99 Fun Facts About Looney Tunes

The title Looney Tunes was inspired by which Disney cartoon series?

Silly Symphonies, Disney's music-driven series, inspired the name; Warner's shorts began as a way to plug songs from its music-publishing arm.

After Warner closed its cartoon studio in 1963, Friz Freleng co-founded a company that created which character for a film's opening titles?

The Pink Panther was drawn for the opening titles of the 1963 comedy, then spun off into cartoons of his own; the first, The Pink Phink, won DePatie-Freleng an Oscar.

Which character, created by Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising, was the first recurring star of Looney Tunes in 1930?

Bosko starred in the first Looney Tunes shorts until 1933, when his creators quit in a budget dispute and took the rights to him with them.

Which 1940 Tex Avery short is considered the first official Bugs Bunny cartoon?

A Wild Hare (July 1940) gave Bugs his settled design, Mel Blanc's standard voice and the first 'What's up, Doc?'; a prototype rabbit had appeared in Porky's Hare Hunt (1938).

Which New York borough's accent does Bugs Bunny speak with?

Brooklyn is the borough usually named for Bugs's accent, with a trace of the Bronx; his fast-talking manner owes something to Oscar Shapely, a salesman in It Happened One Night (1934).

Where did Tex Avery pick up the phrase 'What's up, Doc?' that he gave to Bugs?

His school in Texas used 'What's up, Doc?' as everyday slang, so Avery thought nothing of the line; the joke was a rabbit greeting an armed hunter that casually.

Which 1958 short is the only Bugs Bunny cartoon to win the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film?

Knighty Knight Bugs sends court jester Bugs to take the Singing Sword back from Yosemite Sam's Black Knight, whose sneezing dragon ends up trapped with him in a tower full of explosives.

In which 1937 short did Daffy Duck first appear?

Porky's Duck Hunt (April 1937), directed by Tex Avery, introduced Daffy as an unhinged black duck who bounces across the lake hooting 'Hoo-hoo!'

By one animator's later account, what name did the team first want for Daffy Duck before their producer objected?

Dizzy Duck was to honour pitcher Dizzy Dean; the producer said it sounded 'as if he's going to faint', so the team borrowed the nickname of Dean's brother Daffy instead.

According to an oft-repeated studio story, whose lisp was the model for Daffy Duck's voice?

Producer Leon Schlesinger lisped, and studio legend made him the model; Mel Blanc's memoir disagreed, reasoning that a bill that long would simply get in the way of a duck's s sounds.

Which character, introduced in 1935, is the oldest continuing Looney Tunes star?

Porky Pig debuted as a stuttering schoolboy reciting 'Paul Revere's Ride' in I Haven't Got a Hat (1935), one of a classroom of new characters tried out to see who would catch on.

Which Looney Tunes line did voice actor Mel Blanc ask in his will to have carved on his gravestone?

'That's all, folks!' is the epitaph on Blanc's marker in Hollywood; earlier Looney Tunes stars had spoken the sign-off straight before he began stuttering it in 1937.

What is the name of the 1937 song used as the Looney Tunes theme?

'The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down' was a 1937 pop song by Cliff Friend and Dave Franklin; the cartoons open with its tune alone, though Daffy Duck sings a version of it in a 1938 short.

Which director created Tweety in the 1942 short A Tale of Two Kitties?

Bob Clampett directed A Tale of Two Kitties, in which cats Babbit and Catstello, modelled on Abbott and Costello, hunt a surprisingly aggressive early Tweety.

What is Sylvester the Cat's trademark exclamation?

'Sufferin' succotash!' is Sylvester's spluttering catchphrase, which Daffy Duck borrows now and then; Mel Blanc said the cat's voice was the closest to his own, minus the lisp.

How many Academy Awards did cartoons starring Sylvester win, the most for any Looney Tunes character?

Three Sylvester shorts won the Academy Award, including Tweetie Pie (1947) and Birds Anonymous (1957); Tweety shared two of those wins.

