Looney Tunes

The zany adventures of Bugs Bunny and the gang, while they create havoc in Acme Acres. This title dates back to 1929, in the days when Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising were producers of the cartoons. The staff of these cartoons were working on them for a very long time, and when Leon Schlesinger stopped producing the cartoons, the other people continued the work themselves. And they also created their own cartoons, and produced several others. The whole story can seem complicated, but we've tried to explain this as simple as we possibly could.

History of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies:



Harman-Ising:



You probably haven't heard of them, but Hugh Harman and Rudolph Ising are some of the very first cartoon producers. These cartoons are very old, and most of them were originally released without colors. But they are the first producers of Looney Tunes, Merrie Melodies, Tom & Jerry, and other cartoons. They made their cartoons around the same time that Bray Studios, Inc. made theirs. (You probably haven't heard of them either).



Leon Schlesinger:



Leon Schlesinger was the producer for many of these cartoons for many years.



DFE Films:



The DFE Films Productions have David H. DePatie, the new producer for the cartoons; Friz Freleng, and also Robert McKimson, Hawley Pratt, Doug Goodwin, Henry Mancini, Bill Lava, Dean Elliott, and Doug Goodwin, and several other Looney Tunes workers. They continued to produce Looney Tunes under their own production company, and they did this during the time when WB became Warner Brothers 7 Arts and then it became Warner Communications Company, (and then it became Time Warner and then AOL Time Warner; and now you don't want to know about the company today since WB animation has seemed to have become independent of what was Warner Communications Company, since there is not a subsidiary message anymore, and WB animation has also taken over the production of all of the older cartoons) DFE Films made several Looney Tunes, and they also did their own cartoons like The Pink Panther, and they tried to produce The Dr. Seuss Show, but it didn't work. Eventually, Robert McKimson died, and Friz Freleng retired, and many of the the other production staff had left, so David H. DePatie, Lee Gunther, Hal Geer, and everyone else worked at Marvel Productions. For detailed information, look at the Road Runner paragraph.



Chuck Jones:



Chuck Jones was responsible for creating and developing many of the characters. By the 1960s, he was being credited with his autograph, similar to Jim Henson, and had worked at both Looney Tunes, and MGM, producing cartoons like The Bear That Wasn't, and The Dot And The Line, and of course, Tom & Jerry. For some reason, he quit after only a few years, (most likely because MGM animation studios closed) but he did other cartoons. One of them was How The Grinch Stole Christmas, and the cartoon became so popular, that he would get make more cartoons for Ted Giesel (Dr. Seuss), in 1970. But that didn't work, which is probably why he didn't make any more series. He did do some specials and sequels of A Cricket In Time Square, and Stories From "The Jungle Books" and produced movies, specials, and additional Looney Tunes. Another popular cartoon was Duck Dodgers In The Return Of The 24 1/2 Century, which turned into a TV show many years later.



Road Runner:



The reason why Road Runner is included specifically in this is because of the different episodes.
The Road Runner cartoons have evolved a bunch. They first were about a wolf and a sheep dog and a bunch of sheep. In the beginning of the day the came to work, and the wolf would try to chase the sheep, and then the sheep dog would stop him. Then the Coyote could talk, and he co-starred with bugs bunny. Then he starts chasing Road Runner, where he allmost never talks. This is how they started using signs. These cartoons themselves have also evolved:

At first the music was done by Milt Franklyn ("Franklin"), so most of the music was the same. Milt Franklyn died during mid-production of Tweety's "The Jet Cage", and some of it was different, and there are cartoons where the music is done by Bill Lava. He continued to do the music when DFE Films produced their own episodes of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies. The picture quality was better, but they hardly used the Latin subtitles, and sometimes they did the same things. The music composition was modern instead of comical, with a disco/jazz (space-age-pop) theme, but it was very very faint because of downsizing the orchestra shortly after the death of Franklyn. Additionally, Lava faced problems with the music budget and had to reuse many of the musical segments. The remaining music budget went to the other DFE Films cartoons, which were mostly an unusual combination of Daffy Duck, Speedy, and Sylvester. The music was a latin theme. Unfortunately, by the time of the W-7 cartoons, some of the picture quality was less of the quality of the cartoons produced only a few years ago.

