Looney Tunes

Looney Tunes

Looney Tunes opening title used in the 1940s and 1950s.
Directed by Tex Avery
Bob Clampett
Friz Freleng
Hugh Harman
Rudolph Ising
Chuck Jones
Robert McKimson
Frank Tashlin
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Produced by Hugh Harman
Rudolph Ising
Leon Schlesinger
Eddie Selzer
John Burton
David H. DePatie
Friz Freleng
William L. Hendricks
Story by Warren Foster
Tedd Pierce
Michael Maltese
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Voices by Mel Blanc
June Foray
Bea Benaderet
Stan Freberg
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Music by Carl Stalling
Milt Franklyn
William Lava
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Animation by Ken Harris
Rod Scribner
Gerry Chiniquy
Virgil Ross
Rudy Larriva
Bill Meléndez
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Layouts by Maurice Noble
Hawley Pratt
Robert Gribbroek
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Backgrounds by Paul Julian
Pete Alvarado
Philip DeGuard
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Studio Harman and Ising Pictures
Leon Schlesinger Productions
Warner Bros. Cartoons
DePatie-Freleng Enterprises
Warner Bros. Animation
Distributed by Warner Bros.
Release date(s) 1930–1969
Color process B & W (1930–1943) Technicolor (1940–1970; 1980–present)
Cinecolor (selected mid-1930s & late-1940s entries)
Running time 6–10 minutes (one reel)
Country United States
Language English (usually)

Looney Tunes is a Warner Bros. animated cartoon series. It preceded the Merrie Melodies series and was Warner Bros.'s first animated theatrical series. Since its first official release, 1930s Sinkin' in the Bathtub, the series has become a worldwide media franchise, spawning several television series, films, comics, music albums, video games and amusement park rides. The series features some of the most well-known and popular cartoon characters in history, including Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and Porky Pig. Many of the characters have made cameo appearances in television shows, films and advertisements. The name Looney Tunes is a variation on Silly Symphonies, the name of Walt Disney's concurrent series of music-based cartoon shorts. From 1942 until 1969, Looney Tunes was the most popular short cartoon series in theaters, exceeding Disney and other popular competitors.[1]

Contents

History

1930–1969

In the beginning both Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies drew their storylines from Warner's vast music library (notice the names Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies). 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.

In 1929, WB 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 WB 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 Bosko, The Talk-Ink Kid in 1929. The first Looney Tunes short was Sinkin' in the Bathtub which was released 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.

A new character called Buddy became the only star of the Looney Tunes series for a couple of 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. 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 demand for these characters was far exceeded by Beans and Porky; Beans himself was later phased out due to declining popularity, leaving Porky as the only star of the Schlesinger studio. 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 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 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 which marked Bugs' only 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 would die five years later.

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. The change in the preceding, introductory title cards was possibly to reflect the switch in the animation style of the featurettes themselves.

1950–1996

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 were edited, removing scenes of violence (particularly suicidal gags and scenes of characters doing dangerous stunts that impressionable viewers could easily imitate), racial and ethnic caricatures (particularly stereotypical portrayals of blacks, Mexicans, Jews, American Indians, Asians, and Germans as Nazis) and questionable vices (such as smoking cigarettes, ingesting pills, and drinking alcohol).

Theatrical animated shorts went dormant until 1988 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.

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 Disney and Amblin's Oscar-winning epic, 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 (producers of the film)—particularly in the scenes where Bugs Bunny and Mickey Mouse are skydiving, and when Daffy Duck and Donald Duck are performing their "Dueling Pianos" sequence.

Also 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,[2] the film was a major box-office success, grossing nearly $100,000,000 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.[3] and introduced a new character named Lola Bunny.

1997 – present

In 2000, WB 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. 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[4] and has been argued by animation historians and fans as the finest original feature-length appearance for the cartoon characters,[3][5] the film was a box-office disappointment.[6] 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 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 (Buster, Babs and the gang), plus occasional cameos in the later Warner shows Animaniacs (also from Spielberg) 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.[7] 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.[8] 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.[9] 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. In 2010, Looney Tunes was taken off Cartoon Network after another New Year's Marathon.

