|
The
classic Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies theatrical shorts
have given birth to some of the most recognizable and popular
animated characters of all time, including such favorites as
Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, Tweety Bird, Porky Pig and
Sylvester. However, these characters weren't to appear for a
number of years after the release of the first Looney Tunes
cartoons in 1930.
The Looney Tunes shorts began as
a vehicle to promote Warner Brothers vast music library. Each
release highlighted one or more of the songs they owned. The
first cartoons featured Bosko, a character similar to Mickey
Mouse from the Disney studio, but without the ears. In fact,
for the first couple of years Looney Tunes closely resembled
the Disney style in both storytelling and animation. This is
no great surprise, given that work on the cartoons was done by
ex-Disney animators Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising.
In 1931, Warner Bros.
commissioned a second series - Merrie Melodies - which fell
under the same basic format as Looney Tunes. The Merrie
Melodies line differed in that it used one-shot or lesser know
characters for its stories rather that relying on a single
character as its major star. The other difference was that
from 1934 to 1943 Merrie Melodies was produced in color and
Looney Tunes in black and white. Both series were produced by
Leon Schlesinger Productions until 1944, when Schlesinger sold
his studio to Warner Bros.
Harmon and Ising left for MGM in
1933, and with the influx of new talent that replaced them the
Warner cartoons soon broke from the Disney style. Names that
would become synonymous with the Looney Tunes era began their
journey towards animation immortality. Bob Clampett and
Isadore "Friz" Freleng were two animators who were promoted to
director, and in 1935 Tex Avery and Chuck Jones joined the
team. Chuck Jones began as an animator, but was directing by
1938.
Porky Pig was the studio's first
major cartoon star. His first appearance was in the 1935 short
"I Haven't Got a Hat." Other major characters making their
first appearance were Daffy Duck in "Porky's Duck Hunt"
(1937); Elmer Fudd in "Egghead Rides Again" (1937) (Elmer was
called Egghead in his first few appearances); Bugs Bunny in
"Porky's Hare Hunt" (1938) (Bugs was as yet unnamed and only
loosely resembled his later character); Sylvester in "The Hep
Cat" (1941) (the character was as yet unnamed); Tweety Bird in
"A Tale of Two Kitties" (1942); Yosemite Sam in "Hare Trigger"
(1945); Pepé Le Pew in "Odor-able Kitty" (1945);
Foghorn Leghorn in "Walky Talky Hawky" (1946); Marvin the
Martian in "Haredevil Hare" (1948); Claude Cat in "Mouse
Wreckers" (1948); Hippety Hopper in "Hop, Look and Listen"
(1948); Road Runner in "Fast and Furry-ous" (1949); Wile E.
Coyote in "Fast and Furry-ous" (1949); Speedy Gonzales in
"Cat-Tails for Two" (1953); and the Tasmanian Devil in "Devil
May Hare" (1954).
After 1943, both Merrie Melodies
and Looney Tunes were produced in color. By that time the star
characters were also appearing in both series, and the only
real difference between the two were their titles and theme
music. In the years since, both titles have collectively come
to be known and referred to as Looney Tunes.
By 1964, the era of theatrical
shorts was coming to a close, and Warner Bros. made the
decision to shut down its animation studio. They did, however,
commission DePatie-Freleng to continue producing the cartoons
until 1969. The DePatie-Freleng cartoons are easily identified
because they used a different opening sequence and theme music
than those that had been produced by the Warner studio.
The cartoons and the characters
lived on past 1969, gaining their greatest exposure when they
began airing on television. Pre-1948 Warner Bros. cartoons
first aired in the mid-to-late 1950s by means of direct
distribution to individual stations. In the fall of 1960, The
Bugs Bunny Show debuted in prime time on ABC network
television. The half-hour program was a compilation of
post-1948 Warner shorts with newly animated wraparounds
featuring host Bugs Bunny. It lasted only one season in prime
time before it was moved to Saturday mornings, but there the
cartoons found a home for four decades, packaged in similar
compilation programs under a variety of different titles. The
major compilation series to show Looney Tunes and Merrie
Melodies shorts were:
The Bugs Bunny Show - 30 minutes -
(1960 - 1968, ABC)_(1971 - 1973, CBS)_(1973 - 1975, ABC)
The Porky Pig Show - 30 minutes -
(1964 - 1967, ABC)
The Road Runner Show - 30 minutes -
(1966 - 1968, CBS)
The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour -
60 minutes - (1968 - 1971, 1975 - 1978, CBS)
Porky Pig and His Friends - 30
minutes - (1971, syndicated)
The Sylvester & Tweety Show - 30
minutes - (1976 - 1977, CBS)
The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Show -
90 or 120 minutes - (1978 - 1985, CBS)
The Daffy Duck Show - 30 minutes -
(1978 - 1981, NBC)
The Sylvester & Tweety, Daffy &
Speedy Show - 30 minutes - (1981 - 1982, CBS)
The Bugs Bunny/Looney Tunes Comedy
Hour - 60 minutes - (1985 - 1986, ABC)
The Bugs Bunny & Tweety Show - 60
or 90 minutes - (1986 - 2000, ABC)
Looney Tunes on Nickelodeon - 30
minutes - (1988 - 1999, Nickelodeon)
Merrie Melodies: Starring Bugs
Bunny and Friends - 30 minutes - (1990 - 1992, syndicated)
That's Warner Bros.! - 30 minutes -
(1995 - 1996, WB)
The Bugs n' Daffy Show - 30 minutes
- (1996 - 1999, WB)
The Daffy Duck Show - 30 minutes -
(1997, WB)
In 2000, Warner Bros. made the
Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies film library exclusive to the
Cartoon Network, and the cartoons ceased to be a staple of
regular network television programming.
Beginning in 1987, new shorts
began to be produced once again, although sporadically, as
promotional tie-ins with various family movies produced by
Warner Bros. The classic Looney Tunes characters have also
been used, in one form or another, in a number of original TV
series, such as Tiny Toon Adventures (1990); Taz-Mania (1991);
Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries (1995); Baby Looney Tunes
(2002); Duck Dodgers (2003); and Loonatics Unleashed (2005). |
