From The TV IV

The theatrical cartoons distributed and subsequently made and released by Warner Bros. are probably the most prolific of any studio, and one that early on not only broke the rules of cartoon comedy but rewrote them.

Leon Schlesinger ran an independent cartoon studio in 1931 that would make films that Warner Bros. would release to theaters. Taking a nod from Disney's Silly Symphonies series, the Schlesinger studio inaugurated Looney Tunes which was released by the Vitaphone Corporation (Vitaphone was Warners' recording arm). Its star was a blackface kid named Bosko. The cartoons were made by Rudolf Ising and Hugh Harman. There wasn't much in regards to character development as the cartoons were regulated by the songs employed. A year later, the studio started a second series, Merrie Melodies which featured a lot of characters that only appeared once or two or three films. After a salary dispute, Harman and Ising left the studio for MGM and took Bosko with them leaving Schlesinger to limp along with another non-descript character, Buddy. Schlesinger made Isadore "Friz" Freleng the head director after he reworked two rejected Buddy cartoons into one that Warners accepted.

Merrie Melodies graduated to color in 1934. In 1935, it introduced Porky Pig who would become the star of the Looney Tunes series through 1943. In 1937, director Tex Avery shook up the animation industry with a single line from his Looney Tunes film Porky's Duck Hunt. After Porky's dog is thrown to land by the duck he was ostensibly sent to retrieve, Porky takes out a notepad and stammers "Hey! That wasn't in the script!" Avery also initiated such innovations as an off-screen narrator, having the on-screen characters talk back at an audience member trying to get up from his seat, and other notions that no other studio thought of or dared to think of. Avery gave us Bugs Bunny as we know him in 1940, following a series of films prior featuring a prototypical rabbit making life miserable for an antagonist. Avery left Warners in 1941 after a dispute over the ending of his cartoon The Heckling Hare.

Through the 1940s, Warners found its cartoon footing and offset its low budgets with crackling visual and verbal comedy. Pop culture of the era was fair game as was political ideals. (One series, Private Snafu, was released strictly to military bases.) Starting in 1942, Warners began the practice of re-releasing previous cartoons under the Blue Ribbon series. Looney Tunes were started up in color in 1943. Schlesinger sold his studio to Warners in 1944 with Edward Selzer taking over as producer. Staffers would quip that while Schlesinger knew nothing about cartoons he never bothered them. Selzer was a know-nothing busybody. Cartoon character created during this decade included Henery Hawk, Sylvester the Cat, Tweety, Foghorn Leghorn, the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote.

The 1950s saw resources limited as TV encroached. The return on the cartoons' investments were slowly dwindling but the studio pressed on with its roster of stars. By 1957, Warners sold its 1932-48 cartoons to Associated Artists Productions for syndication to television. The 1931-43 black-and-white Looney Tunes were sold to Sunset Films (believed to be a Warner Bros. distribution arm) and later Guild Films which later was absorbed by Seven Arts. In 1960, a selection of 1948-60 cartoons were highlighted on prime time TV, with The Bugs Bunny Show on ABC.

Warners shut its cartoon studio down in 1964. As they relied more on TV exposure (The Porky Pig Show began on ABC Saturday mornings, two years after Bugs migrated to Saturday kidvid), Warners farmed out cartoon work to the DePatie-Freleng firm and Format Films. DePatie-Freleng originally leased out the Warner studio before breaking ground on their own studio in Van Nuys. Format Films had previously made a batch of Al Brodax Popeye cartoons and CBS's The Alvin Show. The budgets for these cartoons were embarassingly low and many curiously paired up Daffy Duck with Speedy Gonzales. In 1967, Warner Bros. merged with Seven Arts, thus re-acquiring the black-and-white Looney Tunes films. Warners had 75 of them sent to Korea to be redrawn and painted in color. The cartoon studio reopened and closed two years later.

Warner cartoons on TV thrived on the strength of The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour on CBS. Bugs would run on Saturday mornings for 39 years straight on CBS and ABC. Specials would pop up with made-for-TV animation melded with theatrical clips. Warners would initiate theatrical shorts again in 1987 on a limited basis, many of which have turned up on Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network as well as home video.

Roster of Warner Bros. theatrical cartoon stars

Name	From	To	Notes
Bosko	1931	1933	Start of Leon Schlesinger Era
Foxy	1932	1932
Goopy Gear	1932	1932
Buddy	1933	1934
Beans	1934	1935
Porky Pig	1935	1965
Gabby Goat	1937	1937
Petunia Pig	1937	1939
Daffy Duck	1937	1969	New shorts made 1986; co-starred with Bugs Bunny in shorts 1991-92
Egghead	1937	1938	Evolved into Elmer Fudd
Elmer Fudd	1938	1960
Sniffles	1939	1944
Bugs Bunny	1940	1964	New shorts made 1991-2004
Inki & The Minah Bird	1940	1949	Minah bird cameo in a Bobo cartoon
Henery Hawk	1942	1953
Tweetie Pie	1943	1962	Edward Selzer era begins, 1944
Babbitt & Catstello	1943	1946
Hubie & Bertie	1943	1951
The Three Bears	1944	1950
Yosemite Sam	1945	1963
Sylvester The Cat	1945	1965	Named Thomas in his first film
Pepe Le Pew	1945	1960
Foghorn Leghorn	1946	1963
Marvin the Martian	1946	1963
Bobo the Elephant	1947	1952
Road Runner	1948	1966
Wile E. Coyote	1948	1966	co-starred with Bugs Bunny in four films
Dodsworth	1950	1951
Sam Sheepdog	1951	1959
Ralph Wolf	1951	1959	thought to be Wile E. Coyote alias
Marc Antony	1951	1957
Claude Cat	1952	1953
Speedy Gonzales	1953	1969	DePatie-Freleng era starts 1964
Witch Hazel	1953	1966
Tazmanian Devil	1953	1964
The Honeymousers	1956	1959
Cool Cat	1967	1969	start of the Bill Hendricks era
Merlin the Magic Mouse	1967	1968
Bunny & Claude	1967	1968