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Hugh Harman & Rudolf Ising (1930)

Bosko has a grand time on the farm, dancing with a cow, playing a horse’s tail like a violin and getting drunk with three pigs. Bosko dances and sings on the farm with pigs who get hold of a bottle of booze. The Booze Hangs High, released in December 1930, is the fourth title in the Looney Tunes series. The short features Bosko, Warner Bros.’ first cartoon character. The Booze Hangs High released in 1930, is the fourth title in the Looney Tunes series and features Bosko, Warner Bros.’ first cartoon character. When this cartoon aired on Nickelodeon, the part where the father pig regurgitates a corncob, flicks off the one kernel that remains on it, and puts it back into his stomach through a trapdoor was cut. This cartoon references Plane Crazy (a Mickey Mouse cartoon) and Song of the Flame (a musical operetta film). The latter features a song titled The Goose Hangs High from which this short gets its name.

Animated by Friz Freleng and Paul Smith

Bosko is an animated cartoon character created by animators Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising. Bosko was the first recurring character in Leon Schlesinger’s cartoon series and was the star of thirty-nine Looney Tunes shorts released by Warner Bros. He was voiced by Carman Maxwell, Johnny Murray, and Billie “Buckwheat” Thomas.

In 1927, Harman and Ising worked for the Walt Disney Studios on a series of live-action/animated short subjects known as the Alice Comedies. The two animators created Bosko in 1928 to capitalize on the recent success of talkies in the motion picture industry. They began thinking about making a sound cartoon with Bosko in 1928 before even leaving Walt Disney. Hugh Harman made drawings of the new character and registered it with the U.S. Copyright Office on January 3, 1928. The character was registered as a “Negro boy” under the name of Bosko.

After leaving Walt Disney in early 1928, Harman and Ising went to work for Charles Mintz on Universal’s second-season Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoons. In April 1929 they left Universal to market their new cartoon character.

Schlesinger saw the Harman-Ising test film and signed the animators to produce cartoons at their studio for him to sell to Warner Bros. Bosko became the star vehicle for the studio’s new Looney Tunes cartoon series. Bosko wore long pants and a derby hat, and he had a girlfriend named Honey and a dog named Bruno. He was also sometimes accompanied by Honey’s cat-like son named Wilbur and an often antagonistic goat, particularly in early cartoons.

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Hugh Harman & Rudolf Ising (1930)

Hold Anything is the third short in the Looney Tunes series from Warner Bros., released to theaters in October 1930. Featuring Bosko, it is loosely based on the lost film Hold Everything, one of whose songs, “Don’t Hold Everything,” features prominently in the cartoon. It was directed by Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising, and animated by Isadore “Friz” Freleng and Norman Blackburn.

Bosko is an animated cartoon character created by animators Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising. Bosko was the first recurring character in Leon Schlesinger’s cartoon series and was the star of thirty-nine Looney Tunes shorts released by Warner Bros. He was voiced by Carman Maxwell, Johnny Murray, and Billie “Buckwheat” Thomas.

In 1927, Harman and Ising worked for the Walt Disney Studios on a series of live-action/animated short subjects known as the Alice Comedies. The two animators created Bosko in 1928 to capitalize on the recent success of talkies in the motion picture industry. They began thinking about making a sound cartoon with Bosko in 1928 before even leaving Walt Disney. Hugh Harman made drawings of the new character and registered it with the U.S. Copyright Office on January 3, 1928. The character was registered as a “Negro boy” under the name of Bosko.

After leaving Walt Disney in early 1928, Harman and Ising went to work for Charles Mintz on Universal’s second-season Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoons. In April 1929 they left Universal to market their new cartoon character.

Schlesinger saw the Harman-Ising test film and signed the animators to produce cartoons at their studio for him to sell to Warner Bros. Bosko became the star vehicle for the studio’s new Looney Tunes cartoon series. Bosko wore long pants and a derby hat, and he had a girlfriend named Honey and a dog named Bruno. He was also sometimes accompanied by Honey’s cat-like son named Wilbur and an often antagonistic goat, particularly in early cartoons.