To Beep Or Not To Beep: This was the first of many to not feature false latin subtitles. Bill Lava composed the music.
Road Runner A-Go-Go: This is a sequel and wrap-around of To Beep Or Not To Beep. Ironically, the color quality was different. Milt Franklyn composed the music (perhaps stock music as Milt Franklyn passed away in 1962 during production of The Jet Cage). There is a chorus at the beginning, as both of these cartoons are supposed to be used as pilots for an unsold series "Adventures Of The Road Runner". This is similar to the unsold Dr. Seuss series. Additonally, both unsold pilots were co-produced by Chuck Jones with DFE Films.
Zip Zip Hurray is another cartoon reused from the Road Runner unsold pilot. (It also has a similar title from "Hip Hip-Hurry!", one of the first Road Runner cartoons to use stock music in addition to modern music.



Then Chuck Jones did some more Road Runner cartoons (Freeze Frame and Soup Or Sonic). Doug Goodwin and Dean Elliott did a great job at composing music.



The Music:



Harman-Ising:



They used music composed by Carl W. Stalling that was very common to most of the music of that era.



Leon Schlesinger:



Music composers were Carl W. Stalling and Milt Franklyn. Most of their music was comic themed. Later, in the 1960s, much of that changed. Bill Lava also did some of the music, beginning with half of "The Jet Cage" most of it in the 1960s on the last of the Leon Schlesinger cartoons.



DFE Films:



Music was composed by Bill Lava with a downsized orchestra and limited budget; and on other cartoons, the music was also composed by Dean Elliott, Henry Mancini, Doug Goodwin, and Walter Greene.



Chuck Jones:



Many of the cartoons had the music of Dean Elliott, Carl Brandt, and Doug Goodwin. Eugene Poddany did some of the music on some of the earlier cartoons.



Road Runner:



At first, the music was by Carl W. Stalling and Milt Franklyn, but later the music style change to more of Bill Lava's music. But when DFE Films took over, a lot of the same music had to be reused. Doug Goodwin did a lot of the later Chuck Jones Road Runner cartoons, such as "Freeze Frame".



The Logos:



Harman-Ising:



They used a Grey background with musical notes with the old WB logo in it. At first they didn't have the theme songs that were used later, they used some kind of xylophone music.



Leon Schlesinger:



His cartoons had the bullseye opening. They were all kinds of colors, and they also had the old WB logo in it.



DFE Films:



They had the opening with the dark background and a different version of the Looney tunes theme song. It started with a blank screen and had a spinning asterisk that unfolded and displayed the opening title. It was the WB logo, but just like the music, it was a completely different style. The W was made of two triangles and the B was made of two half circles. then the rest of the opening appeared. It either said "Merrie Melodies" or "Looney Tunes" and Color by Technicolor, and it also had a smaller size of the original WB logo and beside it, it said "A Warner Brothers CartOOn" with the Os flashing. The ending was almost the same thing.



Later, when Warner Bros. and Seven Arts Associated merged, the logo changed to a combined W and 7. The background was either blue, brown, or white, or light Grey, and the title said "A Warner Bros. Seven Arts CARTOON SPECIAL". Most of the "Cool Cat" cartoons used this opening. There was also a cartoon about a dog, but the opening and closing music was a clock tower. That background was either white or light Grey.



Cartoons that weren't called Merrie Melodies or Looney Tunes, such as Pink Panther, but were produced by the Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes staff, had the official DFE Films logo in them.



History of Warner Bros. :



The WB Logo was allways used in the cartoons ever since the beginning, but during the days when the staff did the cartoons by themselves, Seven Arts Associated merged with Warner Bros. and they became, Warner Brothers-Seven Arts. And a new logo was created. They later became Warner Communications Company. Another logo was used. Later, they used Warner Bros, a Warner Bros. Communications Company saying, and later they used the old WB logo when they created Warner Home Video A Subsidiary Of Warner Bros. A Warner Communications Company, and they also used it when they created Warner Bros. A Warner Communications Company. Today, you can see the that same sentence when you see the Warner Bros. Logo. It says "A Warner Communications Company", or "A Time Warner Entertainment Company" or "An AOL Time Warner Company" It is similar to when Colombia Tri Star said below its logo "A Sony Pictures Distribution" or something like that. But Warner Bros An AOL Time Warner is also merged with Turner Home Entertainment, and Lorimar Telepictures is also somehow involved. This famous logo is also used in The WB Network, and it sometimes had Bugs Bunny munching on carrots, and the Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes music can be heard. The Bullseye is also used in Tiny Toon Adventures, and and the WB logo is used in Anamaniacs. Today WB Animation is completely independent, and produces new cartoons, and also controls the production of the older cartoons.



