My Experience With Looney Tunes

 

Looney Tunes was such a life-changing experience to me. I don't know why, but when I immediately loved this franchise, I couldn't stop being obsessed with it. 

While I still respect Looney Tunes nowadays, I don't seem to admire it as much as I used to. There's more average characters than good ones. I often feel like some of these characters don't even need to exist.

The only characters I still care about is the main ones like Bugs, Daffy, Porky, and Foghorn Leghorn. 

They all appear in a commercial. It's one of my favorites because it doesn't feature the other flawed characters.

Looney Tunes doesn't always make good cartoons, heck alot of them were only made because of hierarchy and screeching audiences wanting every short to be Sylvester and Tweety and Coyote shorts from now on.

My favorite era from Warner Bros. is the shorts made in 1948-1949. 

The animation was fantastic, the plots of the cartoons didn't feel too redundant and there was alot of powerful voices coming from Mel Blanc. 

In this lineup of cartoons, directors like Art Davis, Chuck Jones, and Robert McKimson have made some of the best cartoons I ever seen in my life.

Take an example like in Daffy Duck Hunt where Porky and Barnyard Dawg sings Jingle Bells, Porky notices it's April and not December and this happens.

This is one of my favorite reaction scenes in film history. 

People might say that the early 40s and 1953 is considered the best years for Looney Tunes but I still have alot of problems with them. 

This is a list of all the shorts made in 1948-1949. The highlighted purple parts are the ones I actually liked.

Out of all the 57 shorts, only 7 I actually didn't like. That's impressive.

Like I was saying this era barely had any involvement of redundancy. There was not too much Sylvester and Tweety and there wasn't a sign of many Hippety Hopper and Roadrunner cartoons yet. There was always variety, and the slapstick felt bouncy and sharp. The outlines to the characters all felt appealing and the wonderful music by Carl Stalling made all these cartoons work perfectly. Making this era of Looney Tunes highly remarkable to this day.

I always find the first appearances of characters to be the best. 

My favorite Coyote and Roadrunner cartoon is Fast and Furry-Ous. Every gag works. Which is what staggers me about what came later. Not saying that all of Coyote's experiments don't make sense, they just don't feel structured for over dozens of cartoons.

Note : This is from the same cartoon. I'm talking about.

Let's start from humble beginnings.

Looney Tunes's first star was Bosko. Back in the early 30s, every cartoon studio had to break loose to make a Mickey Mouse wannabe. And this was an exception to Warner Bros. Let me just say, I didn't like this character, he was too much related to Mickey, and the character designs were really weird even for the era. He's supposed to based off of black minstrel shows, I never really had a problem with that stereotype, but it is rather unpleasant at times.

I like some of his cartoons like Bosko's Picture Show, Big Man From The North and my favorite, Ride Him Bosko but I never saw the appeal. He looked less hideous and more natural in his MGM cartoons.

A Cartoonist's Nightmare is the first Looney Tunes cartoon that actually got enjoyment out of me. There was so much creativity to it, then there was I Love To Singa, Fella With The Fiddle, Rover's Rival, Katnip Kollege and Fagin's Freshman and it felt like Looney Tunes started to get impact on audiences. 

Back in the 30s, everyone would only watch Disney. Sounds exicting but kinda feels heartbreaking for other cartoon studios.

I would assume Looney Tunes got the popularity it deserved in the mid 40s. 

Did you know what Disney made back when the best of Looney Tunes aired? 

Disney back then still made good movies, and Goofy improved but on the other hand there were either boring Pluto cartoons, and those horrible Donald and Chip and Dale cartoons where Donald had a more dumb personality. 

That being said, what made Looney Tunes such a special treat back in it's golden age eras were the spirited energy and magnetic characters. I know they might be less than 10 minutes, but a time to watch something like Three Little Bops, and guilty pleasures like Coal Black, it hits differently than other cartoons.

If you play these two cartoons over something like the 50s Coyote and more depressing Sylvester shorts, it's the opposite of entertainment. Seriously anyone should do it, on their devices. It's fun if you ask me.

In terms of what directors I like the best, Bob Clampett easily wins. I think it's because he was needed back in the 40s. His high energy and ordinary animations influenced me. 

I also find myself liking Chuck Jones's relatable sense of humor at times. While I have mixed feelings on him in the 50s to 60s, his 40s to early 50s outlook to animation was great.