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Chuck jones (1954)

Happy Halloween!

Bewitched Bunny is a 1954 Warner Bros. Looney Tunes cartoon directed by Chuck Jones and written by Michael Maltese. The short was released on July 24, 1954, and stars Bugs Bunny. Jones created the character Witch Hazel who debuted in this cartoon.

This short was the subject of controversy in Canada, when, in July 1998, a viewer who saw the short on an airing of The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show on Global thought Bugs’ final line (after Witch Hazel is transformed into a beautiful female rabbit, but still laughs like Witch Hazel): “Yeah, I know. But aren’t they all witches inside?” was misogynistic. Charlotte Bell, Global’s Vice-President of Regulatory Affairs at the time, wrote back, denying that there was anything misogynistic about the line. The complainant then filed a formal complaint with the Broadcast Standards Council, incorporating the Global executive who denied the claim into her analysis and cited that “Bewitched Bunny” showed women in an unflattering light and that the Global executive she talked to was lying about the claim. Eleven months and three days after it received the complaint, the Council reached its conclusion: while the ending line can be taken as sexist towards women, the short as a whole does not, in fact, show women in an unflattering light nor does it break any of Canada’s broadcasting rules and regulations. For a while, the Global version of this short aired with the allegedly misogynist “witches” line replaced with “Yeah, I know. But who wants to be alone on Halloween?” (which was taken from the American TV special Bugs Bunny’s Howl-oween Special). When the verdict that the original line wasn’t in breach of any Canadian broadcasting rules, the edited version was swiftly replaced with the original. This controversy was briefly mentioned by Eric Goldberg on the DVD commentary of the fifth volume of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection DVD set.

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Robert McKimson (1966)

Happy Halloween!

Hobo Moon Cartoons aims to preserve the beloved Halloween classics of yesteryear for future generations to enjoy!

A-Haunting We Will Go is a 1966 Warner Bros. Looney Tunes cartoon directed by Robert McKimson. The short was released on April 16, 1966, and stars Daffy Duck, Speedy Gonzales, and Witch Hazel. As with the other Witch Hazel cartoons, June Foray voices Witch Hazel while Mel Blanc voices Speedy Gonzales, Daffy Duck, and Daffy’s nephew.

This is the last Looney Tunes cartoon featuring Witch Hazel, as well as the last Looney Tunes cartoon with June Foray’s voice acting in the Golden Age. However, she would reprise her role as Witch Hazel once again in an episode of the 2003 Duck Dodgers series.

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Chuck Jones & Maurice Noble (1963)

Bugs demonstrates how to handle a pesky vampire with six simple magic incantations. The title is a pun on Pennsylvania 6-5000, a song associated with Glenn Miller and referring to the now-archaic system of telephone exchange names where the first two characters of a telephone number were expressed as letters: Transylvania 6-5000 stands for “TR 6-5000” which devolves to 876-5000.

This cartoon featuring Bugs Bunny and Count Blood Count is one of my favorite Halloween-themed cartoons from childhood. I hope you enjoy it as much as I always have and that it gets you in the spirit of the spook this Halloween. Thanks for watching.

Transylvania 6-5000 is a Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies animated short directed by Chuck Jones. The short was released on November 30, 1963, and stars Bugs Bunny. It was the last original Bugs Bunny short Jones made for Warner Bros. Cartoons before Jones left for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to found his own studio, Sib Tower 12 Productions. It was his second-to-last cartoon at Warner Bros. before moving to MGM, and the second-to-last Warner cartoon in 1963.

Animated by Bob Bransford, Tom Ray, Ken Harris, and Richard Thompson.

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Friz Freleng (1943)

A group of mice are unwittingly enslaved by a cat.

Fifth Column Mouse is a 1943 Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies animated cartoon directed by Friz Freleng. The short was released on March 6, 1943. The cartoon features a band of mice who engage in war against a cat. This is a wartime propaganda film, with the cat symbolizing the Axis powers. A single mouse represents the fifth column, working for the cat and suggesting an appeasement policy.

