Looney Tunes
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 Looney Tunes is a Warner Brothers animated cartoon
series which ran in many movie theatres from 1930 to 1969. It preceded the
Merrie Melodies series, and is both WB's first animated theatrical series and
the second longest continuous animated series in any medium. The regular Warner
Bros. animation cast also became known as the "Looney Tunes" (often misspelled,
intentionally or not, as "Looney Toons").
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History
The two series were given two separate names
because originally, Warner Bros. wanted them to be two separate cartoons series
(in the same manner that Walt Disney's Silly Symphonies were separate from the
Mickey Mouse series).
In the beginning years, both Looney Tunes and
Merrie Melodies drew their storylines from Warner's vast music library. However,
eventually the two series distinguished themselves by Looney Tunes becoming the
umbrella for the studio's various recurring characters, while Merrie Melodies
continued with the use of one-shot characters. Also, from 1934 to 1943 Merrie
Melodies were produced in color and Looney Tunes in black and white; after 1943,
however, both series were produced in color; the only real difference between
the two series was in the variation between the opening theme music and titles.
Both series by this time also made use of the various Warner Bros. cartoon
stars. By 1943, the theme music for Looney Tunes was "The Merry-Go-Round Broke
Down" by Cliff Friend and Dave Franklin; the theme music for Merrie Melodies was
an adaptation of "Merrily We Roll Along" by Charles Tobias, Murray Mencher and
Eddie Cantor. The reason for the Looney Tunes changeover to color was Warner
Bros' decision to re-release only the color Merrie Melodies for their Blue
Ribbon Classics series of cartoons, noted by the special "Blue Ribbon" title
card.
Bosko was Looney Tunes' first major star, debuting
in the short Sinkin' in the Bathtub in 1930. After several years and a move to
rival studio MGM in an entirely different incarnation, Buddy took his place as
the studio's main star. 1935 saw the debut of the first truly major Looney Tunes
star, Porky Pig, after which followed the debuts of other memorable Looney Tunes
stars such as Daffy Duck (in 1937) and the most famous of the Looney Tunes cast,
Bugs Bunny (in 1940). Bugs appeared originally in the color Merrie Melodies and
formally joined the Looney Tunes crew when it switched to color. Bugs' only
appearance in a black and white Looney Tune was a gag appearance at the end of
the Frank Tashlin 1943 cartoon Porky Pig's Feat.
While the early thirties cartoons never directly
catered to a younger audience, the cartoons consisted mostly of musical
singing/dancing and generally contained a sense of innocence (mostly as a result
of imitating the Disney style). By the late thirties, the series had become
edgier, and was more obviously targeted to the adult moviegoers of the time.
The Looney Tunes series' popularity was
strengthened even more when the shorts began airing on network and syndicated
television in the mid-to-late 1950s under various titles and formats. However,
since the syndicated shorts' target audience was children and because of
concerns over children's television in the 1970s, the Looney Tunes shorts began
to be edited to remove scenes featuring innuendos, ethnic stereotypes and
extreme violence.
The original Looney Tunes theatrical series ran
from 1930 to 1969 (the last short being Injun Trouble, starring Cool Cat).
During part of the 1960s the shorts were produced by DePatie-Freleng Enterprises
after Warner Bros shut down their animation studios. The shorts from this era
can be identified by the fact that they open with a different title sequence
featuring stylized limited animation and graphics on a black background and a
re-arranged version of "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down," performed by William
Lava. Theatrical animated shorts then 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. This
lasted until 2004.
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 (Gurnee, Santa Clara). After the Gurnee park was sold
to Six Flags, they also claimed the rights to use the characters at the other
Six Flags parks, and continue to do so to this day.
In 1988, a number of Looney Tunes characters
appeared in numerous cameo roles in Who Framed Roger Rabbit; the more notable
cameos featured Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Yosemite Sam, Sylvester, and Tweetie.
This is notable because this is the only time in which any Looney Tunes
characters have shared any screen time with their rivals at Disney -
particularly in the scenes where Bugs Bunny and Mickey Mouse are skydiving, and
when Daffy Duck and Donald Duck are performing their now-famous "Duelling
Pianos" sequence.
In 1988, Nickelodeon aired all the unaired cartoons
in a show called Looney Tunes on Nickelodeon until 1999, when it was removed off
the network for Cartoon Network. 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 starring Bugs Bunny and basketball player Michael
Jordan. The movie was somewhat successful despite its odd plot, and it
introduced a new character named Lola Bunny.