At the Cartoon Network upfronts in April 2010, "The Looney Tunes Show" was announced to premiere later that year. Coming from Warner Bros. Animation and producer Sam Register, the concept revolves around Bugs and Daffy leaving the woods and moving to the suburbs with "colorful neighbors" including Sylvester and Tweety, Granny, and of course Yosemite Sam. The show will have 2-minute music videos titled respectfully "Merrie Melodies", as a tribute to the Looney Tunes sister shorts, which will feature the characters singing original songs. The Looney Tunes Show debuted May 3, 2011. At approximately the same time, reruns of the classic Looney Tunes library returned to Cartoon Network's daytime lineup.

Also, it has been announced that Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner will be making a return to the big screen in a series of 3-D shorts that will precede select Warner Bros. films. There are currently six in the works that began with the first short, Coyote Falls, that preceded the film Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore, which was released on July 30, 2010. On June 8, 2011, Warner Bros. Animation announced that there will be more Looney Tunes 3-D theatrical shorts; the first titled Daffy Rhapsody with Daffy Duck and Elmer Fudd, the next being I Tawt I Taw a Putty Tat with Sylvester, Tweety and Granny. Daffy Rhapsody was to precede the film Happy Feet Two,[10] until the studio decided to premiere I Tawt I Taw a Putty Tat instead. Daffy Rhapsody will premere in 2012.[11]

Ownership

Originally produced by Harman-Ising Productions, 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 1965. Looney Tunes were outsourced to DePatie-Freleng Enterprises from 1964 to 1967, and WB Cartoons re-assumed production for the series' final two years.[1]

In the early 1950s, WB sold its black-and-white Looney Tunes (plus the first Merrie Melody, Lady, Play Your Mandolin!, and the black-and-white Merrie Melodies made after Harman and Ising left) into television syndication through their subsidiary Sunset Productions. In 1957, Associated Artists Productions (a.a.p.) acquired for television most of Warner Bros' pre-1950[12][13] 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 (as a result, each Merrie Melodie cartoon had the song "Merrily We Roll Along" playing twice).[14] a.a.p. was later sold to United Artists, who merged the company into its television division—United Artists Television. The cartoons were distributed by Guild Films until it went bankrupt and shut down in 1961.

WB then licensed the cartoons to United Artists. In 1981, UA was sold to Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer, 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 MGM library, and some of UA's own product. In 1996, Warner Bros bought Turner Enterprises, which owned the MGM's pre-1986 library and the Looney Tunes shorts, thus gaining syndication rights back.[15] Turner's company, Turner Broadcasting System (whose Turner Entertainment division oversaw the film library), merged with Time Warner in 1996. 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. As of 2006, all Warner Bros' animated output are under the same Time Warner umbrella of ownership.

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 black people, Jews,[16] Native Americans, Asians such as Japanese (especially during WWII, as in Tokio Jokio and Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips) and Chinese, and Germans included in some of the cartoons. Eleven cartoons that prominently featured stereotypical black characters (and a few passing jokes about Japanese people, as in Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs and Jungle Jitters) were withdrawn from distribution in 1968 and are known as the Censored Eleven.

In 1999 all Speedy Gonzales cartoons were banned because of their alleged stereotyping of Mexicans, though this was mild compared to the wartime portrayal of Japanese. When many Hispanics protested that they were not offended, and fondly remembered Speedy Gonzales cartoons from their youth, these shorts were made available for broadcast again in 2002.

In addition to these most notorious cartoons, many Goldwyn 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, through modern eyes, 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 in the first place.

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, Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 5, and Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 6 sets, as well as the Daffy Duck and Foghorn Leghorn Looney Tunes Super Stars sets:

The cartoons you are about to see are products of their time. They may depict some of the ethnic and racial prejudices that were commonplace in the U.S society. These depictions were wrong then and they are wrong today. While the following does not represent the Warner Bros. view of today's society, these cartoons are being presented as they were originally created, because to do otherwise would be the same as claiming that these prejudices never existed.

Awards

Inducted into to the National Film Registry

Academy Awards for Best Short Subject (Animation)

Academy Award nominations

Broadcast history

Starting in 1960, the cartoons were repackaged into several different TV programs that remained popular for several decades before being purchased by Turner Broadcasting Systems.[17] Turner's Cartoon Network reran the cartoons for 12 years, from their start in 1992 until 2004, when the cartoons were removed from the schedule. In November 2009, Cartoon Network brought back reruns of Looney Tunes shorts. After only one month, the network stopped airing the cartoons on January 1, 2010. In March 2011, the cartoons returned once again to Cartoon Network, as a run-up for the new series The Looney Tunes Show.

