History LooneyTunes / TropesSToU

* SeldomSeenSpecies: Some people are astonished to learn that the Road Runner and Tasmanian Devil are based on actual animals and weren't simply invented for the cartoons.
* SensitiveGuyAndManlyMan: Porky and Daffy.

* TheCharacterDiedWithHim: Heavily zigzagged with Elmer Fudd in the late 1950-s - Arthur Q. Bryan, his voice actor, passed away in 1958 quite suddenly. A replacement voice (which did not sound like Elmer at all) was used for just 2 cartoons (both heavily reviled even back then for terrible voice acting and hideous canned music which was used due to a musician strike), after which the character got ExiledFromContinuity for the rest of the duration of the theatrical shorts. More modern productions use him again, in the same capacity as during the Golden Age.

* ShadowOfImpendingDoom: Usually immediately followed by an [[AnvilOnHead anvil]], [[PianoDrop piano]], safe, boulder, or similarly large object falling on a character.
* ShadyScapler: In "Johnny Smith and Poker-Huntas", Johnny Smith (played by Egghead) gets jumped by knife-welding Indians in front of a sign that reads "Beware of Scalpers". [[{{Pun}} The chief then tries to sell Egghead some tickets.]]
-->'''Chief:''' Hey bud, you wanna buy two football tickets to the Rose Bowl on the fifty yard line?
-->'''Egghead:''' No thanks; I got six myself to sell! I'm an alumnus.

* SlidingScaleOfEndings: The series is all over the place with this. Sometimes they end with [[BittersweetEnding bittersweet]] and occasionally [[DownerEnding downer endings]], sometimes ending with either a HappyEnding or just NoEnding at all.

* The 1954 short "Goo Goo Goliath" has the drunk Delivery Stork accidentally delivering a baby giant to a pair of normal-sized human parents.

* SoundTrackDissonance: Carl Stalling's successor as musical director Milt Franklyn died halfway through scoring the Sylvester and Tweety cartoon ''The Jet Cage'', from 1962. William "Bill" Lava took over and the difference in music is quite jarring.

-->'''Wile E.:''' Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Coyote. Wile E. Coyote, genius. I am not selling anything nor am I working my way through college. (''Bugs tries to speak'') So, let's get down to cases. You are a rabbit, and I am going to eat you for supper. (''Bugs feigns fear'') Now, don't try to get away. I am more muscular, more cunning, faster and larger than you, and ''I'm'' a genius. (''Bugs now looking bored'') While you could hardly pass the entrance examinations to kindergarten. (''Bugs yawns'') So I'll give you the customary two minutes to say your prayers.\\

-->'''Bobo''': Batboy, smatboy! I'm still carrying logs!

-->'''Sylvester's sign:''' Why didn't I think of this before? (''starts walking up in mid-air'')
-->'''Sign #2:''' Anything can happen in a cartoon!

-->We just received another telegram, Station GOMG. Stop. Your program coming in great. Stop. Think it's fine. Stop. Glad to hear your amateurs. Stop. They're all very funny. ''[camera pans back to show her continually pushing away the deliveryman as he keeps trying to hold her]'' Stop! Keep up the good work. Stop! Good luck. STOP! The gang. ''STOP!'' ''[she pushes him offscreen and he crashes]''

--> '''Porky''': (amazed) A thousand b-b-b-b-bucks?\\
'''Announcer''': No, ''five thousand'' [[BriefAccentImitation b-b-b-b-bucks]]!

*** ''WesternAnimation/WhatsOperaDoc?'' (Jones, 1958--already written out)

* ThreeStoogesShoutOut: In what is probably the earliest shout-out of this trope the cartoon "Wholly Smoke" (1938) has three cigars resembling the Three Stooges rise out of a cigar box and each one gives him an eyepoke. ◦ "Hollywood Steps Out" shows caricatures of famous Hollywood actors of the time, including the Three Stooges poking each others eyes in tune to the music.