Spin-Offs:



Tiny Toon Adventures:
Tiny Toon Adventures is a show that was produced by Stephen Spielberg that starred the Looney Tunes characters that now are teachers at the Acme Looniversity, and the students are younger versions of the Looney Tunes Characters. Some of these new characters are Buster Bunny, Barbara Ann "Babs" Bunny, Elmyra Duff, Montana Max, and lots of other characters... The series usually reflected the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies era before DFE Films took over, and around the time the last few cartoons where Milt Franklyn composed the music.



Anamaniacs:
This is another show that made the same cartoons as Tiny Toon Adventures. It is about The Warner Brothers, Yakko, and Wakko, and The Warner Sister, Dot.



History of the crew and the other cartoons that they did:



Hugh Harman, Rudolph Ising, and Leon Schlesinger aren't included in this because they didn't produce any more cartoons.



Chuck Jones:



Tom & Jerry:
Chuck Jones produced many Tom & Jerry cartoons. His cartoons had the opening with the Metro Goldwyn Mayer logo. The lion changed into Tom hissing and complaining. The background changed to yellow, and the O appears, and then the rest of the letters appear, with Jerry resting on the Y, and waving. The letters O a n d J were in blue. and the rest were in red.
These cartoons are the best Tom & Jerry cartoons that were made. Hanna Barbera weren't involved in T & J anymore, since they were doing other cartoons. These new T&J cartoons were the best that were made, since they had a better picture and better sound, and they were written better. It was probably because Chuck Jones produced them, but it was probably also because cartoon quality was much better by the 1960s, even though many of HB cartoons weren't.
Music was by Eugene Poddany, and Dean Elliott, and Carl Brandt. Writers were Bob Ogle, Jim Pabian, and Michael Maltese. Directors were Abe Levitow, Ben Washam, Jim Pabian, and Tom Ray. The supervisor was Les Goldman, and the production design consultant was Maurice Noble, and the production manager was Earl Jonas, and the Executive Producer was Walter Bien.
Also, the look of T&J were similar to the look of T&J established by animation supervisor Lewis Marshall. There were more characters, including The Shark, and there was a robotic version of Tom & Jerry.
Unfortuneately, Chuck Jones quit the production of T&J only after a few short years due to MGM animation closing.



The Bear That Wasn't:
The Bear That Wasn't was adapted from the story, and had very interesting animation. It was very abstract. There was a lot of red arrows, lines, and other shapes,. The entire cartoon was very abstract......and very funny...including the singing secretaries and the irritable managers..The story was about a construction site where the machines were eating the trees, and an entire factory was constructed when a bear was hibernating. He stumbles into the factories, during a break where the people smoke cigars, and then the foreman thinks The Bear works at The Factory, and The Bear automatically gets hired and is working there for over a year as he tries to convince everybody, including other bears, that he wasn't a silly man that needs a shave (and a manicure) and wears a fur coat.. The cartoon was distributed by Metro Goldwyn Mayer and you can see it whenever you are watching The Chuck Jones Show....



The Dr. Seuss Show:
After writing many stories, there was a small series of cartoons made. The show was on mostly during the 1970s, but there were several problems, so it took longer to make them. One of those problems was the battle between the former Looney Tunes producers. Chuck Jones successfully completed the first two cartoons, but by 1970, the production merged with DFE Films, (which used dull colors compared to Chuck Jones), and the production of several cartoons, such as The Cat In The Hat Comes Back, and Dr. Whoovy Hears A Who, were cancelled. Chuck Jones left the production of The Dr. Seuss Show, but Maurice Noble, and Dean Elliott remained to produced a few more cartoons. When they left, fewer and fewer cartoons were made, until DFE Films merged with Marvel Comics during the production of The Cat In The Hat Gets Grinched. The people that were going to finish the series had left, and other studios only aired specials and movies. We have yet to see another production company to release any more cartoons.



DFE Films:
DFE Films did many Looney Tunes cartoons, and they also did other cartoons, such as The Fantastic Four, The Pink Panther, They took over, and messed up, Dr. Seuss Show Cartoons, and later Robert McKimson died and Friz Freleng retired, and some of the staff left, and a lot of the remaining staff became executive producers for Marvel Productions.



Marvel Productions:
Several of the Looney Tunes producers that worked on DFE Films continued to work on Marvel Productions.



Film Roman:
Phil Roman, an animator of several of these cartoons, founded a company called Film Roman.