Which voice actress played Granny for almost 60 years after taking over from Bea Benaderet?

June Foray took over Granny in 1955 after Bea Benaderet originated the part; director Chuck Jones quipped that she was not the female Mel Blanc, because Blanc was the male June Foray.

In which 1949 short did Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner first appear?

Fast and Furry-ous (1949), directed by Chuck Jones, launched the desert chase and its running gag of mock-Latin species names: the coyote is billed as Carnivorous Vulgaris.

From which fictional company does Wile E. Coyote mail-order his contraptions?

One of Chuck Jones's rules was that no outside force could harm the coyote, only his own ineptitude or the failure of Acme products.

The Road Runner's 'beep, beep' began as a Warner background artist's imitation of what, first made in the studio hallways?

A car horn was what painter Paul Julian mimicked around the studio; his recordings, not a voice actor's, were reused for the Road Runner for decades, and he was never credited on screen.

Which Looney Tunes character took his catchphrase 'That's a joke, son' from a Southern senator on 1940s radio?

Foghorn Leghorn borrowed the line from Senator Claghorn, Kenny Delmar's blustery politician on Fred Allen's radio show; Delmar had taken it from a rancher who gave him a lift when he was hitchhiking.

Which director created Foghorn Leghorn and the Tasmanian Devil?

Robert McKimson created both, basing Taz on the real Tasmanian devil's voracious appetite and surly temper; as an animator he had earlier drawn the definitive Bugs Bunny model sheet.

Marvin's helmet and skirt copy the armour of which Roman god?

Mars, the Roman war god, supplied the crested helmet and skirt; Marvin first appeared in Haredevil Hare (1948) and went unnamed on screen until 1979.

Which Looney Tunes character, later a merchandising star with his own 1990s series, appeared in only five original theatrical shorts?

The Tasmanian Devil made so few because producer Edward Selzer shelved him as too obnoxious, until studio boss Jack Warner, citing boxes of fan letters, ordered him back.

What is the name of the black cat with a painted white stripe whom Pepé Le Pew pursues?

Penelope Pussycat usually gets her white stripe by accident, for instance squeezing under a freshly painted fence, which fools Pepé into thinking she is a skunk.

Which Pepé Le Pew short won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short?

For Scent-imental Reasons (1949), directed by Chuck Jones, won the Academy Award; at its end the roles reverse, and a blue-painted Pepé is chased by a smitten cat.

Which director is Yosemite Sam said to have been modelled on?

Friz Freleng introduced Sam in Hare Trigger (1945) as a tougher foe for Bugs, and once admitted being the model: he had the same temper, small size and, in earlier days, a red moustache.

Many animation historians say Elmer Fudd evolved from which earlier Tex Avery character?

Egghead debuted in 1937 with a bulbous nose; Warner publicity billed an early Elmer as his brother, and historian Michael Barrier disputes the link, arguing that the two were always distinct characters.

Which Looney Tunes character did Cartoon Network keep off the air over stereotype concerns until fan campaigns brought him back in 2002?

Speedy Gonzales was shelved as an ethnic stereotype, but many of the fans who campaigned for him were Hispanic themselves, and the network put his shorts back on the air.

Sylvester keeps mistaking Hippety Hopper for a giant mouse, but what kind of animal is Hippety really?

A baby kangaroo, Hippety usually escapes from a zoo or circus; Sylvester decides he is a giant mouse and is kicked, punched and spun around for his trouble.

For which short did Chuck Jones first receive an Oscar in his own name?

The Dot and the Line, made at MGM in 1965, brought Jones his first statuette; earlier awards for his Warner cartoons went to producer Edward Selzer.

Which Dr. Seuss TV special did Chuck Jones direct in 1966?

How the Grinch Stole Christmas! reunited Jones with Dr. Seuss, his partner on the wartime Private Snafu army cartoons made at Warner; the author was reluctant at first, then agreed.

Which puppet show did the director who created Tweety make after leaving Warner?