-->'''Exterminator:''' Got held up in traffic, sonny.

-->'''Giant:''' Hey, wait a minute! Trying to pull a fast one on me, eh? Well, he [Bugs] can't outsmart me, because I'm a moron!

* TooKinkyToTorture: Daffy Duck at the end of Bob Clampett's "The Wise Quacking Duck". [[spoiler: after getting his feathers shot off and being put in a gas oven, Daffy is somehow alive and quips, "Say, now you're cooking with gas!" while drizzling ''jus'' all over himself]].

-->'''Hugo''': (''with Bugs in his grip'') Oh boy, oh boy, at last my own little bunny rabbit.
-->'''WesternAnimation/BugsBunny''': (''straining'') [[CallBack ...Oh no--Not again...]]

* UnroboticReveal: In one short, Wile E. Coyote consults a computer to find ways of capturing Bugs Bunny, all of which fail. At the end the computer opens up and out comes...
-->'''Bugs Bunny''': Of course, the real beauty of this machine is that it has only one moving part.

* SherlockHomage: "Deduce, You Say"

* SomethingCompletelyDifferent:
** The 1942 ''WesternAnimation/AnyBondsToday'' is only 1 minute and 38 seconds long and is in essence a propaganda short where Bugs, Porky and Elmer Fudd sing and dance to motivate people to buy war bonds to support the war effort. It's one of the shortest cartoons available in the Looney Tunes filmography and features no plot or conflict at all.
** ''WesternAnimation/NormanNormal1968'', which is entirely dialog-based humor, with none of the slapstick and wacky gags associated with the series. It also didn't feature Mel Blanc or any of the other regular voice artists. In fact, it wasn't called a Merrie Melody OR a Looney Tune; it was instead called a "Cartoon Special" (and also featured the titular song by N. Paul Stookey in place of the standard "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down" opening and closing music.
** While Warner Brothers mostly made cartoons in the outragous comedic formula they're known for, Chuck Jones averted the formula on at least three occasions:
*** ''WesternAnimation/OldGlory'', which has no jokes and is instead a visual retelling of the founding of America.
*** ''Tom Thumb in Trouble'', a surprisingly {{Disneyesque}} cartoon that lacks humor. Today its mostly disregarded for its TastesLikeDiabetes tone and its been implied that Jones himself eventually considered the cartoon an OldShame.
*** ''WesternAnimation/NellysFolly'', made during the peak era of the WB animation studio, is arguably the one cartoon that could be considered ''dramedy'' even then its a mostly straightforward drama with some zingers here and there.

-->'''Tweety:''' Once a bad ol'In "Wild and Wooly Hare", Yosemite Sam tosses a can up, fires several holes in it, and challenges Bugs Bunny to fire his bullets through all the same holes. In the original 1959 version, Bugs misses and shoots Sam in the face, while in [[EditedForSyndication the syndicated 1978 version]], Bugs fires corks from his gun to plug up all the holes. putty tat, ''always'' a bad ol' putty tat!
* SpontaneousSkeetShooting:

-->'''Tweety:''' Once a bad ol' putty tat, ''always'' a bad ol' putty tat!

* SophisticatedAsHell: In one Foghorn Leghorn cartoon, after the rooster pulls a prank on the resident farm dog, the dog reacts this way:

* SmallTaxonomyPools

** In "Hobo Bobo", the one shot character Bobo the elephant says his first and only line ending the cartoon:

** If we look at the individual directors that are the most famous, Creator/RobertMcKimson leans more towards the Dialogue side (the WesternAnimation/FoghornLeghorn heavily relied on Foggy's big mouth for humor, and tellingly it easily kept up with the dwindling budgets in the 1960s), Creator/ChuckJones leans towards the Visual (the WesternAnimation/RoadRunner series has no dialogue ''whatsoever'' spoken and entirely relies on abstract slapstick) while Creator/FrizFreleng was roughly in between.

