Looney Tunes is a famous cartoon series. It is produced by Warner Bros. , a major American motion-picture studio. The studio operated the industry’s leading animation unit during the 1930’s and 1940’s. Looney Tunes is notable for its high-quality and often exaggerated animation, its artistry, and its irreverent sense of humor. The creators of “Looney Tunes” developed some of the world’s most popular cartoon characters. These included Bugs Bunny , Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, Porky Pig, and Tweety Bird. The characters remained hugely popular for decades.
The first cartoon in the series was Sinkin’ in the Bathtub. It was released in 1930. The eight-minute musical adventure featured a character called Bosko and his girlfriend, Honey. It was written and animated by the American animator and director Isadore “Friz” Freleng . The series was named “Looney Tunes” as a play on the title “Silly Symphonies.” “Silly Symphonies” was the name of a cartoon series produced by competitor Walt Disney Studios beginning in 1929.
Freleng went on to direct many “Looney Tunes” animated shorts (short subject films) featuring Bugs, Daffy, Porky, Tweety, and Speedy Gonzales the mouse. Freleng also created the popular characters Yosemite Sam, a quick-tempered Western gunman, and Sylvester the Cat. Some of the most famous and influential animators of the 1900’s directed “Looney Tunes” shorts. These directors included Tex Avery, Bob Clampett, Chuck Jones, Robert “Bob” McKimson, and Frank Tashlin.
Additional famous “Looney Tunes” characters include the loudmouthed rooster Foghorn Leghorn, Marvin the Martian, the romantic skunk Pepé le Pew, Road Runner, the Tasmanian Devil, and Wile E. Coyote. The original voices of most of the best-known “Looney Tunes” characters were provided by the American voice actor and comedian Mel Blanc.
A number of “Looney Tunes” characters also appeared in the Warner Bros. animated series “Merrie Melodies.” This series began in 1931 and was made in color beginning in 1934. The animators usually featured one character in a theme centered around a song that Warner Bros. owned. “Looney Tunes” shorts were produced primarily in black and white until 1944, when the series switched to color.
From 1960 to 1962, the “Looney Tunes” characters appeared in the popular primetime weekly television series “The Bugs Bunny Show.” In 1968, the shorts were repackaged as the popular Saturday morning “Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour.” Since then, the “Looney Tunes” shorts and characters have appeared on many other TV shows.
The “Looney Tunes” unit produced animated shorts for theaters until 1969. Several of the films won Academy Awards for best animated short subject. These included Tweetie Pie (1947), For Scent-imental Reasons (1949), Speedy Gonzales (1955), Birds Anonymous (1957), and Knighty Knight Bugs (1958). Several feature-length anthologies of “Looney Tunes” cartoons have been released. The first to appear was Bugs Bunny Superstar in 1975. “Looney Tunes” characters also appeared with basketball star Michael Jordan in Space Jam (1996). The film included a mixture of live action and animation. The characters were also featured in the film Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003).
See also Animation (Animation in the mid-1900’s) ; Freleng, Friz .
