Some praise for Warner Bros for taking a stance. What has the reaction been like? Like all reactions these days – polarised. Also, if they are making it more acceptable for a 21st-century audience, could they have maybe changed the name? Or at least corrected the spelling ? They couldn’t spell its sister series Merrie Melodies either, remember? Not yet! But if that happens Looney Tunes will have a lot to answer for. Scythe culture isn’t a thing in America, nor has scythe crime ravaged the country. That’s pretty violent! Also arguably scarier, with its Grim Reaper associations, than the gun. So there’s dynamite and explosions, while Elmer’s shotgun has been replaced with a scythe. If they are not doing guns, what are they doing? There is still plenty of “cartoon violence”, Browngardt says reassuringly, acknowledging that the whole thing is based on conflict. “We’re not doing guns,” the executive producer of the new series, Peter Browngardt, told the New York Times. They have been disarmed? Who by? Warner Bros, which has just relaunched Looney Tunes, the cartoon series in which they appeared, with a new collection of shorts streaming on HBO Max.Īnd have Elmer and Sam been stripped of their weapons in response to out-of-control US gun violence? Exactly. Not going on holiday? Because of Covid-19? No, they are no long totin’ guns. What is? What’s up, doc ? Sam and Elmer are no longer packing. What was the name of BB’s other gun-totin’ adversary, with the big droopy orange moustache? Yosemite Sam. Got it! The hunter in Bugs Bunny, right? Right. Permanently frustrated, frequently injured. He would star in 39 more cartoons.Appearance: Hunting gear, brown and red hat, double-barrelled shotgun. The plucky Bosko is perhaps early animation’s least offensive black character. “Sinkin’ in the Bathtub” (1930, Hugh Harman, Rudolf Ising)Ī tardy jalopy emerging from an outhouse immediately distinguishes Warner Bros.’ first Looney Tunes cartoon from its Disney counterparts. Thanks also to the Gilbert Gottfried’s Amazing Colossal Listener Society Facebook group). (Acknowledgment to the essential tomes: Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies, by Jerry Beck & Will Friedwald Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons, by Leonard Maltin and Bugs Bunny: Fifty Years and Only One Grey Hare, by Joe Adamson. Over 1,000 were produced, so I’m bound to have missed a classic or two. canon, including a top 10 of essential masterworks. On this 90th anniversary, here is a sampling of 90 of the looniest and merriest cartoons in the Warner Bros. Freleng would say, ‘Ah, bullshit! Let’s knock ’em dead.’” “There was only one guy … Chuck, at the time, had the Disney syndrome: the urge to make the most beautiful cartoons going. writer Michael Maltese recalled in an interview with Joe Adamson that appeared in Film Comment. “They never went for the cute stuff at Warners,” Warner Bros. While Walt Disney was focused on elevating the art of animation, Warner Bros.’ dream team of writers and directors were hell-bent on just making each other laugh. From the start, the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies animated shorts were designed as a more iconoclastic alternative to Disney’s artistically groundbreaking Silly Symphonies. Looney Tunes cartoon, “Sinkin’ in the Bathtub,” was released. On April 17, 1930, the very first Warner Bros.
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