Looney Tunes Thread

If there isn't one already.

I never saw much Looney Tunes as a kid, but the ones I did see I absolutely adored. Currently I'm on a mad quest to hunt down the last single volume DV Ds containing the shorts I loved from the few available ones in my city, and each new disc found reveals some new secret of the origins of animated comedy.

Finding these things here adds to the experience, but watching them makes me want to curl up on Saturday mornings with a bowl of cereal and milk since as a child I never had the whole Saturday Morning thing, in Australia we had Cheez TV on Weekdays to get our Pokemon and DBZ fix.

So if I curl up with these next to a bowl of cereal and milk, it's the first time I've seen most of them and I'm liking what I saw so far.

What's weird is that Elmer's Candid Camera depicts Elmer Fudd's origin story as this mild nature photographer before Bugs Bunny drove him mad and he became a hunter. Thinking about this too hard is giving me Alan Moore Joker origin flashbacks.

Also, Bugs Bunny doesn't care if his lady is mechanical as long as he gets laid... oh 1940s cartoons... if only you knew the terrible future of Real Dolls...

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that I don't think Bugs Bunny is always funny in and of himself. In the Yosemite Sam shorts, he's pretty much playing the straight man, and even though he's the one setting up the gags, it takes Sam's Large Ham character and No Indoor Voice to knock them down.

I also got as much laughs out of The Comically Serious scientist with the accent in "Hot Cross Bunny" as I did him.

edited 24th Apr '13 1:54:18 PM by Robotnik

It's odd though, because the odd time Bugs himself is the Butt-Monkey instigator, he's actually extremely funny acting wise. "Rebel Rabbit" could have just as easily been a Daffy Duck cartoon, but it's actually Bugs' voice and acting that make his snit fits hilarious.

edited 24th Apr '13 2:50:36 PM by Psi001

Is it just me, or does Daffy sing something or another almost every other cartoon in his earlier appearances? Even outside his zany musical numbers, it seems like the writers really liked having him sing to as something to pass the time and/or fill up audio space - because he's always humming, singing or chanting something.

I guess that's what culminated into "Yankee Doodle Daffy."

edited 4th Jun '13 8:14:09 PM by KnownUnknown

Kinda fit into his Cloud Cuckoo Lander persona I guess, if I remember correctly Bugs was often humming or singing to himself in early appearances as well.

I'm probably gonna get hell for this, but I don't think What's Opera, Doc? is really that special.

Well, they are called "Looney Tunes" and "Merrie Melodies" for a reason. They were originally intended as an advertising vehicle for music in the Warner Bros. catalog. It took the Termite Terrace folks a long time to shake the requirement that some song or another be prominently featured.

I like the short and think it's quality, just not to the level of it being among that handful that are mentioned and re refered to constantly while the rest of the series' filmography gets ignored. Same for ones like "Rabbit Fire" and "Duck Dodgers In The Twenty Fourth And A Half Century". The way WB sometimes commercialize the series you'd think they did all of five or six shorts.

edited 5th Jun '13 4:39:11 AM by Psi001

For quite some time, many studios were making the mistake of cloning the Disney cartoons. Leon Schlesinger's studio, the forerunner of Termite Terrace, was at first no different: Foxy and Roxy were very much Mickey and Minnie with pointy ears. Bosko the Talkink Kid was only a step or two away from Foxy. Then came Buddy and Cookie, still hewing the Disney line. This was caused by Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising, Schlesinger's primary supervisors, having come from Disney, and importing a lot of Disney-think into their works.

What makes the Looney Tunes so remarkable is that when accomplished animators Fred "Tex" Avery, Isadore "Friz" Freleng and Bob McKimson were given directorship, they determined to break the Disney mold, and push cartoons toward their limits. The Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes refused to play by the Disney rules, and ushered in the noisy, cheeky, anvil-dropping antics we know and love.

edited 6th Jun '13 6:41:15 PM by oneuglybunny

^^^ It probably originated as something like that, but Daffy's habit of singing constantly continued well into Looney Tunes' life - which is why I think it's something of a character trait rather than an era trait. They did the same thing with Bugs (who is often found singing some manner of tune to start his cartoons), but I feel it was done with a bit more frequency with Daffy - who breaks into song out of nowhere quite a few times. Which makes sense, given one of the traits that came out in terms of Daffy's personality was that he was a kind of drama queen or performer at heart. Loud and exuberant as Daffy always was, that kind of habit fits him well.

Even though the archetypical/cemented Jones character doesn't have the kind of light personality (or portrayal) to do so - which is why you don't see the habit continued on nowadays - you can even see this habit in a few original Jones cartoons, though he probably gave him this trait for different reasons: Jones probably wanted to emphasize Daffy's "wannabe thesbian" traits, while I'm fairly sure Psi had it right about the usual use of that trait - it was likely used to play up Daffy as a Cloud Cuckoolander.

At least, that's definitely the intention behind "Boobs In The Woods" or "Daffy Doodles."

edited 6th Jun '13 6:56:47 PM by KnownUnknown

I remember him singing in a few later post Flanderized shorts as well, eg. the start of "Duck Rabbit Duck" (even if it's more a characteristic pompous humming). His usual reaction to most of the randomly produced backdrops in "Duck Amuck" was also to sing a fitting ditty. While it's more a plot point in "Ducking The Devil", he's blatantly enjoying an opportunity to perform his heart out (at least at first).

edited 6th Jun '13 7:05:50 PM by Psi001

I think the difference between them is that Bugs does everything with more of an air of casual sarcasm, including the singing.

So, does anyone else randomly spout out Looney Tunes quotes in the middle of conversations?

edited 15th Jul '13 9:22:22 PM by KnownUnknown

..... Maybe......

One question...I know Daffy, Foghorn Leghorn, and even Sylvester (in "Dog Pounded") and Wile E. (in "War and Pieces") have lost some of their fur to show they wear boxers underneath. Did this ever happen to Bugs at any point?

One question...I know Daffy, Foghorn Leghorn, and even Sylvester (in "Dog Pounded") and Wile E. (in "War and Pieces") have lost some of their fur to show they wear boxers underneath. Did this ever happen to Bugs at any point?

If you keep repeating that post, I'll just have to give you a silly lie like that they showed his genitals

No, that would require a certain type of karma payback that he never actually has had happen to him.

He actually has ended up the karmic Butt-Monkey a good few times (eg. Rebel Rabbit, the Bugs vs Cecil shorts), but I don't think that's ever been one of the penalties.

I think I remember odd times he undone his arm fur like sleeves however.

edited 21st Jan '15 4:33:23 AM by Psi001

Does anyone find theirselves preferring thee older, lesser known Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies openings and closings over the more well-known ones?

I do.

So does anybody else love the Harman-Ising Looney Tunes?

They have everything great about early 30s animation plus hot jazz soundtracks by terrific dance bands and a wealth of forgotten popular songs.

The early cartoons of the era are enjoyable. Cartoony and fun. Once they began falling for Disney-esque type cartoons, I started finding them boring.

The Clampett directed cartoons are my favorite. Then Jones'

Looney Tunes (and Merrie Melodies) were originally intended to promote the Warner Bros. song catalog. Hence the names, and the reason so many of the early ones have recognizable songs in them. Lots of pretty good old tin-pan-alley music.

Recognizable only via cartoons. Do you ever hear "Singing in the Bathtub" or "Smile, Darn Ya, Smile" outside of a cartoon?

And then there are those songs fallen into obscurity, like "Lady, Play Your Mandolin"...