The cat is treated as the enemy and symbolizes the Axis. After the cat whispers his plan inside the dim-witted mouse’s ear the cat’s face briefly mimics that of a stereotypically caricatured Japanese, while Japanese sounding music is briefly heard. When the mouse agrees to fulfill the plan, he gives the cat a Nazi salute. The grey mouse represents the policy of appeasement, and the overall theme of the short is that the policy does not work against the Axis and will lead to ruin. When the cat’s fur is shaved off, the first four notes of Ludwig van Beethoven’s “Fifth Symphony” are played; these notes were used by the Allied Forces as a symbol for “V” (for “victory”) in Morse code; also, when shaved four tufts of hair are left on the cat’s back – three short and one long tuft – equivalent to the Morse Code dit-dit-dit-dah – which is the letter “V”.

Near the end of the cartoon, the brown mice sing “We did it before and We can do it again”, a patriotic chant that was often used in American films during World War II. The song was co-written in 1941 by Tin Pan Alley songwriter Charles Tobias as a response to the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. During the song, a mouse version of the “Buy War Bonds and Stamps” poster can be seen.

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Hugh Harman (1931)

Bosko the Doughboy is a one-reel 1931 short subject animated cartoon and is part of the Bosko series. It was directed by Hugh Harman, and first released on October 17, 1931 as part of the Looney Tunes series from Harman-Ising Productions and distributed by Warner Bros.

Film score composed by Frank Marsales

Drawn by Rollin Hamilton & Max Maxwell

Bosko the Doughboy is notable for its departure from the standard cartoon formula of its era. Bosko is usually infallibly happy and chipper; Doughboy forces him to drop this demeanor and fight back. Other Bosko shorts concentrate primarily on Bosko cavorting with other characters in a musical wonderland; in Doughboy, Bosko can’t dance more than a few seconds before coming under enemy fire. Bosko’s cartoons generally have little to no conflict; Doughboy is nothing but fighting. In short, Bosko the Doughboy is almost a total departure from other shorts in the series (and from those of other studios of the time). It is usually regarded as a high point of the character’s cartoon career.

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Jack King (1935)

Hollywood Capers is a 1935 animated short Looney Tunes film. It stars Beans the Cat in his second solo cartoon, Little Kitty, Oliver Owl, and Porky Pig also makes a cameo.

Beans must sneak past a security guard into a Hollywood film studio. This cartoon features caricatures of W.C. Fields, Charlie Chaplin, Oliver Hardy, and Boris Karloff. This short reuses animation from Buddy’s Beer Garden, specifically the man pouring beer into the mugs. A poster at the bar reads “Hurricane Hardaway”, a reference to director Ben Hardaway. This cartoon entered the public domain in 1963.

Beans the Cat is an animated cartoon character in the Warner Bros. Cartoons series of cartoons from 1935–1936. Beans was the third Warner Bros cartoon character star after Bosko and Buddy. He is voiced by Billy Bletcher and occasionally by Tommy Bond. He was created by director Friz Freleng. The character was featured in nine cartoons made in 1935 and 1936.

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Chuck Jones (1943)

“Confidentially, those hunters couldn’t hit the broad side of a DUCK!”

– Daffy Duck

To Duck or Not to Duck is a 1943 Warner Bros. Looney Tunes cartoon directed by Chuck Jones. The cartoon was released on March 6, 1943, and stars Daffy Duck and Elmer Fudd.

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Friz Freleng (1942)

In the Canadian North Woods, Bugs is wanted dead or alive and Elmer is out to bring him in with the help of the Canadian Mounties.

Fresh Hare is a Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies cartoon directed by Friz Freleng, written by Michael Maltese, animated by Manuel Perez, and produced by Leon Schlesinger. It was released to theatres on August 22, 1942.

The title is a typical Warner Bros. pun on “fresh air” that has little or nothing to do with the plot, other than being set in the crisp, frigid air of a Canadian winter. Caricatures of Adolf Hitler and Veronica Lake make appearances during the animated short.

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Chuck Jones (1939)

Two dogs hiding from the dog catcher encounter a tricky Bugs Bunny prototype.

