Looney Tunes is a
Warner Brothers animated cartoon series which ran in many movie theaters from 1930 to 1969. It preceded the
Merrie Melodies series and is Warner Bros.'s first
animated theatrical series. The regular Warner Bros. animation cast also became known as the "Looney Tunes" (often misspelled, intentionally or not, as "Looney
Toons").
The name
Looney Tunes is a variation on
Silly Symphonies, the name of
Walt Disney's concurrent series of music-based cartoon shorts.
Looney Tunes originally showcased Warner-owned musical compositions through the adventures of cartoon characters such as
Bosko and
Buddy. Later
Looney Tunes shorts featured popular characters such as
Bugs Bunny,
Daffy Duck,
Porky Pig,
Elmer Fudd,
Sylvester,
Tweety,
Marvin the Martian,
Taz,
Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner,
Foghorn Leghorn,
Yosemite Sam,
Pepé Le Pew,
Speedy Gonzales, and many others. Originally produced by
Harman-Ising Pictures,
Looney Tunes were produced by
Leon Schlesinger Productions from 1933 to 1944. Schlesinger sold his studio to Warner Bros. in 1944, and the newly renamed
Warner Bros. Cartoons continued production until 1963.
Looney Tunes were outsourced to
DePatie-Freleng Enterprises from 1964 to 1967, and Warner Bros. Cartoons re-assumed production for the series' final two years.
From 1942 into the 1960s,
Looney Tunes was the most popular short cartoon series in theaters, exceeding Disney and other popular competitors.
["Warner Bros. Studio biography". AnimationUSA.com. Retrieved July 22, 2008.]
History
In the beginning, both
Looney Tunes and
Merrie Melodies drew their storylines from Warner's vast music library. 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 and became virtually indistinguishable, with the only stylistic difference being in the variation between the opening theme music and titles.
Both series also 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; the theme music for
Merrie Melodies was an adaptation of "
Merrily We Roll Along" by
Charles Tobias,
Murray Mencher and
Eddie Cantor.
[
Tunes B&W.jpg|thumb|200px|left|Black and white Looney Tunes opening title from 1943 featuring [[Porky Pig] (center) and
Daffy Duck]] (right)
In 1930, Warner Bros. became interested in developing a series of musical animated shorts to promote their music. They had recently acquired the ownership of
Brunswick Records along with four music publishers for US $28 million. Consequently, they were eager to start promoting this material to cash in on the sales of sheet music and phonograph records. Warner made a deal with
Leon Schlesinger to produce cartoons for Warner Bros. Schlesinger hired
Rudolph Ising and
Hugh Harman to produce their first series of cartoons.
Bosko was
Looney Tunes first major lead character, debuting in the short
Sinkin' in the Bathtub in 1930. 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 which they had created.
[
pig thats all folks.jpg|thumb|200px|left|From 1937–1946, every Looney Tune (except for two) ended with [[Porky Pig] coming out of a drum and saying "th-th-th-that's all folks!"]]
A bland white-washed version of Bosko called
Buddy became the star of the
Looney Tunes series for the next few years. With the animators working in the
Termite Terrace studio, they debuted the first truly major
Looney Tunes star,
Porky Pig, who was introduced in 1935 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. This was followed by 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 mostly in the color
Merrie Melodies and formally joined the
Looney Tunes crew with the release of
Buckaroo Bugs. Schlesinger began to phase in the production of color
Looney Tunes with the 1942 cartoon
The Hep Cat. The final black-and-white
Looney Tune 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 Bunny 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. Schlesinger sold his interest in the cartoon studio in 1944 to Warner Bros.
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, 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, racial remarks, curse words, ethnic and racial stereotypes, and extreme violence.