Time for Beany (1949-55), the ex-Warner director's puppet series about a boy and a seasick sea serpent, was later revived as an animated series.

What nickname was Mel Blanc known by?

The Man of a Thousand Voices was Mel Blanc's billing; lying in a coma after a 1961 car crash, he finally answered when a doctor addressed him as Bugs Bunny, replying in the rabbit's voice.

Which two Looney Tunes characters did Mel Blanc take over from Joe Dougherty and Arthur Q. Bryan?

Porky Pig and Elmer Fudd: Joe Dougherty's stutter was real and uncontrollable, so sessions ran for hours and Blanc replaced him in 1937; he took on Elmer after Arthur Q. Bryan died in 1959.

A persistent legend says Mel Blanc was allergic to what?

Carrots were the subject of the legend, which Blanc denied; he bit one for the crunch, then spat it straight into a spittoon so he could carry on with Bugs's next line.

In the mid-1930s, how did Merrie Melodies differ from its sister series Looney Tunes?

It emphasised one-shot colour films because each Merrie Melodie was built to showcase a song Warner owned, so it needed no recurring star; Looney Tunes stayed in black and white until 1943.

Which composer's operas does What's Opera, Doc? (1957) parody?

Wagner's Ring cycle, The Flying Dutchman and Tannhäuser are all sent up in six minutes, with Elmer as Siegfried singing 'Kill the wabbit!' to the Ride of the Valkyries.

In Duck Amuck (1953), who keeps changing Daffy Duck's scenery, costume and even his voice?

An unseen animator erases and repaints Daffy's world with brush and pencil; the final shot pulls back to reveal Bugs Bunny at the drawing board, asking 'Ain't I a stinker?'

Which Rossini overture scores Bugs and Elmer's 1950 operatic chase through an amphitheatre?

The Barber of Seville overture drives Rabbit of Seville, set at the Hollywood Bowl; it ends with Bugs marrying Elmer, carrying him up to the rafters and dropping him into a wedding cake.

Which two shorts complete Chuck Jones's hunting trilogy begun by 1951's Rabbit Fire?

Rabbit Seasoning and Duck! Rabbit, Duck! follow Rabbit Fire, which ends with Bugs and Daffy tearing 'Rabbit Season' and 'Duck Season' signs off a tree until one reads 'Elmer Season'.

Which singing amphibian stars in One Froggy Evening (1955) and later became the mascot of The WB network?

Michigan J. Frog sings 'Hello! Ma Baby' only for whoever holds his box; nightclub singer Bill Roberts supplied the uncredited voice.

What name was eventually given to the big orange hairy monster in tennis shoes introduced in Hair-Raising Hare (1946)?

Gossamer went unnamed in his debut, where Bugs plays manicurist and dips his claws into mousetraps; a 1952 short called him Rudolph, and the lasting name arrived only in 1980.

Ralph Wolf and Sam Sheepdog treat their rivalry as what?

A nine-to-five job with a time clock: they punch in, trade blows until the lunch whistle, and punch out politely; Ralph is Wile E. Coyote's design with a red nose.

Which basketball star teams up with the Looney Tunes in Space Jam (1996)?

Michael Jordan is pulled down a golf hole mid-round with Bill Murray and Larry Bird; Murray, hired only for the golf scene, asked to join the big game too and turns up to fill the last spot.

In Space Jam, what are the aliens called after they steal the talent of NBA players?

The Monstars are the tiny Nerdlucks after absorbing five NBA stars' talent; they dominate the first half, until Bugs passes off a bottle of water as 'secret stuff' to rally the Tune Squad.

Which character made her debut in Space Jam?

Lola Bunny was created for Space Jam (1996) as a female merchandising counterpart to Bugs, one author has said; an earlier girlfriend, Honey Bunny, had appeared in comics since the 1960s.

Which NBA star headlines Space Jam: A New Legacy (2021)?

LeBron James plays himself, trapped in the Warner 'Serververse' by Don Cheadle's algorithm Al-G Rhythm, and has to win a basketball game to get his son Dom back.