Prest-O Change-O is a 1939 Merrie Melodies cartoon directed by Chuck Jones, and was first released on March 25, 1939 by Warner Bros. It is the only Happy Rabbit cartoon to be reissued. It marks the second appearance of Happy Rabbit, the Bugs Bunny lookalike before Bugs Bunny officially hit the scene in 1940 in the hilarious Tex Avery cartoon A Wild Hare, which is considered to be the first official Bugs Bunny cartoon. This film fell into the public domain in 1967 due to United Artists failing to renew the copyright in time within 28 years.

To see Bugs Bunny’s official debut, click this link: https://hobomooncartoons.com/2020/07/27/happy-80th-birthday-doc/

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Chuck Jones & Ken Harris (1943)

Two hungry castaways encounter Bugs Bunny on a tropical island.

Wackiki Wabbit is a 1943 Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies cartoon, starring Bugs Bunny.

Directed by Chuck Jones

Animated by Ken Harris

Written by Tedd Pierce

Produced by Leon Schlesinger

Musical direction by Carl Stalling

Wackiki Wabbit contains experimental abstract backgrounds and its title is a play on words, suggesting both the island setting of Waikiki and Bugs’ wackiness. Elmer Fudd’s speech pronunciation of “rabbit” is also in the title, although Elmer does not appear in this picture.

This cartoon has fallen to the public domain after United Artists failed to renew the copyright on time.

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Bob Clampett (1942)

Bugs Bunny thwarts Elmer Fudd’s efforts as he prospects for gold.

The Wacky Wabbit is a Merrie Melodies cartoon directed by Bob Clampett in 1942 starring Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd.

Although Bob Clampett had already started making cartoons of his own with Tex Avery’s old unit, you get the impression that Bob’s first color cartoons have sequences which are very similar to Tex Avery’s animation style, in gags and timing. Bob’s 1942 cartoons were rather silly before he completely took a different route later in the year; with edgier-paced cartoons like The Hep Cat or A Tale of Two Kitties. The shorts still contain a lot of Clampett’s style of humor, except that each short gradually builds up from the previous short.

Produced by Leon Schlesinger.

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Robert McKimson (1966)

Happy Halloween!

Hobo Moon Cartoons aims to preserve the beloved Halloween classics of yesteryear for future generations to enjoy!

A-Haunting We Will Go is a 1966 Warner Bros. Looney Tunes cartoon directed by Robert McKimson. The short was released on April 16, 1966, and stars Daffy Duck, Speedy Gonzales, and Witch Hazel. As with the other Witch Hazel cartoons, June Foray voices Witch Hazel while Mel Blanc voices Speedy Gonzales, Daffy Duck, and Daffy’s nephew.

This is the last Looney Tunes cartoon featuring Witch Hazel, as well as the last Looney Tunes cartoon with June Foray’s voice acting in the Golden Age. However, she would reprise her role as Witch Hazel once again in an episode of the 2003 Duck Dodgers series.

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Chuck Jones & Maurice Noble (1963)

Bugs demonstrates how to handle a pesky vampire with six simple magic incantations. The title is a pun on Pennsylvania 6-5000, a song associated with Glenn Miller and referring to the now-archaic system of telephone exchange names where the first two characters of a telephone number were expressed as letters: Transylvania 6-5000 stands for “TR 6-5000” which devolves to 876-5000.

This cartoon featuring Bugs Bunny and Count Blood Count is one of my favorite Halloween-themed cartoons from childhood. I hope you enjoy it as much as I always have and that it gets you in the spirit of the spook this Halloween. Thanks for watching.

Transylvania 6-5000 is a Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies animated short directed by Chuck Jones. The short was released on November 30, 1963, and stars Bugs Bunny. It was the last original Bugs Bunny short Jones made for Warner Bros. Cartoons before Jones left for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to found his own studio, Sib Tower 12 Productions. It was his second-to-last cartoon at Warner Bros. before moving to MGM, and the second-to-last Warner cartoon in 1963.

Animated by Bob Bransford, Tom Ray, Ken Harris, and Richard Thompson.

