection series. On September 19, 2017, Warner Home Video's Warner Archive Collection released the five-disc Porky Pig 101 DVD-set.

Licensing and ownership

In 1933, Harman and Ising left, taking the rights to the Bosko characters with them. However, Warner retained the rights to the cartoons and the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies brand names, leaving their former producer Leon Schlesinger to start his own Warner Bros. studio and continue the Looney Tunes series. With their retained Bosko rights Harman and Ising began making cartoons at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1934, until they were fired in 1937 due to a lack of success. MGM proceeded to form their own studio to create MGM cartoons. Time Warner eventually acquired the Bosko characters from Harman and Ising's estates. Meanwhile, the Schlesinger studio continued to make popular cartoons until 1944 when Schlesinger sold his studio to Warner Bros. Since then, Warner Bros. has owned all rights to all post-1933 characters created by Leon Schlesinger Productions and Warner Bros. Cartoons. The rights to individual cartoons however are in other hands.
In 1955, Warner Bros. sold the television distribution rights to 191 of its cartoons to Guild Films. The copyrights to those cartoons were assigned to Sunset Productions, an entity owned by Warner Bros. The cartoons were distributed by Guild Films until it went bankrupt and was bought by Seven Arts. Seven Arts bought WB in 1970, and WB regained the TV distribution rights to the black and white cartoons.
In 1956, Associated Artists Productions acquired television distribution rights to most of Warner Bros' pre-1950 library, including all Merrie Melodies and color Looney Tunes shorts that were released prior to August 1948. Unlike the previous TV package, this package had the Warner titles kept intact and an "Associated Artists Productions presents" title inserted at the head of each reel. Two years later, United Artists bought a.a.p. who merged the company into its television division, United Artists Television. In 1981, UA was sold to MGM, and five years later, Ted Turner acquired the pre-May 1986 MGM library, as well the rights to the a.a.p. library. In 1996, Turner's company, Turner Broadcasting System, was purchased by Time Warner who also owned Warner Bros. Today, Warner Home Video holds the video rights to the entire Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies animated output by virtue of Warner Bros.' ownership of Turner Entertainment.
Starting in 1960, the cartoons were repackaged into several different TV programs that remained popular for several decades before being purchased by Turner Broadcasting System. Turner's Cartoon Network reran the cartoons from their launch in 1992 until 2004, and again from 2009 until 2017. The Looney Tunes Show, an early 2000s anthology produced by Warner Bros. Animation for the network, was broadcast from 2001 to 2004. The show featured shorts from the original Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies theatrical series. As of 2013, classic cartoons continue to air on Cartoon Network's sister channel, Boomerang. Differing curated collections of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies are available for streaming both the Boomerang streaming service and HBO Max.
Five dozen Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts from before December 1943 have lapsed into the public domain and are thus freely distributed through various unofficial releases.

Filmography

Racial stereotypes

A handful of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts are no longer aired on American television, nor are they available for sale by Warner Bros., because of racial and ethnic stereotypes of black people, American Indians, Asians such as Japanese, Chinese, Germans, Italians and Mexicans. Eleven cartoons were withdrawn from distribution in 1968 that prominently featured stereotypical black characters and are known as the Censored Eleven.
In 1999, all Speedy Gonzales cartoons were removed from airing on Cartoon Network because of their stereotyping of Mexicans. Many Hispanics protested that they were not offended, and fondly remembered Speedy Gonzales cartoons as a representation of their youth and nation's individuality; these shorts were made available for broadcast again in 2002.
In addition to these notorious cartoons, many Warner Bros. cartoons contain fleeting or sometimes extended gags that make reference to racial or ethnic stereotypes. The release of the ' includes a disclaimer at the beginning of each DVD in the volume given by Whoopi Goldberg which explains that the cartoons are products of their time and contain racial and ethnic stereotypes that "were wrong then and they are wrong today", but the cartoons are presented on the DVD uncut and uncensored because "editing them would be the same as denying that the stereotypes existed."
A written disclaimer similar to the words spoken by Goldberg in Volume 3 is shown at the beginning of each DVD in the ', ', and ' sets, as well as the Daffy Duck and Foghorn Leghorn Looney Tunes Super Stars sets and the Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Academy Awards Animation Collection:

Accolades

Inducted into the National Film Registry

Television series

Series marked with * are compilations of earlier shorts.

Dell Publishing

Plus various one-shots, specials and appearances in anthology comics like March of Comics, Top Comics and Dell Giant from various Western Publishing imprints. The numbering of the Dell issues generally includes 3-4 appearances in Dell's Four Color comics.

Video games