** If we look at the individual directors that are the most famous, Creator/RobettMcKimson leans more towards the Dialogue side (the WesternAnimation/FoghornLeghorn heavily relied on Foggy's big mouth for humor, and tellingly it easily kept up with the dwindling budgets in the 1960s), Creator/ChuckJones leans towards the Visual (the WesternAnimation/WileECoyoteAndRoadRunner series has no dialogue ''whatsoever'' spoken and entirely relies on abstract slapstick) while Creator/FrizFreleng was roughly in between.

* SpontaneousSkeetShooting: In "WesternAnimation/WildAndWoollyHare", Yosemite Sam tosses a can up, fires several holes in it, and challenges Bugs Bunny to fire his bullets through all the same holes. In the original 1959 version, Bugs misses and shoots Sam in the face, while in [[EditedForSyndication 1978 CBS special "How Bugs Bunny Won the West"]], Bugs fires corks from his gun to plug up all the holes.

* ScrewedByTheNetwork:
** The constant editing for content of these cartoons on all major broadcast and cable networks, and [[NetworkDecay Cartoon Network]] getting rid of the Looney Tunes cartoons between 2004 and 2009. As of March 2011, the classic shorts are back, but have been on and off the schedule since then. However, they've consistently been shown on Boomerang again since 2013. Unfortunately, they have mostly been airing the same 300 or so (out of 1,000) shorts over and over again since 2011. They got rid of them all together in 2016. They briefly returned in 2017 before being removed after just a ''week''.

* SomethingElseAlsoRises: Usually, it's eyes bugging out, though that's more popular in the cartoons Tex Avery did when he left Warner Brothers and went to MGM; other times, it's ears or tails becoming erect. On one obscure Frank Tashlin cartoon called "I Got Plenty of Mutton," it was a ram's horns, and [[RagingStiffie they even glowed red]]. [[GettingCrapPastTheRadar How that got past the Hays Office is anyone's guess]].

* TooDumbToFool: The giant in "Jack-Wabbit and the Beanstalk."

* TooKinkyToTorture: Daffy Duck at the end of Bob Clampett's "The Wise Quacking Duck". [[spoiler: after getting his feathers shot off and being put in a gas oven, Daffy is somehow alive and quips, "Say, now you're cooking with gas!" while drizzling ''jus'' all over himself]]

* UnCancelled: A few times. The first was in 1953 when WB temporarily closed the cartoon unit for a few months, due to a variety of factors like the 3-D fad; the unit opened a few months later. The next was in 1963 when WB, facing increasingly stiff competition from TV and less theaters running theatrical shorts before movies, shut the cartoon unit down again. From 1964 to 1967, cartoons were produced at DePatie-Freleng instead. In 1967, production resumed at Warner Bros. but only two years later, the cartoon division was shut down for good.

** In "Boston Quackie", Daffy and The Man in the Green Hat enter and exit various train compartments at fast speed.

** 1968's "Norman Normal", which is entirely dialog-based humor, with none of the slapstick and wacky gags associated with the series. It also didn't feature Mel Blanc or any of the other regular voice artists. In fact, it wasn't called a Merrie Melody OR a Looney Tune; it was instead called a "Cartoon Special".

*** ''Tom Thumb in Trouble'', a surprisingly Disney-esque cartoon that lacks humor. Today its mostly disregarded for its TastesLikeDiabetes tone and its been implied that Jones himself eventually considered the cartoon an OldShame.

** ''WesternAnimation/OldGlory'', which has no jokes and is instead a visual retelling of the founding of America.

** The constant editing for content of these cartoons on all major broadcast and cable networks, and [[NetworkDecay Cartoon Network]] getting rid of the Looney Tunes cartoons between 2004 and 2009. As of March 2011, the classic shorts are back, but have been on and off the schedule since then. However, they've consistently been shown on Boomerang again since 2013. Unfortunately, they have mostly been airing the same 300 or so (out of 1,000) shorts over and over again since 2011.