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Friz Freleng (1942)

The Wabbit Who Came to Supper is a 1942 Merrie Melodies cartoon featuring Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd. It was released on March 28, 1942 and directed by Friz Freleng. Elmer Fudd and his dogs are hunting for Bugs Bunny in the woods. As Fudd is about to shoot Bugs, he receives a telegram telling him that his uncle is leaving him three million dollars on the condition he doesn’t harm any animals. The title is a reference to the 1942 Warner Brothers film version of the 1939 George S. Kaufman Broadway comedy The Man Who Came to Dinner, in which an overbearing house-guest threatens to take over the lives of a small-town family.

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Bob Clampett (1943)

A Corny Concerto is a 1943 Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies directed by Bob Clampett. The short was released on September 25, 1943, and stars Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, Elmer Fudd and Daffy Duck. They perform a parody of Disney’s Silly Symphony cartoon series and specifically his 1940 feature Fantasia. The film uses two of Johann Strauss’ best known waltzes, “Tales from the Vienna Woods” and “The Blue Danube”.

Fantasia was marketed to highbrow music fans; the Looney Tunes staff responded by violating the ivory tower of classical music and concert hall culture. A Corny Concerto parodies Fantasia’s Silly Symphonies-derived balletic approach to storytelling. Elmer Fudd stands in for Deems Taylor, and in an anti-highbrow gag, his starched shirtfront keeps erupting from his shirt to hit him on the face.

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Rudolf Ising (1931)

Piggy takes his girlfriend, Fluffy, to a jazz concert.

You Don’t Know What You’re Doin’! is a 1931 Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies cartoon short directed by Rudolf Ising. The short was released on October 21, 1931, and stars Piggy, one of the series’ early recurring characters. First released on October 21, 1931, the film is perhaps one of the most amusing and effective of the cartoons from the studio’s earliest years.

The musical soundtrack was done by the then-nationally famous Abe Lyman Orchestra, which adds a happy energy throughout the cartoon. The eccentric virtuoso trombone playing of Orlando “Slim” Martin is prominently featured. Martin played not only music but also some rather bizarre effects on his horn. His trombone solo representing the drunken automobile is especially memorable. The Schlesinger Studio had their sound effects department construct mechanical devices to roughly reproduce some of Martin’s sounds, which became standard cartoon sound effects.

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Matt Peters (2021)

An unthinkable tragedy propels Superman into a dangerous new mindset, ultimately pitting Justice League members against each other in Injustice, an all-new DC Animated Movie. Produced by Warner Bros. Animation, DC and Warner Bros. Home Entertainment.

Inspired by Injustice: Gods Among Us, NetherRealm Studios’ popular video game, and the best-selling DC graphic novel based on the video game, Injustice: Gods Among Us: Year One by Tom Taylor, the animated film Injustice finds an alternate world gone mad – where The Joker has duped Superman into killing Lois Lane, sending the Man of Steel on a deadly rampage. Unhinged, Superman decides to take control of the Earth for humanity’s own good. Determined to stop him, Batman creates a team of like-minded, freedom-fighting heroes. But when Superheroes go to war, can the world survive?

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Hugh Harman & Rudolf Ising (1931)

Bosko and his girlfriend Honey go on a picnic.

Bosko’s Holiday is a one-reel 1931 short subject animated cartoon, part of the Bosko series. It was directed by Hugh Harman, and first released on July 18, 1931 as part of the Looney Tunes series from the Leon Schlesinger animation studio and distributed by Warner Brothers. The film score was composed by Frank Marsales.

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Hugh Harman & Rudolf Ising (1930)

Congo Jazz is a Looney Tunes cartoon starring Warner Bros.’ first cartoon star, Bosko. The cartoon was released in September 1930. It was distributed by Warner Bros. and The Vitaphone Corporation. Congo Jazz was the first cartoon to feature Bosko’s falsetto voice that he would use for the bulk of the series’ run. It has the earliest instance of a “trombone gobble” in animation.

In 1927, Harman and Ising were still working for the Walt Disney Studios on a series of live-action/animated short subjects known as the Alice Comedies. The two animators created Bosko in 1927 to capitalize on the new “talkie” craze that was sweeping the motion picture industry. They began thinking about making a sound cartoon with Bosko in 1927, before even leaving Walt Disney. Hugh Harman made drawings of the new character and registered it with the copyright office on 3 January 1928.