Which actor stars alongside Bugs and Daffy in Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003)?

Brendan Fraser plays a would-be stuntman who joins Bugs and Daffy in Joe Dante's spy spoof; Steve Martin's chairman plots to turn everyone into monkeys with the Blue Monkey diamond.

In which 1990s series did young characters train at a 'Looniversity' to become Looney Tunes?

Tiny Toon Adventures (1990-92) was executive-produced by Steven Spielberg, who wanted its young stars modelled on the classic characters without being their relatives.

In Animaniacs, where were the Warner siblings Yakko, Wakko and Dot locked away?

The studio water tower on the Warner lot held the trio from the 1930s, the story goes, because their cartoons were judged too zany to release; they break out decades later.

What was the title of the very first Looney Tunes short?

Sinkin' in the Bathtub, a pun on the song 'Singin' in the Bathtub', opened the series; Harman and Ising's 1929 pilot had won them the contract.

Which pint-sized Looney Tunes predator sets out to catch his first chicken and keeps running into Foghorn Leghorn?

Henery Hawk, a tiny chickenhawk, debuted alone in 1942; it was his second cartoon, Walky Talky Hawky (1946), that introduced both Foghorn Leghorn and the Barnyard Dawg.

In a running gag, Bugs Bunny tunnels to the wrong place and says he should have turned left at which city?

Albuquerque first took the blame in Herr Meets Hare (1945), when Bugs, heading for Las Vegas, surfaces in Germany's Black Forest instead.

In 1967, Warner Bros.-Seven Arts had dozens of black-and-white shorts redrawn in colour by a studio in which country?

South Korea was where the black-and-white originals were traced onto new cels and repainted; the redrawn versions ran in TV syndication into the early 1990s.

Which cable channel ran a Looney Tunes package from 1988 until the shorts moved to Cartoon Network in 1999?

Nickelodeon took the cartoons that the bigger network and syndicated packages left out, so its 1988-99 run revived black-and-white shorts that had not aired in years.

Which US institution honoured Bugs Bunny in 1997 with the first of five Looney Tunes commemorative issues?

The US Postal Service worked through more than 40 sketches before issuing its Bugs Bunny stamp in May 1997; a mailbox ties together all five stamps in the series.

Which 2015 Bugs Bunny series started out under the title Wabbit before being renamed?

New Looney Tunes took that name for its second season, when the makers widened the focus from Bugs to the rest of the classic cast; the last episodes came out in January 2020.

Which company acquired the North American theatrical rights to The Day the Earth Blew Up in 2024?

Ketchup Entertainment picked up the Daffy Duck feature after it was written off at HBO Max, where it had been due to premiere, and sent it to cinemas instead.

Before censors objected to his look, Tweety was drawn in which colour instead of yellow?

Pink was the bare skin of a featherless baby bird in Tweety's first three cartoons. The studio then painted him yellow so that he would seem to be covered in feathers.

Marvin the Martian keeps trying to blow up the Earth because it blocks his view of which planet?

Venus is the view he wants cleared, and the space modulator he means to do it with looks suspiciously like a stick of dynamite.

Which US military branch made Bugs Bunny an honorary master sergeant after the short Super-Rabbit?

The Marines were so pleased when Bugs marched off in their dress blue uniform at the end of the cartoon that they signed him up, dog tags and all.

Which comedian, seen golfing early in Space Jam (1996), turns up to play in the final basketball game?

Bill Murray was booked only for the golf scene, then asked to join the big game once he saw how the cartoon sequences were being filmed.

In Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Daffy of Looney Tunes fights a piano duel against which Disney character?

Donald Duck and Daffy had to appear as equally talented pianists, a condition the two studios set when they lent their stars to the film.

Bugs Bunny was the second cartoon character given a Hollywood Walk of Fame star, after which one?

Mickey Mouse got there first, but Bugs holds a record of his own: he has appeared in more films than any other cartoon character.

