Allow me to start this article with a bold statement: Looney Tunes is the greatest cartoon series that has ever been made, and most likely the greatest cartoon series that will ever be made. I say this with such conviction and confidence for a reason. As a matter of fact, I have FIVE reasons why I believe that Looney Tunes is the king of cartoons, and I’m going to go ahead and list them now.

#1 The Characters Were Top Notch

If you watch a lot of the old Looney Tunes cartoons, you will notice the evolution of the characters. None of them ever debuted exactly as the characters that they would later become. They were honed and tweaked according to audience feedback, and according to the input of various directors and producers. Simply put, the characters were refined until they were, in a word, perfect.

Nowadays, this rarely happens, as writers and directors have too much pride to let this happen. So characters are created behind the scenes, and tweaked in private so that they can be “unleashed” upon an unsuspecting audience. However, what made the Looney Tunes characters so great is because they evolved over a long period of time and adapted to the tastes of the audience. The characters grew into the memorable characters that we remember them as.

And there were a bunch of the characters too! Of course, not every character was a big hit, but a lot of them were. Even if you’re only counting the characters that were popular enough to star in their own cartoons, you still have Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, Daffy Duck, Tweety, Sylvester, Yosemite Sam, Pepe’ Le Pew, Foghorn Leghorn, Marvin Martian, Road Runner, Wile E. Coyote, and Speedy Gonzales. There were a bunch of others though!

#2 The Integration of Music Was Ingenious

Looney Tunes goes hand in hand with music. Note the spelling: Looney TUNES. The entire series is rooted in music, and they people behind the scenes never forgot it. As a matter of fact, no other cartoon series had utilized music as effectively as they did, and arguably, no series has done it as effectively since then.

The composer, Carl Stalling had a great deal to do with this and was known as a great innovator in both the realms of music and animation. Stalling turned the process of setting a cartoon to music into an art form, and was able to seamlessly blend background music, sound effects created by orchestra instruments, and the extensive Warner Bros. music library into a mix that was uniquely his own.

Nowadays, it’s easy to overlook something as simple as violin plucks to represent tip toeing, but back in the day, that was a groundbreaking thing. The music of Carl Stalling is among some of the most important music to come out in the twentieth century, and that is no small feat. In a century that featured some of the greatest music ever created, and in record numbers, Carl Stalling remains, in hindsight, one of the most influential composers to emerge. And to think, almost all of his life’s work was done in the form of Looney Tunes music!

#3 The Crew Was Unbelievably Talented

And it wasn’t just Stalling that was talented. The entire crew that worked on the Looney Tunes cartoons was at the top of their game. Warner Bros. made sure to assemble a team of some of the most talented animators, directors, producers, and voice talent that existed at the time.

One thing that contribute

s to the magic of Looney Tunes is the incredibly small crew that was involved with each cartoon. I’m sure that not having a bunch of hands involved helped to not spoil the soup. This adds to the creative process, because there’s more room for spontaneity and less room for creative differences.

Not to mention that back in the day, each job description was a full time job. Carl Stalling, for example, scored an average of one cartoon per week during the entirety of his career at Warner Bros. Having a small crew ensured that the animators were always busy working on the next cartoon.

#4 The Audacity Of The Cartoons Was Unprecedented

When I say that we need more cartoons like Looney Tunes, I mean that we need more cartoons being made by cartoonists that have absolutely no holdups about pushing the envelope in what they portray.

Some of the things in the Looney Tunes cartoons are so racy, that they don’t even fly today! This becomes evident in the fact that the DVD sets are accompanied by a parental advisory due to the use of guns and ethnic stereotypes.

For example, in the Merrie Melodies Cartoon, Rhapsody Rabbit, Bugs Bunny becomes annoyed with a coughing audience member during his piano recital, and straight up shoots the guy in the face with a pistol! Another thing, which you might not have considered, but characters like Porky Pig and Elmer Fudd who have funny speech impediments would never get green lit in this day and age. Not to mention the countless politically incorrect jokes involving people of all colors, including blacks, native americans, mexicans, and white southerners.

It is these things that I think are hilarious as an adult. In an era where cartoons have to be “educational” it is highly refreshing to watch a cartoon that isn’t politically correct. Too bad these cartoons are over fifty years old! How long is it going to take before we can have another “Golden Age of Animation” like we did back in those days?

#5 The Era Was Perfect For The Cartoons

I am, however, not in favor of the Looney Tunes franchise to continue. I feel that Looney Tunes was a product of the era that it lived in, and just doesn’t work in a modern day setting.

The characters just don’t translate to the modern day, which is evident due to the fact that there has yet to be a successful revival of the Looney Tunes franchise. Shows like “Baby Looney Tunes” and “Loonatics Unleashed” has been met with extreme criticism. The two movies, Space Jam and Back In Action haven’t been openly accepted either, with the former owing much of its success to the inclusion of Michael Jordan.

So, in summary, I’d like to see more cartoons that are like Looney Tunes, but not necessarily see new Looney Tunes. Those old cartoons worked because they were fresh, and were what the world needed at that time. Nowadays, we need something fresh for our time, and while it is most certainly not the same thing, we can definitely learn a lot from history in order to figure out what kind of cartoon series we need nowadays. We need a Looney Tunes for the Twenty-First century!

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Do you agree? Disagree? Would you like to take your day to day frustrations out on a total stranger who writes on a blog? If the answer to any of these questions is “yes” then by all means, leave a reply!

Also, read up and get educated on other articles involving animation, such as “Family Guy Just Needs To End“, and “Has South Park Jumped The Shark?“

And go ahead and check out our exclusive interview with underground rap artist, V-Sinizter. It will change your life, for the better!

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