After leaving Walt Disney in early 1928, Harman and Ising went to work for Charles Mintz on Universal’s second-season Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoons. April 1929 found them moving on again, leaving Universal to market their new cartoon character. In May 1929, they produced a short pilot cartoon, similar to Max Fleischer’s Out of the Inkwell cartoons, Bosko, the Talk-Ink Kid that showcased their ability to animate soundtrack-synchronized speech and dancing. The short, plotless cartoon opens with live action footage of Ising at a drafting table. After he draws Bosko on the page, the character springs to life, talks, sings, and dances. Ising returns Bosko to the inkwell, and the short ends. This short is a landmark in animation history as being the first cartoon to predominantly feature synchronized speech, though Fleischer Studios’ Song Car-Tune My Old Kentucky Home was the first cartoon to contain animated dialogue a few years earlier. This cartoon set Harman and Ising “apart from early Disney sound cartoons because it emphasized not music but dialogue.” The short was marketed to various people by Harman and Ising until Leon Schlesinger offered them a contract to produce a series of cartoons for the Warner Bros. It would not be seen by a wide audience until 71 years later, in 2000, as part of Cartoon Network’s special Toonheads: The Lost Cartoons, a compilation special of rare material from the WB/Turner archives.

In his book, Of Mice and Magic, Leonard Maltin states that this early version of Bosko:

“was in fact a cartoonized version of a young black boy… he spoke in a Southern Negro dialect… in subsequent films this characterization was eschewed, or perhaps forgotten. This could be called sloppiness on the part of Harman and Ising, but it also indicates the uncertain nature of the character itself.”

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Richard Williams (1968-92)

The Final Cut of The Thief & The Cobbler directed by Richard Williams. Fan edit by Garrett Gilchrist.

The Thief and the Cobbler is an unfinished animated fantasy film directed by Richard Williams. Originally conceived in the 1960s, the film was in and out of production for nearly three decades due to independent funding and ambitiously complex animation. It was finally placed into full production in 1989 when Warner Bros. agreed to finance and distribute the film. When production went over budget and fell behind schedule, the film was heavily cut and hastily re-edited by producer Fred Calvert without Williams’s involvement; it was eventually released in 1993 by Allied Filmmakers under the title The Princess and the Cobbler. Two years later, Disney subsidiary Miramax Films released another re-edit entitled Arabian Knight. Both versions of the film performed poorly and received mixed reviews.

Over the years, various people and companies, including The Walt Disney Company’s Roy E. Disney, have discussed restoring the film to its original version. In 2013, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences archived Richard Williams’s own 35 mm workprint. Williams himself acknowledged the film’s rehabilitated reputation, thanks to projects like the popular fan edit by Garrett Gilchrist The Recobbled Cut, and Persistence of Vision, a 2012 documentary from Kevin Schreck detailing the film’s production.

Garrett Gilchrist’s fan restorations mostly follow the workprint very closely, at least in their intent, using most of its original audio track and editing structure. In order to present a more complete film, Gilchrist added additional music (some from the released versions) and sound effects, and also included finished footage that does not appear in a finished state in the workprint, whether taken from the released versions or from other rare sources. Most of the story changes made by Fred Calvert and Miramax are not present, but it does include a few minor Calvert-only scenes or alterations, either as a side effect of using Calvert’s footage as replacements for unfinished scenes in the workprint or because Gilchrist felt these scenes were useful to the plot.

Garrett Gilchrist graduated from the University of Southern California with a B.A. in Cinema-Television Production in March 2005.

Garrett has been a regular staff writer for Cinemontage, The Editors Guild Magazine, since 2008, interviewing the editors of upcoming Hollywood films and television series. He has also contributed to ACE CinemaEditor. He has published one novel, Cratchit & Company, which focused on the characters of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.