I think I stopped caring about Looney Tunes being perfect until I saw the late 60s. Stay away from those as possible. 

Here's what I didn't like about them.

They have Daffy's arrogant personality pitched to the extreme minimum making him more unlikeable. 

The Coyote and Roadrunner cartoons had the worst music cues in cartoon history. 

There are some exceptions, I did like a little bit of the Seven Arts Era, cartoons like A Taste Of Catnip, The Solid Tin Coyote, and Corn On The Cop have clever gags and concepts, and believe me, I didn't think the animation was that bad.

Things started to become good again with Looney Tunes. I love the animation and storytelling to the early 90s shorts like Carrotblanca and Invasion of The Bunny Snatchers. 

Looney Tunes started to have feature films and the modern era Looney Tunes episodes made in 2020 were genius. 

Things are looking good for Looney Tunes nowadays.

My Animation Appeal - Part 1

 

When it comes to what type of animation appeal I like the best, there is a ton of options.

I really admire the Winsor McCay animation from the early days.

I also like the Fleischer Cartoons where they use 3-D cameras for the backgrounds.

The type of animation appeal I love the best is the wacky side of things, where everything is drawn so smoothly and there's a bunch of wrinkles on the characters to make them more detailed and lively.

That's what Rod Scribner does. He's one of my favorites animators ever. 

His animated scenes get stuck in my head the most. I think it's because the characters have such a perfect form of expressive personality.

You can look at Daffy in the cartoon, The Great Piggy Bank Robbery, and instantly get distracted by the design. He looks like alot of fun to draw with most of his frames.

Compare it to the more stiff and lifeless Daffy we get in the late 60s. 

This is also one of my favorite cartoons, Kitty Kornered. It's really detailed and adds up to the fun of the cartoon alot more.

I mean, like I said, I don't hate this style of animation, I just don't think it's as enjoyable and easy to draw as it sounds. 

What made Rod Scribner such an amazing animator was that when it came to a certain cartoon that he was advised to animate, it would begin to be normal, pretty tame, or sometimes even funny without the help of his drawings, but when Scribner's animation appears, it all the sudden made it a whole lot sharper and faster and the designs became more appealing and cute.

This pose that Foghorn Leghorn does is priceless!

I would've been okay with classic cartoons that didn't have that much exaggerated energy, but honestly if Scribner didn't even exist, Looney Tunes and other cartoons would be alot different and less tough. 

He felt like he needed to be in the animation world just like Tex Avery, Ward Kimball, and John Sibley.

Bob Clampett's Bugs Bunny is the best, moral character in existence. 

I'm actually shocked not alot people relate to Bugs in these cartoons. I love how he's more short-tempered, honest and reliable he is.

The best parts with one of these characters was when they were really pissed off, they would show off their gnarly human teeth.

Yes I'm going to say it, THIS IS ABSOLUTELY BADASS!

I cannot imagine an 80 year old cartoon to have this much vicious drawings.

When I first watched these cartoons, I never knew which scenes were animated by the person. But after about a year, some of these true work of beauty came from a guy with alot of amusing talent.

Usually I'm not a fan of the Sylvester and Hippety Hopper cartoons. There like those cartoons people back then truly wanted to see more of. It's like the Chip and Dale and Roadrunner shorts.

I'm not kidding, some of these are even dumber than the Coyote and Roadrunner shorts themselves. Why in the hell, does Sylvester keep on fighting a kangaroo who thinks is a giant mouse for 20 cartoons? I truly hate that idea. But hey one cartoon was enough to be at least enjoyable was Hippety Hopper (1949) which I believe Rod Scribner didn't animate.

Sylvester rarely had energy which is understandable but with these lame brain shorts, they make it instantly better even if it's only about 5 seconds of screen time.

Part 2 tomorrow. 😊

Book Revue And Eatin' On The Cuff - Clampett's Creative Energy

 

I'm going to be looking into Book Revue once again since it's one of my favorite cartoons Bob Clampett ever made.

I forgot to mention how exaggerated these humans express themselves in this cartoon. This was the start of cartoons being wacky, comedic and not too much story-telling.

Not only that but the technicolor and animation this time period was the best. 1946 is my 3rd best Looney Tunes year. The other favorites are 1948 and 1949. 

Alot of these animated characters had been stuck in my mind for as long as I can remember. I always have animation absorbed and distracted inside me. 