US
Australia
Canada
Mexico
Brazil
Latin America
Portugal
Chile
  • UCTV (1960s–1997)
  • La red (Chile) (1997–2003)
  • TVN (Chile) (2003–2006)
UK and Ireland
Poland
  • The Bugs Bunny Show (lector)
    • TVP1 (1979–1992)
    • Canal+ (1995–1996)
    • Polska Telewizja Kablowa 2 (1997)
  • Post-1948 cartoons (early dubbing)
    • Nowa Telewizja Warszawa (1993–1994)
    • Canal+ (1995–2007)
    • Canal+ Film (1995–2007)
    • TV Puls (2011–present) (based on LTGC discs)
  • The a.a.p. cartoons (official dubbing)
Denmark
Bulgaria
Turkey
Greece
Middle East
Israel
  • Channel 1 (1983–1990)
  • Children's Channel (1990 – present)
Iceland
Japan
India
Indonesia
Malaysia
Pakistan
Singapore

International distribution

Television spinoffs

A spin-off of Looney Tunes, entitled Baby Looney Tunes ran in America from 2002 through 2005 on Cartoon Network. The series shows many of the Looney Tunes characters as babies living with Granny. Another spin-off titled Duck Dodgers, which ran from 2003 to 2005, is a half-hour action-comedy-sci-fi series based on Chuck Jones' original short, and expands upon the universe Duck Dodgers explores, as well as Marvin's own civilization. Another series called Loonatics Unleashed ran from 2005 to 2007. It featured futuristic descendents of the Looney Tunes characters as super-heroes. In 2011, The Looney Tunes Show premiered on Cartoon Network. It is a sitcom-style series featuring the characters from Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies. It is produced by Warner Bros. Animation.

Video games

See also

References

  1. ^ a b "Warner Bros. Studio biography". AnimationUSA.com. http://www.animationusa.com/resources/aboutwb.html. Retrieved July 22, 2008. 
  2. ^ "Movie Reviews: Space Jam". Retrieved on January 23, 2008.
  3. ^ a b Beck, Jerry (2005). The Animated Movie Guide. Chicago, Illinois: Chicago Review Press. 
  4. ^ Rosenbaum, Jonathan (2003). "Joe Dante Calls the Toon". Chicago Reader. http://www.chicagoreader.com/moviesarchives/2003/1103/031121.html. Retrieved January 25, 2008. 
  5. ^ Edelstein, David (November 14, 2003). "Movie Review: Looney Tunes: Back in Action". Slate. slate.com. http://slate.msn.com/id/2091232/. Retrieved February 2, 2008. 
  6. ^ Looney Tunes: Back in Action. Boxofficemojo.com. Retrieved on January 25, 2008.
  7. ^ "From Looney Tunes and iCarly to Shrek and SpongeBob SquarePants, Xbox 360 Launches Massive Library of Family Games and Entertainment" (Press release). Microsoft. October 22, 2007. http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/press/2007/oct07/10-22XboxFamilyContentPR.mspx. Retrieved November 6, 2007. 
  8. ^ http://www.vindy.com/news/2008/feb/24/butler-goes-looney-tunes/
  9. ^ "Warner Bros. Entertainment To Unveil T-Works Immersive Online Animation Experience For All Ages In Spring 2008". Warnerbros.com. Retrieved on January 21, 2008.
  10. ^ http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=78492
  11. ^ http://insidemovies.ew.com/2011/11/14/tweety-bird-sylvester-looney-tunes-clip-exclusive/#more-53075
  12. ^ You Must Remember This: The Warner Bros. Story. 2008. p. 255. 
  13. ^ 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.
  14. ^ geocities.com
  15. ^ geocities.com
  16. ^ ""The Warner Brothers: Albert, Harry, Jack, and Sam Warner".". Archived from the original on October 18, 2007. http://web.archive.org/web/20071018170049/http://www.germanhollywood.com/warner.html. Retrieved January 23, 2008.. 
  17. ^ "[1]". Looney Tunes on Television. Retrieved November 7, 2010.

External links