Garrett is known for his restoration of Richard Williams’ unfinished animated masterpiece, The Thief and the Cobbler (The Recobbled Cut). The first Recobbled Cut was released in 2006. The fourth was released in HD in September 2013, after over two years of work.

He is also an artist, and from 2007 to 2009 he created Whosprites, a project designed to animate lost episodes of Doctor Who.

In 2005, Garrett released a popular fan documentary titled Star Wars: Deleted Magic, which focused on the difficulties encountered during the production of the 1977 film, and how these were fixed in editing.

In 2007 and 2008 he wrote, directed, and edited a feature titled Shamelessly, about a female superhero.

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Friz Freleng (1941)

Porky Pig works hard on his farm to store food for the winter, while his neighbor, a bear, would rather lie around and be lazy.
This is the original black and white classic directed by Friz Freleng.

Porky’s Bear Facts is a 1941 Warner Bros. Looney Tunes cartoon animated short directed by Friz Freleng.

This cartoon short is an adaptation of the Aesop fable The Ant and the Grasshopper.

Directed by Friz Freleng

Written by Michael Maltese

Animated by Manuel Perez

Musical Direction by Carl Stalling

Produced by Leon Schlesinger

“For your long winter needs, You just plant a few s-seeds. You must get up and w-work, not sleep. D-Dig and hoe. W-Watch them grow. As ye sow so shall ye r-r-r-reap.”

Porky Pig

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Frank Tashlin (1937)

Porky’s Railroad is a Warner Bros. Looney Tunes cartoon directed by Frank Tashlin.
The short was released on August 7, 1937, and stars Porky Pig.

Porky is the engineer on the most pathetic train in the fleet. After some routine episodes (using pepper to get the engine to sneeze itself up a hill, chasing a cow off the tracks, only to discover too late that it’s been replaced by a very angry bull), Porky gets word that he’s going to be replaced by the new streamlined Silver Fish.

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Friz Freleng (1938)

Jungle Jitters is a 1938 Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies cartoon directed by Friz Freleng. The short was released on February 19, 1938. Because of the racial stereotypes of black people throughout the short, it prompted United Artists to withhold it from syndication within the United States in 1968. As such, the short was placed into the Censored Eleven, a group of eleven Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes shorts withheld from official television distribution in the United States since 1968 due to heavy stereotyping of black people; because its copyright had already lapsed without renewal a year before this decision, it has remained publicly available through numerous unofficial distributors through secondhand prints.

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Chuck Jones (1947)

Scent-imental Over You is a 1947 Warner Bros. Looney Tunes cartoon directed by Chuck Jones.
The short was released on March 8, 1947, and stars Pepé Le Pew.

Jealous of the other dogs who have fur coats, a hairless Mexican pooch decides to borrow a fur coat and enter the dog show. Unfortunately, she borrows a skunk pelt by accident, which soon frightens the other dogs and attracts the unwanted attention of the amorous Pepé Le Pew. Pepe continues chasing her until she finally reveals that she is a dog, much to his surprise. Pepe then takes off his fur like a zippered jacket to reveal that he is a dog, capturing the misled pooch’s swoon, only to reveal once more that it was just him in a dog costume. He says to the audience, “I am stupid, no?”, as the cartoon ends, implying that Pepé is indeed a skunk who doesn’t care that his love interest is a dog.

Starring Pepé Le Pew (as Stinky Skunk), in his first official short.

Directed by Chuck Jones

Story by Michael Maltese and Tedd Pierce

Animated by Phil Monroe, Ben Washam, Ken Harris, Lloyd Vaughan, and Abe Levitow

Layouts by Robert Gribbroek

Backgrounds by Peter Alvarado

Voiced by Mel Blanc

Musical direction by Carl Stalling

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Justin Halpern, Patrick Schumacker, & Dean Lorey (2019)

Harley Quinn is an American adult animated television series based on the DC Comics character of the same name created by Paul Dini and Bruce Timm. The series is written and executive produced by Justin Halpern, Patrick Schumacker, and Dean Lorey and follows the misadventures of Harley Quinn and her best friend/partner-in-crime Poison Ivy after leaving her boyfriend, the Joker.