The original
Looney Tunes theatrical series ran from 1930 to 1969 (the last short being
Injun Trouble, a Merrie Melodie by Robert McKimson). 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," arranged by
William Lava. (When
Seven Arts Associates merged with Warner Bros. in 1967, the logos were updated, replacing all regular WB elements with the
Warner Bros.-Seven Arts logo, as well as new theme music.) These final shorts were obviously made with a smaller budget and looked cheap compared to the lush scenery and detailed expression of the characters. Theatrical animated shorts went dormant until 1987 when new shorts were made to introduce
Looney Tunes to a new generation of audiences.
New Looney Tunes 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. The last series of new shorts so far ended production in 2004, the most recently theatrically-released
Looney Tunes was
Pullet Surprise in
1997, shown theatrically with
Cats Don't Dance.
[
Tunes-W7.jpg|thumb|250px|left|The [[Warner Bros.-Seven Arts] logo used on the final
Looney Tunes shorts]]
In the 1970s through the early 1990s, several feature-film compilations and
television specials were produced, mostly centering on Bugs Bunny 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 (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, which they continue to do presently.
In 1988, several
Looney Tunes characters appeared in cameo roles in
Who Framed Roger Rabbit. The more notable cameos featured Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Yosemite Sam, Sylvester, and Tweety. 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 Bunny and
Mickey Mouse are skydiving, and when Daffy Duck and
Donald Duck are performing their "Duelling Pianos" sequence.
In 1988,
Nickelodeon aired all the unaired cartoons in a show called
Looney Tunes on Nickelodeon until 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 starring Bugs Bunny and
basketball player
Michael Jordan. Despite its odd plot and mixed critical reception,
["Movie Reviews: Space Jam". Retrieved on 2008-01-23.] the film was a major box-office success, grossing nearly $100,000,000 in the U.S. alone,
[.] and introduced a new character named
Lola Bunny.
In 2000, Warner Bros. 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 (as
Looney Tunes on Nickelodeon), and on
ABC (as
The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show). The latter two had been particularly long running series, and the Warner Bros. decision forced the two networks to cancel the programs. This is the main reason why
Looney Tunes are seldom seen on television today.
In 2003, another feature film was released, this time in an attempt to recapture the spirit of the original shorts: the live-action/animated
Looney Tunes: Back in Action. Although it earned relatively positive reviews from critics
and has been argued by animation historians and fans as the finest original feature-length appearance for the cartoon characters,
the film was a box-office disappointment,
[Looney Tunes: Back in Action. Boxofficemojo.com. Retrieved on 2008-01-25.] putting the theatrical future of the
Looney Tunes in limbo.
[Looney Tunes: Back in Action trivia at the Internet Movie Database.]
In 2006,
Warner Home Video released a new,
Christmas-themed
Looney Tunes direct-to-video movie called
Bah, Humduck! A Looney Tunes Christmas featuring a wide array of characters working in a mega-store under the Scrooge-esque Daffy Duck. The movie parodies the famous book by
Charles Dickens,
A Christmas Carol.
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 poor reviews.
The
Looney Tunes characters have had more success in the area of television, with appearances in several originally produced series, including
Taz-Mania (1991, starring
The Tasmanian Devil),
The Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries (1995, starring
Sylvester the cat,
Tweety Bird and
Granny),
Baby Looney Tunes (2002, which had a similar premise to
Muppet Babies), and
Duck Dodgers (2003, starring
Daffy Duck,
Porky Pig and
Marvin the Martian). The Looney Tunes characters also made frequent cameos in the 1990 spinoff series
Tiny Toon Adventures, where they played teachers and mentors to a younger generation of cartoon characters, plus occasional cameos in the later shows
Animaniacs and
Histeria! Most recently,
Loonatics Unleashed, a futuristic version of the characters, aired on
Kids' WB! It had a large fanbase, although the show was greeted with negative criticism from audiences familiar with the original versions of the characters.
Although the cartoons are seldom seen on mainstream 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.
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 cells & concept drawings, were on display at the
Butler Institute of American Art in
Youngstown, Ohio, just off the campus of
Youngstown State University.