Bugs Bunny's habit of talking with his mouth full came from which star's scene in It Happened One Night?

Clark Gable eats while he talks in one scene of the 1934 comedy, and three Warner directors each named that moment as the model for Bugs.

Chuck Jones made a Bugs Bunny short after producer Eddie Selzer declared that which sport was not funny?

Bullfighting was ruled out for no reason anyone could see, so Jones, who thought the producer was wrong about everything, made Bully for Bugs to prove it.

After leaving Warner Bros. in the 1960s, Chuck Jones made new shorts starring which famous chase duo?

Tom and Jerry were handed to Sib Tower 12, the company Jones started after Warner, which made their cartoons for MGM from 1963 to 1967.

In the short Baseball Bugs, Bugs Bunny makes the final catch from the top of which New York landmark?

The Empire State Building, relabelled the Umpire State Building for the gag, is where he catches the ball, and the umpire follows him up to call the out.

Which animal is Pepé Le Pew, the French romantic who mistakes a paint-striped cat for his own kind?

A skunk, and one with a real-life model: Chuck Jones based his personality on the writer Tedd Pierce, a self-styled ladies' man who assumed every crush was returned.

Which kind of pet bird is Tweety, the cage-dweller that Sylvester the cat keeps trying to eat?

A canary is what the theme song of The Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries calls him, though some cartoons treat him as a rare, one-of-a-kind 'tweety bird' to drive the plot.

Which Disney film does Warner's A Corny Concerto parody, in two segments set to Strauss waltzes?

Fantasia is the target: a scruffy host in an ill-fitting tailcoat stands in for Deems Taylor, the music critic who introduced Disney's film on screen.

In Hillbilly Hare, Bugs Bunny makes two feuding brothers pummel each other by calling the steps to what?

A square dance does it: Bugs unplugs the jukebox, picks up a fiddle and calls ever more violent steps, which the brothers follow without question.

In the wartime short Falling Hare, which creature outwits Bugs Bunny aboard an American bomber?

A gremlin gets the better of him, and the short later escaped its owners too: nobody renewed the copyright in 1971, so it fell into the public domain.

Mel Blanc was voicing which Flintstones character when a car crash put him in a coma in 1961?

Barney Rubble had a stand-in for only a few episodes: the producers then set up microphones in Blanc's hospital room, and he recorded flat on his back in a full-body cast.

Before signing exclusively with Warner Bros., Mel Blanc created the laugh of which Walter Lantz character?

Woody Woodpecker kept Blanc's laugh until 1951, a decade after an exclusive Warner contract made him give up the part.

Which deadpan basset hound did Tex Avery create at MGM after leaving the Warner cartoon studio?

Droopy, first called Happy Hound, was the slow-talking dog who always won in the end. Avery had walked out on the Warner cartoons after a quarrel over one short's ending.

Daffy Duck's Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century spoofs which science-fiction hero of pulps and comic strips?

Buck Rogers was the target, and George Lucas loved the spoof so much that he arranged for it to play before Star Wars at a San Francisco cinema.

As a pianist in Rhapsody Rabbit, Bugs Bunny plays the Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 by which composer?

Franz Liszt was a Warner favourite: five years earlier the Oscar-nominated Rhapsody in Rivets had set a whole cartoon to the same piece.

What nickname did Tex Avery's unit give the small building on the Warner lot where it made cartoons?

Termite Terrace housed the unit for only about a year, yet the name stuck to the whole Warner cartoon department long after the building was condemned and torn down.

Which Raymond Scott tune became the music for conveyor belts and assembly lines in Warner cartoons?

Powerhouse began life in 1937 as a piece for Raymond Scott's own band and reached its first Warner cartoon six years later. Scott was never hired to compose for animation at all.

Which former Disney composer wrote a Warner cartoon score roughly every week for 22 years?

Carl Stalling was improvising on a cinema organ in Kansas City when a young Walt Disney heard him and asked him to accompany his films.