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Chuck Jones (1946)

Hair-Raising Hare is a Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies cartoon, released in 1946. It was directed by Chuck Jones and written by Tedd Pierce. It stars Bugs Bunny and features the first appearance of Chuck Jones’ imposing orange monster character, unnamed here, but in later cartoons named “Rudolph” and then “Gossamer”.

Animation director J. J. Sedelmaier writes, “It’s interesting to see how different Bugs’ character is in this film, from, say, the cool and calm Bugs in Rabbit Seasoning (1952). He’s much more the Groucho Marx type in this short; in fact, I doubt you’ll find another cartoon in which he does the Groucho walk more than here. The other unique aspect that has always grabbed me about this particular cartoon is the design of the monster. Where do his hands and arms go when we don’t see them? Why the sneakers? It’s this sort of stuff that reminds me why I love good cartoons: You don’t care about this stuff. You just enjoy it.”

Story by Tedd Pierce

Music by Carl Stalling

Animated by Ben Washam, Ken Harris, Basil Davidovich, and Lloyd Vaughan

Backgroungs by Robert Bribbroek

Starring Mel Blanc

Technicolor

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Chuck Jones (1957)

What’s Opera, Doc? is a 1957 American Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies cartoon directed by Chuck Jones and written by Michael Maltese. The short was released on July 6, 1957, and stars Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd.

The story features Elmer chasing Bugs through a parody of 19th-century classical composer Richard Wagner’s operas, particularly Der Ring des Nibelungen, Der Fliegende Holländer, and Tannhäuser. It borrows heavily from the second opera in the “Ring Cycle” Die Walküre, woven around the typical Bugs–Elmer feud. The short marks the final appearance of Elmer Fudd in a Chuck Jones cartoon.

It has been widely praised by many in the animation industry as the greatest animated cartoon that Warner Bros. ever released, and has been ranked as such in the top 50 animated cartoons of all time. In 1992, the Library of Congress deemed it “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry, the first cartoon to receive such honors.

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Rusty Mills, Ron Fleischer, Randy Rogel, & Tom Ruegger (1993)

Discover America with Wakko Warner from Animaniacs.

As I’ve said before, learning should be fun!

Wakko’s America is a song from Episode 21 of Animaniacs. Like Yakko’s World, it is a geographical patter song, this one listing each of the United States of America and their respective capitals. The song is framed as Wakko’s answer to a Jeopardy! Daily Double question asked in a lesson taught by Miss Flamiel, which Wakko ultimately gets wrong because he does not phrase his answer in the form of a question. The music is Turkey in the Straw, with lyrics written by Randy Rogel. The song is the eighth track on the album Yakko’s World.

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Rusty Mills & Randy Rogel (1993)

Take a trip around the world with Yakko Warner.

Learning should be fun!

Yakko’s World is a song from Episode 2, which features the animated shorts Yakko’s World, Cookies For Einstein, and Win Big, and probably the most famous of their songs. In the song, Yakko names all of the nations of the world at that time. A clip of the sing-along version of this song has been viewed more than ten million times on YouTube. To this day, Rob Paulsen, the voice of Yakko, never misses an opportunity to perform this song live, rarely with error.

The song was written by Randy Rogel, a writer from Batman: The Animated Series and Animaniacs, whose son was studying geography. When he saw that “United States, Canada” rhymed with “Mexico, Panama,” he got to work on the lyrics and sent the song to Animaniacs. The music is that of the “Jarabe Tapatío,” better known as the Mexican Hat Dance tune, a traditional Mexican song.

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Tom Ruegger (2020)

The 2020 revival of Animaniacs is an upcoming animated slapstick comedy series for Hulu.

The Warner siblings — Yakko and Wakko, and the Warner sister Dot — have a great time wreaking havoc and mayhem in the lives of everyone they meet. After returning to their beloved home (the Warner Bros. Water Tower), the Animaniacs waste no time in causing chaos and comic confusion as they run loose through the studio and beyond, turning the world into their personal playground. Joining Yakko, Wakko and Dot, fan-favorite characters Pinky and the Brain will also return to continue their quest for world domination in each of the 13 episodes.