MB Civic

I don’t know about you, but I grew up watching all sorts of cartoons.
From Steamboat Willie to Quickdraw McGraw, but I have to say (with exception of the very early Popeye cartoons and in more recent history, Rockie & Bullwinkle) that the Warner Brothers cartoons were the very best.
And so with that, here is a short history.
By the way-if you ever get the chance (and you don’t already own the music) put on one of these cartoons and shut down the video and listen carefully to the music bed.

It is unbelieveable! Every note, every sound effect, was written out and performed by the orchestra in the studio-no tricks, no digital technology…this was live baby-live!!!!

Warner Bros. Cartoons, Inc. was the in-house division of Warner Bros. Pictures during the Golden Age of American animation. One of the most successful animation studios in American media history, Warner Bros. Cartoons was primarily responsible for the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies theatrical cartoon short subjects. The characters featured in these cartoons, including Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Speedy Gonzales, Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner, are among the most famous and recognizable characters in the world.

Many of the creative staff members at the studio, including directors and animators such as Chuck Jones, Friz Freleng, Robert McKimson, Tex Avery, Robert Clampett, and Frank Tashlin, are considered major figures in the art and history of traditional animation.

The Warner animation division was founded in 1933 as Leon Schlesinger Productions, an independent company which produced the popular Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies animated short subjects for release by Warner Bros. Pictures. In 1944, Schlesinger sold the studio to Warner Bros., who continued to operate it as Warner Bros. Cartoons, Inc. until 1963. Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies were briefly subcontracted to Freleng’s DePatie-Freleng Enterprises studio from 1964 until 1967. The Warner Bros. Cartoons studio briefly re-opened in 1967 before shutting its doors for good two years later.

A successor company, Warner Bros. Animation, was established in 1980. That company continues to produce Looney Tunes related works, in addition to television shows and feature films centering around other properties. The classic Warner Bros. animation studio is sometimes referred to as “Termite Terrace”, a name given to the temporary headquarters Tex Avery and his animators were assigned to during Avery’s first year as a Looney Tunes director

1930 – 1933: Harman-Ising Productions
Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising originated the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of animated short subjects in 1930 and 1931, respectively. Both cartoon series were produced for Leon Schlesinger at the Harman-Ising Studio on Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California, with Warner Bros. Pictures releasing the films to theaters. The first Looney Tunes character was the Harman-Ising creation Bosko, The Talk-ink Kid. Despite the fact that Bosko was popular among theater audiences, he could never match the popularity of Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse, or even Max Fleischer’s Betty Boop. In 1933, Harman and Ising parted company with Schlesinger over financial disputes, and took Bosko with them to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. As a result, Schlesinger set up his own studio on the Warner Bros. lot on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood.

1933 – 1944: Leon Schlesinger Productions
Leon Schlesinger Productions studio Former Leon Schlesinger-Warner Bros. Cartoons studio 2003 The Schlesinger studio got off to a slow start, continuing their one-shot Merrie Melodies and introducing a Bosko replacement named Buddy into the Looney Tunes. Disney animator Tom Palmer was the studio’s first senior director, but after the three cartoons he made were deemed to be of unacceptable quality and rejected by the studio, former Harman-Ising animator Isadore “Friz” Freleng was called in to replace Palmer and rework his cartoons. The studio then formed the three-unit structure that it would retain throughout most of its history, with one of the units headed by Ben “Bugs” Hardaway, and the other by Earl Duvall, who was replaced by Jack King a year later.