Whether it would be the Benny Goodman Pied Piper skipping animation

Or the stellar lip syncing police officer

 

Cartoons are not made like this anymore which is such a disappointing feeling. I would assume it's still safe to make 7 minute shorts and partake on high spirited energy and well designed characters but I rarely see it nowadays. The best I seen in the modern era of animation were Get A Job (1985), Real Inside (1984), The Roger Rabbit shorts, the Pixar shorts like Presto (2008), and Cat Burglar (2022).

I like how people are making something new and crafty. I mean I'm not forcing them to make us something classic and Rod Scribner related. 

Some classic cartoons, they have celebrity cameos. This is probably the most appropriate way on doing it. I really miss this type of stuff. If these types of films still existed, they would have a ton of Taylor Swift cameos, and other famous modern hollywood actors, trust me.

We might be getting a modern revamp of Hollywood Steps Out.

We then get to see the best of Daffy Duck.

Look at those hands!

This also has the most unique backgrounds I ever seen. They literally have the whole scenery made outta newspaper articles. I mean I'm not sure if it is, but it's very cool and interesting. 

When I first watched this short at 15, I was already mind-blown to shorts such as The Great Piggy Bank Robbery and A Tale Of Two Kitties mostly because of how energetic and fast these are. Because I have a love for drawing cartoon characters, and had a quirky personality this was immediately the best entertainment I had at that time. I was immediately amazed that they had a total of 1,000 of these cartoons.

However, not all of them were Rod Scribner type of insane. I still had to sit and watch the bland Bosko cartoons, the not so special b&w porky shorts, and the horribly uncomfortable Daffy and Speedy shorts. 

When I saw this frame, it was the funniest thing ever. 

I also think that my first experiences watching this film came from The Wolf's reaction to hearing Sinatra's singing and it's hilarious. It was probably a compilation video I watched on YouTube.

Now we get into a lesser favorite Bob Clampett cartoon of mine.

Eatin' On The Cuff isn't bad, but I wouldn't say this had anything spectacular in it, well besides...

This thing.

This is supposed to be a widow spider. I really like her personality, in fact I like it in other cartoons too.

Grandma from Red Hot Riding Hood is a huge example of that.

For a forgettable cartoon, this has alot of excellent smears. 

Bob Clampett's black and white cartoons felt the most natural at that time. I'm sure that audiences back in the early 40s were kinda sick of seeing a b&w short since they were so used to seeing color, but I still have to give it credit, the whole look of this cartoon is pleasent. It doesn't need to be in color.

Especially with this frame. 

What's even more hilarious is her disguise only stays still for a few seconds until her bulb nose gets into the picture.

It's stellar animation. It's something I'm striving for too.

They definitely hired the best animators for these type of cartoons. I may not like the story or some of the characters, but in that good side is how expressive the drawings can be. 

I would say this cartoon goes more hard on mute, as people say. 😆

The disguise the widow is trying to impress is Veronica Lake, it makes sense. I find her to be an attractive actress myself.

If you want to know what animation I love best it's where the character is doing a quirky pose and then next scene is the pose but more close up and funny looking.

And I'll admit for the fly being such a flat character, he does make some good reactions to the spider.

I also love the ending to this cartoon. I always had a guilty pleasure for the live action and cartoon concept. 

This guy's hilarious. I love his hand slap. 

I always seemed to care more for the classic actors than the new ones. There was something more memorable and fun to these people than today. 

Even then, I was fully grown to the old stuff when I was little, but I didn't like reality shows either at that age. 

Something like The Three Stooges, Abbott And Costello and more modern ones like Seinfeld and Malcolm In The Middle hit me more than the newer stuff. 

Seeing stuff in a 4:3 or 5:4 aspect ratio is more entertaining than a full screen. You can instantly push more creativity and warmth this way.

When I watch the expressive Clampett cartoons, I love it for it's old fashion. 

If you can just watch one older franchise, you'll realize that entertainment has been loved for centuries, and this generation specifically the 20s-50s, was the best of them all.

Looney Tunes was more than just a silly character show, it defined comedy and wackiness as we know it.

If you want to see some Bob Clampett energy for the first time, you'll love

The Great Piggy Bank Robbery

A Tale Of Two Kitties

Falling Hare

Kitty Kornered

A Gruesome Twosome 

Coal Black And De Sebben Dwarfs (if you can face the character designs and the fact that it's a Censored 11 short)

Birdy And The Beast

Probably every single Bob Clampett cartoon made in 1943-1946, is highly watchable.