[www.vindy.com/news/2008/feb/24/butler-goes-looney-tunes/] The exhibit had the studio come full circle, as the Warners were natives of the Youngstown area.
Looney Tunes can currently be seen on the
Kids WB! website.
["Warner Bros. Entertainment To Unveil T-Works Immersive Online Animation Experience For All Ages In Spring 2008". Warnerbros.com. Retrieved on 2008-01-21.] Looney Tunes returned to
Cartoon Network on January 1, 2009, as a marathon called the "New Year's Day Looney Toonormous Marathon", but did not air on Cartoon Network or Boomerang again until 11 months later when it returned to Cartoon Network on November 15, 2009.
Controversy
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 the racial
stereotypes of
African-Americans,
Jews (especially in the earlier cartoons, despite the fact that all four of the Warner brothers were Jewish)
,
Japanese,
Chinese, and
Germans (especially during WWII, as in
Tokio Jokio) included in some of the cartoons. Eleven cartoons that prominently featured stereotypical black characters (and a few passing jokes about Japanese people, as was the case with
Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs and
Jungle Jitters) were withdrawn from distribution in 1968 and are known as the
Censored Eleven. There has been some success in returning these cartoons to the public; in 1999 all
Speedy Gonzales cartoons were made unavailable because of their alleged stereotyping of
Mexicans, but because the level of stereotyping was minor compared to the World War II era cartoons as well as the protests of many
Hispanics who said they were not offended and fondly remembered Speedy Gonzales cartoons from their youth, these shorts were made available for broadcast again in 2002. This would be short lived, however, as Cartoon Network and Boomerang ceased airing Warner Bros. cartoons after the release of the library on DVD.
In addition to these most notorious cartoons, many Warner cartoons contain fleeting or sometimes extended gags that reference then-common racial or ethnic stereotypes. 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 are products of their time and contain racial and ethnic stereotypes that these days would be considered offensive, but the cartoons are going to be presented on the DVD uncut and uncensored because editing them out and therefore denying that the stereotypes existed is almost as bad as condoning them.
A written disclaimer, similar to the words spoken by Goldberg in Volume 3, is shown at the beginning of each DVD in the
Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 4 and
Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 5 sets:
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 many alterations. They have a generic end card (with either orange or red rings, depending on the credited producer), with a disclaiming copyright to Turner, thus replacing the original colored cards (a la 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 a static version of the end card shaking from an off-screen explosion. Because of the generic end card, this ending gag was obliterated in the dubbed version, though there is also a second dubbed version which preserves the gag. 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 is heard on the titles (some reissued Looney Tunes had their ending music changed to that of the Merrie Melodies series).
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 if no better version does exist or is undiscovered.
Colorization
In 1967, the Warner Bros.-Seven Arts company reissued 78 of the black-and-white
Looney Tunes in a primitive
colorization process. The original prints were sent to
South Korea where artists re-traced each cartoon frame-by-frame in color. The quality dropped considerably with the hand-colored versions, to the point where some animation was not carried over.
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 copyrighted, but it has been suggested they too have fallen into the
public domain).
Then, in 1990, 1992 and 1995, Warner Bros. released the same 78 black-and-white shorts again in color (plus 26 cartoons which were not colorized in 1967), but this time using a digital colorization process rather than re-coloring them frame-by-frame as in 1967. The digital technology allowed for the quality of the original animation to be preserved; thus, these colorized versions could be seen as superior to the 1967 versions.
The digital color versions have aired on the Turner networks (
Cartoon Network and
Boomerang except on the programming block
Late Night Black And White). Incidentally, the 1967 hand-drawn color versions continued to be seen on the Turner networks until
Looney Tunes were pulled from the airwaves in 2007.
Ownership
In the early 1950s, Warner Bros. sold its black-and-white
Looney Tunes (plus the first
Merrie Melody,
Lady, Play Your Mandolin!, and the B&W
Merrie Melodies made after Harman and Ising left) to
Sunset Productions. Warner insisted that the opening and closing titles be changed to remove all references to Warner Bros. The cartoons were distributed by Guild Films until it was sold to Motion Pictures for Television. In the 1960s,
Seven Arts Productions bought that company. In 1967, Seven Arts merged with Warner Bros. to create
Warner Bros.-Seven Arts thus putting those films back in Warner's ownership.