In which Oscar-winning short does Sylvester try to give up chasing Tweety for good?

Birds Anonymous was reputedly the Warner short that Mel Blanc, the voice of its craving cat, was proudest of in his whole career.

Which short, the first to pair Tweety with Sylvester, won Warner Bros. its first cartoon Oscar?

Tweetie Pie broke a rival cat-and-mouse team's run of four straight wins in the category, and gave the studio a pairing it reused for decades.

Which American network launched The Bugs Bunny Show as a prime-time series on Tuesday evenings in 1960?

ABC packaged three theatrical shorts per half hour with newly animated linking scenes, and versions of the show stayed on American television until 2000.

The Warner short Three Little Bops retells the Three Little Pigs with the pigs as a band playing what?

Jazz fills the whole soundtrack, comedian Stan Freberg narrates in jive talk, and the insulted wolf blows down the straw house with a trumpet.

Which swashbuckling star appears in a live-action clip as Robin Hood at the end of Bugs Bunny's Rabbit Hood?

Errol Flynn swings in through footage from his 1938 film, just after Bugs has scoffed at the idea that Robin Hood exists at all.

A caricature of which film tough guy keeps asking Bugs Bunny for a handout in the short 8 Ball Bunny?

Humphrey Bogart is drawn as the scruffy drifter he played in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, and the cartoon was later included as an extra on that film's DVD.

In 1992, which honours list of significant American movies chose the Bugs Bunny short What's Opera, Doc?

The National Film Registry is the Library of Congress's preservation list. Two years after joining it in 1992, the short topped a poll of the 50 greatest cartoons ever made.

Which bungling soldier starred in the training cartoons Warner directors made for troops in World War II?

Private Snafu taught by bad example, blundering through lessons on secrecy, sanitation and booby traps, with Mel Blanc supplying his voice.

Which 1950s movie craze led Warner Bros. to shut its cartoon studio for five months in 1953?

3-D films looked too costly to animate, so the studio closed its doors, and only one Warner cartoon was ever made that way: Lumber Jack-Rabbit, starring Bugs.

In Long-Haired Hare, Bugs Bunny leads an orchestra disguised as which conductor, famous for shunning the baton?

Leopold Stokowski conducted with his bare hands, so Bugs makes a point of snapping the baton in half and tossing it away before he begins.

Which Hollywood legend narrated Bugs Bunny: Superstar, the 1975 documentary about the Warner cartoon studio?

Orson Welles was a friend of the director, who at first meant the linking scenes to be a spoof of Citizen Kane.

In Ali Baba Bunny, Bugs and Daffy tunnel into a treasure cave while heading for which Californian seaside town?

Pismo Beach is where Bugs finally surfaces at the very end, and he finds a pearl in a clam there, after a long detour through the Arabian desert.

Bugs Bunny got his name when a model sheet was labelled for the unit of which director, nicknamed Bugs?

Ben Hardaway drew the early rabbit so poorly, by one colleague's account, that a designer made a fresh model sheet and titled it for his unit. The label stuck to the character.

Which impressionist became the first performer to voice Bugs Bunny after Mel Blanc's death in 1989?

Jeff Bergman won the job with a tape that switched back and forth between his Bugs and Blanc's, and the Warner executive listening could not tell them apart.

Which 1935 song, co-written by Eddie Cantor, became the theme tune of Looney Tunes' sister cartoon series?

Merrily We Roll Along opened Merrie Melodies from the 1936 season onwards, and six decades later it played over the end credits of The Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries.

In Space Jam (1996), the aliens plan to enslave the Looney Tunes as attractions for what kind of failing business?

An amusement park called Moron Mountain is in decline out in space, so its boss sends his pint-sized henchmen to Earth to bring back some new star turns.

In The Great Piggy Bank Robbery, Daffy dreams of being a hard-boiled spoof of which comic-strip detective?

Dick Tracy is the comic Daffy is so desperate to read that he knocks himself out, and this was the one Daffy parody in which he is actually good at the job.