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Warner Bros. Cartoons was an in-house division of Warner Bros. primarily responsible for Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons. It was originally started as Leon Schlesinger Productions in 1933 before being sold to Warner Bros. in 1944. It is considered to be one of the most prolific and profitable animation studios in history. The studio is also notable for employing some of the most pioneering animators and directors of the era, including Friz Freleng, Tex Avery and Chuck Jones. It precedes Warner Bros. Animation, established in 1980.

History

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 that dealt specifically with Warners short subjects. They originally provided the record discs used in tandem with their movies until that process was replaced with sound-on-film). Its star was a blackface kid named Bosko. The cartoons were made by Rudolf Ising and Hugh Harman. There was not 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 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer 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 (four cartoons with Porky--Porky's Super Service, Porky's Badtime Story, Get Rich Quick Porky and Porky And Gabby--were parceled out to Ub Iwerks' studio). 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 were 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 characters 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. The studio closed briefly in 1953 as it was assumed that 3-D movies would become a costly standard but it reopened when 3-D went bust. In 1955, the cartoon studio moved from its longtime home on North Van Ness Avenue in Los Angeles to a new studio on the Warner lot in Burbank. By 1957, Warners sold its 1932-48 cartoons to Associated Artists Productions (which was acquired in 1958 by United Artists Television) 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. After Edward Selzer died in 1957, he was replaced as producer by John Burton. In 1960, a selection of 1948-60 cartoons were highlighted on primetime 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 DePatie-Freleng Enterprises 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 embarrassingly 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. While the redrawn cartoons ran for some three decades on TV, they were considered vastly inferior to the original black-and-white films which would eventually be screened on TV with their original title cards. 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	Creator	Notes
Bosko	1931	1933	Hugh Harman, Rudolf Ising	Start of Leon Schlesinger Era
Foxy	1932	1932	Hugh Harman, Rudolf Ising
Goopy Gear	1932	1932	Hugh Harman, Rudolf Ising
Buddy	1933	1934	Tom Palmer
Beans	1934	1935	Robert Clampett	1st film directed by Jack King
Porky Pig	1935	1965	Friz Freleng
Gabby Goat	1937	1937	Robert Clampett
Petunia Pig	1937	1939	Frank Tashlin
Daffy Duck	1937	1969	Fred "Tex" Avery	New shorts made 1986; co-starred with Bugs Bunny in shorts 1991-92
Egghead	1937	1938	Fred "Tex" Avery	Evolved into Elmer Fudd
Elmer Fudd	1938	1960	Fred "Tex" Avery
Sniffles	1939	1946	Chuck Jones
Happy Rabbit	1938	1939	Ben Hardaway	Thought to be Bugs Bunny prototype
Blabbermouse	1939	1939	Friz Freleng
Bugs Bunny	1940	1964	Fred "Tex" Avery	New shorts made 1991-2004
Inki & The Minah Bird	1940	1949	Chuck Jones	Minah bird cameo in a Bobo cartoon
Henery Hawk	1942	1953	Chuck Jones
Conrad Cat	1942	1942	Chuck Jones
Tweetie Pie	1943	1962	Robert Clampett	Edward Selzer era begins, 1944
Babbitt & Catstello	1943	1946	Robert Clampett
Hubie & Bertie	1943	1951	Chuck Jones
The Three Bears	1944	1950	Chuck Jones
Yosemite Sam	1945	1963	Friz Freleng
Sylvester The Cat	1945	1965	Friz Freleng	Named Thomas in his first film
Pepe Le Pew	1945	1960	Chuck Jones
Foghorn Leghorn	1946	1963	Robert McKimson
Marvin the Martian	1946	1963	Chuck Jones
Charlie Dog	1947	1951	Chuck Jones	Prototype appeared in 1941 cartoon Porky's Pooch (Norm McCabe)
Bobo the Elephant	1947	1952	Robert McKimson
Hippity Hopper	1948	1964	Robert McKimson	Co-starred with Sylvester and Sylvester Jr.
Road Runner	1948	1966	Chuck Jones
Wile E. Coyote	1948	1966	Chuck Jones	co-starred with Bugs Bunny in four films
Claude Cat	1949	1954	Chuck Jones	Co-starred with a dog named Frisky Puppy in three films
Miss Prissy	1950	1962	Robert McKimson
Dodsworth	1950	1951	Robert McKimson
Rocky & Mugsy	1950	1952	Friz Freleng	co-starred with Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Tweety & Sylvester
Sam Sheepdog	1951	1959	Chuck Jones
Ralph Wolf	1951	1959	Chuck Jones	Thought to be Wile E. Coyote alias
Marc Antony	1951	1957	Chuck Jones	Co-starred with a kitten named Pussyfoot in selected cartoons; John Burton era begins 1957
Granny	1952	1964	Friz Freleng	Mainly co-starred with Tweety and Sylesvter
Spike & Chester	1952	1954	Friz Freleng	co-starred with Sylvester
Speedy Gonzales	1953	1969	Robert McKimson	DePatie-Freleng era starts 1964; Herbert Klynn produced selected 1966 cartoons
Witch Hazel	1953	1966	Chuck Jones
Tazmanian Devil	1953	1964	Robert McKimson
Ralph Phillips	1954	1957	Chuck Jones
The Honeymousers	1956	1959	Robert McKimson
Blacque Jacques Shellaque	1959	1962	Robert McKimson	co-starred with Bugs Bunny
Hillbilly Hawks	1962	1962	Robert McKimson	co-starred with Bugs Bunny and Foghorn Leghorn
Cool Cat	1967	1969	Alex Lovy	start of the Bill Hendricks era
Merlin the Magic Mouse	1967	1968	Alex Lovy
Bunny & Claude	1967	1968	Robert McKimson
Rapid Rabbit & Quick Brown Fox	1969	1969	Robert McKimson	Was proposed to be a series but was final cartoon Warners made