A historical guide to looney tunes episodes

Looney Tunes, often misspelled as "loony toons", "looneytunes" or "loony tunes", is a series of popular cartoons which ran from nineteen thirty to nineteen sixty-nine. The series featured such popular characters as Porky Pig, Elmer Fudd, Daffy Duck, Wile E. Coyote, Foghorn Leghorn and Pepe LePew. This article will take a look at some classic episodes of this iconic series of cartoons for kids and adults.

The Looney Tunes stories

Each Looney Tunes story was centred around an individual character, unlike the family-oriented cartoon sitcoms of later years like those featuring the Flintstone family. Tweetie Pie Some of the cartoons received an Academy Award For Best Short Subject (Animation). One of these toons was called Tweetie Pie which was made in 1947. The story was the first appearance of the Tweetie character, and it made a tremendous impact on audiences. Another winner of the Academy Award was For Scent-imental Reasons which featured Pepe LePew and Penelope Pussycat. This cartoon was the first story where the cat is mistaken by Pepe for a skunk after an accidental spilling of some hair colour. This cartoon was censored by television networks due to several references to suicide. Speedy Gonzales was made in 1955, and was the first cartoon to feature the Speedy Gonzales character as people know him today. The story centres around Sylvester, the cat's efforts to catch Speedy the mouse. This episode also won the Academy Award For Best Animated Short Film.

A controversial subject

Another Academy award winning cartoon was titled Birds Anonymous. In the 1950s, several movies had been made about drug and alcohol abuse. They featured references to recovery groups like Alcoholics Anonymous. The cartoon parodied such movies, and surprisingly won the hearts of audiences of the time. Birds Anonymous won the Academy Award For Best Animated Short Film for 1957 over a cartoon with a similar theme starring Speedy Gonzales. What's Opera, Doc was made in 1957, and featured Elmer Fudd and Bugs Bunny. The cartoon also features music from Richard Wagner's operas. This cartoon took much time and effort to make, and is thought by many in the industry to be one of the greatest cartoons of all time. It was declared "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library Of Congress. This led to it being preserved in the National Film Registry.

Lasting popularity

The popularity of these classic cartoons led to the making of a Baby Looney Tune series which features the original Looney Tunes characters as babies. The continued popularity of these characters, and the making of new cartoons like the Looney Tunes Baby series is a tribute to the original writers and artists who created the Looney Tunes series.