In 2003, another feature film was released in an
attempt to recapture the spirit of the original shorts, the live-action/animated
Looney Tunes: Back in Action. The film was a box-office disappointment, putting
the theatrical future of Bugs and company in limbo.
Since the days of the Nintendo Entertainment
System, the Looney Tunes characters have been featured in numerous video games,
such as a same-titled one that came out on Game Boy in 1992. It was later remade
for the Game Boy Color in 1999; it was not a best seller and received bad
reviews.
The Looney Tunes characters have had more success
in the area of television, with appearances in several originally produced
series, including 1991's Taz-Mania (starring The Tasmanian Devil), 1995's The
Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries (starring Sylvester the cat, Tweety Bird and
Granny), 2002's Baby Looney Tunes (which had a similar premise to Muppet
Babies), and 2003's Duck Dodgers (starring Daffy Duck and Porky Pig). The Looney
Tunes characters also made frequent cameos in the 1990 series Tiny Toon
Adventures, where they played teachers and mentors to a younger generation of
cartoon characters. Loonatics Unleashed, a futuristic version of the characters,
is currently airing on Kids' WB! It has a large fanbase, but many fans of the
classic Looney Tunes do not like this series at all.
Although the cartoons are now seldom seen on TV,
thanks to revival theatrical screenings, and the Golden Collection DVD box sets,
the Looney Tunes and its characters have remained a part of Western animation
heritage, and an American comedy institution.
Controversy
The
stereotypes
 A handful of Looney Tunes shorts from the World War
II era are no longer aired on American television nor are available for sale by
Warner Bros. due to the racial stereotypes of African-Americans, Jews, Italians,
Japanese, and Germans included in some of the cartoons. Eleven cartoons were
withdrawn from distribution in 1968 and are known as the Censored 11. This has
caused dismay among some animation enthusiasts, however, who feel that they
should have access to these shorts. There has been some success in returning
these cartoons to the public; in 1999 all Speedy Gonzales cartoons were made
unavailable because of its alleged stereotyping of Mexicans. But because the
level of stereotyping was minor compared to the World War II era cartoons
mentioned above as well as the protests of many Hispanics who said they were not
offended and fondly remembered Speedy cartoons from their youth, these shorts
were made available for broadcast again in 2002. The release of the Looney Tunes
Golden Collection: Volume 3 includes a disclaimer at the beginning of each DVD
in the volume given by Whoopi Goldberg which explains that the cartoons in the
collection are uncut and uncensored and contain scenes which may be considered
unacceptable today.
Females have been rarely featured in Looney Tunes.
Examples such as Melissa Duck, Petunia Pig and Tasmanian She Devil all had a few
appearances and then disappeared.
Dubbed
versions
WB has also had controversy over Turner
Entertainment’s "dubbed version" prints, used on many pre-1948 cartoons
beginning in 1995. These versions were actually new ones derived (hence the
"dubbed" moniker) from earlier-generation prints of whatever versions of shorts
were available, even if they were the altered "blue ribbon" prints. These
"dubbed versions" had their many alterations. They have a generic end card (with
either orange or red rings), with a disclaiming copyright to Turner (see
screenshot), thus replacing the original colored cards (ala Blue Ribbon Merrie
Melodies). Many animation fans have believed that changing the end card was a
bad move on many of the pre-1948 cartoons, especially The Old Grey Hare, which
features the card shaking from an off-screen explosion. Due to the generic end
card, this ending gag was obliterated in the dubbed version, though there is
also a second dubbed version around which preserves the gag, and has been seen
in the United Kingdom. In this version, the original end card shakes, and the
Turner disclaimer fades up at the end.
In almost all cases, the original end title music
was kept, although sometimes an earlier or later version of the closing theme
would be heard on the titles.
These "dubbed versions", which continue to be shown
on cable and broadcast television to this day, are not representative of the
original theatrical release versions of the "Looney Tunes" and "Merrie Melodies"
shorts. Despite Warner Bros./Turner's best efforts to include the best available
versions of the shorts possible on DVD, several "dubbed version" cartoons have
been released on DVD, either in special 2-disc editions of the WB/Turner classic
films or on their Looney Tunes Golden Collection 4 disc DVD sets.
Colorization
In 1967, the then-Warner Bros.-Seven Arts company
reissued all the black-and-white Looney Tunes in a primitive colorization
process. The original prints were sent to Korea where artists re-traced each
cartoon frame-by-frame in color. The results, of course, were not representative
of the original work and vision of the animators.