[geocities.com]
In 1957,
Associated Artists Productions (a.a.p.) acquired for television most of Warner Bros.' pre-1950
[WB retained a pair of features from 1949 that they merely distributed, and all short subjects released on or after September 1, 1948; in addition to all cartoons released in August 1948.] library, including all
Merrie Melodies (except for those sold to Sunset) and color
Looney Tunes shorts that were released prior to August 1948. Unlike the sale to Sunset Productions, a.a.p. was allowed to keep the Warner titles intact and simply inserted an "Associated Artists Productions presents" title at the head of each reel so each
Merrie Melodie cartoon had the song "
Merrily We Roll Along" playing twice
[youtube.com] (while each
Looney Tune had both opening songs each playing once
[youtube.com]).
[geocities.com] a.a.p. was later sold to
United Artists, who merged the company into its television division—
United Artists Television.
In 1981, UA was sold to
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and five years later,
Ted Turner acquired the MGM library—which also included U.S. rights to the
RKO Pictures library, in addition to its own pre-1986 material, the classic Warner Bros. library, and some of UA's own product, in an attempt to take over MGM. Turner's company,
Turner Broadcasting System (whose
Turner Entertainment division oversaw the film library), merged with
Time Warner in 1996, thus the classic library was once again under ownership of WB (although technically they are owned by Turner, with WB handling sales and distribution).
All the while, starting in 1967 WB was able to retain the rights to "Lady Play Your Mandolin" and the black-and-white
Looney Tunes, even though a number of them 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-8/48 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-8/48 Turner-owned and post-7/48 WB owned periods.
Quality of prints used for television and video
When the Looney Tunes were shown on TV, WB and a.a.p. prepared 16 mm "dupes" of the original prints for the syndication market; these prints faded over time, causing them to look "inferior" to what was being shown on the networks. Meanwhile, prints with better material especially for the networks that showed post-7/48 cartoons were created periodically to continue appearing fresh. a.a.p. and its successor companies never had any access to the original negatives of the cartoons a.a.p. bought.
As a result, when the cartoons ended local syndication, there would be considerable difference in quality of the WB-owned and a.a.p./UA/MGM/Turner-owned shorts. The former package had new prints prepared (usually) from the original negatives for the cable networks that aired them, whereas the latter package, when shown on the Turner networks, looked dull and faded, even after 2 separate remasters in 1987 and 1995. This was a problem even on the official video releases in the VHS era prior to 1999: WB's compilations used the original negatives, while MGM was limited to 16 mm "dupes".
The LTGC sets are all derived from the original negatives, restored to pristine condition, ideally creating an experience similar to when the shorts were first shown in theaters. However, many of the shorts have been oversaturated or otherwise damaged by excessive Digital Video Noise Reduction, and sometimes the colors have been entirely changed.
Awards
Four of the Looney Tunes have been selected to the
National Film Registry:
Academy Awards for Best Short Subject (Animation):
Academy Award nominations:
Television broadcast history
Denmark
- DR1 (Used sometimes to fill time gaps in various children and teen programming blocks)
Republic of Ireland
Israel
United States
United Kingdom
Singapore
- okto (Present)
- Cartoon Network Southeast Asia(Starhub Digital Cable)
- Boomerang Southeast Asia(Starhub Digital Cable)
Turkey
Greece
Japan
Spinoffs
A Spin off of Looney Tunes, entitled
Baby Looney Tunes ran in America from June 2002 through October 2005. The series shows many of the Looney Tunes characters as babies living with Grannie.
Another series called
Loonatics Unleashed ran from 2005 to 2007. It featured futuristic descendents of the Looney Tunes characters as super-heroes.
See also