These cartoons continued to be seen over the
decades, and even some of the hand-colored cartoons ended up on low-budget
bargain-bin home video labels (the hand-colored versions were themselves
copyrighted, but it has been suggested they too have fallen into the public
domain).
Then, in the 1990s, Warner Bros. re-did the classic
black-and-white shorts yet again in color, but this time using a digital
colorization process rather than re-coloring them frame-by-frame as in 1967.
Though these color versions were markedly improved from their hand-traced
counterparts, they were still miles apart from the original black-and-white
versions. The digital color versions have aired on the Turner networks (Cartoon
Network and Boomerang). Incidentally, the 1967 hand-drawn color versions
continue to be seen on the Turner networks to this day.
More about the controversial process of re-tracing
and colorizing classic black and white animations in Korea can be found at the
Wikipedia Popeye page.
 Ownership
In 1957, a company then known as Associated Artists
Productions acquired for television all the pre-1948 Merrie Melodies (except for
"Lady Play Your Mandolin") and color Looney Tunes. AAP was later incorporated
into United Artists Television, and in 1986, part of Ted Turner's acquisition of
the classic MGM/WB/RKO library. When Turner sold his entertainment unit to Time
Warner in 1996, the classic library was once again under ownership of WB
(although technically they are owned by Turner).
All the while, WB was able to retain the rights to
"Lady Play Your Mandolin" and the black-and-white Looney Tunes, even though they
all fell into the public domain (WB holds the original film elements)--a
majority of these public domain shorts have been released on many low-budget
independent home video labels. As of 2006, all WB's animated output (including
the post-'48 shorts WB also kept) are under the same Time Warner umbrella of
ownership.
UA (under the pre-WB/Turner-merger management of
MGM/UA Home Video) officially released numerous compilations of the classic
pre-'48 cartoons on VHS and LaserDisc, most of these under the title The Golden
Age of Looney Tunes. Today, Warner Home Video holds the video rights to the
entire Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies animated output by virtue of WB's ownership
of Turner Entertainment--this is why their Looney Tunes Golden Collection DVD
box sets include cartoons from both the pre-'48 Turner-owned and post-'48 WB
owned periods.
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Characters
Note: The more famous or noteworthy Looney Tunes
characters are listed in bold.
Characters introduced in the 1930s
Beans
Bosko
Bruno
Buddy
Cookie
Daffy Duck
Egghead
Fluffy
Foxy
Gabby Goat
Goopy Geer
Ham and Ex
Honey
Little Kitty
Oliver Owl
Piggy
Petunia Pig
Porky Pig
Roxy
Sniffles
Towser
Wilbur
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Characters introduced in the 1940s
Babbit and Catstello
Bugs Bunny
The Barnyard Dog
Beaky Buzzard
Bobo the Elephant
Cecil Turtle
Charlie Dog
Claude Cat
Colonel Shuffle
Elmer Fudd
Foghorn Leghorn
Goofy Gophers
Gossamer
Granny
Gruesome Gorilla ¹
Henery Hawk
Hippety Hopper
Hubie and Bertie
Inki
Marvin the Martian
The Mynah Bird
Pepé Le Pew
Penelope Pussycat
Quentin Quail
Road Runner
Rocky and Mugsy
Sylvester the cat
The Three Bears
Tweety
Wacky Worm
Wile E. Coyote
Willoghby the dog
Yosemite Sam
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Characters introduced in the 1950s
Clyde Bunny
Crusher
Egghead Jr.
Frisky Puppy
Hector the Bulldog
Honey Bunny
Jose and Manuel
Marc Antony and Pussyfoot
Melissa Duck
Michigan J. Frog
Miss Prissy
Pete Puma¹
Ralph Phillips
Sam Sheepdog and Ralph Wolf
Slowpoke Rodriguez
Speedy Gonzales
Spike the Bulldog and Chester the Terrier
Sylvester Junior
Tasmanian Devil (Taz)
Toro the bull ¹
Witch Hazel
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Recurring characters introduced in the 1960s and beyond
Babs and Buster Bunny
Bunny and Claude
Count Bloodcount
Colonel Rimfire
Cool Cat
Cornbread
Hamton J. Pig
Honey Bunny
Hugo the Abominable Snowman
Lola Bunny
Merlin the Magic Mouse
Second Banana
Plucky Duck
Queen Tyr'ahnee
¹ NOTE: Only appeared in one cartoon.
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