Looney Tunes (Western Animation) - TV Tropes
Daffy Duck — "Porky's Duck Hunt" : 1937, Avery. Was originally a screwball / Cloud Cuckoo Lander , later Flanderized into a jerkass with an enormous ego . In this incarnation, he's used either to parody action-adventure heroes , or paired up and serving as a foil for Bugs in an Odd Couple scenario. Later also joined Sylvester on the hunt for Speedy Gonzales. First named in the short " Daffy Duck and Egghead ".
Granny — "Little Red Walking Hood" 1937, Avery. A kind, elderly woman most remembered as Tweety's owner, and who packed a hidden amount of badass-ery when inflicting pain on Sylvester when he tried to catch Tweety.
Elmer Fudd — " Elmer's Candid Camera ", 1940, Jones. One of only three humans in the regular cast, the others being Yosemite Sam and Tweety's owner Granny. The Butt Monkey , often Too Dumb to Live . An avid hunter, thus Jones' favourite adversary for both Bugs & Daffy, reaching a peak in the iconic Rabbit Season trilogy. Less popular with the other directors — particularly Freleng — who found him too wimpy. To compensate, the other directors often made Elmer crafty in their pictures; see "Quack Shot" by Robert McKimson, where he's one step ahead of Daffy the entire cartoon, and "Hare Brush" by Friz Freleng, where it's debatable that he faked being insane in order to both avoid the IRS and get revenge on Bugs Bunny. Surprisingly, Elmer didn't appear as frequently as most people think, only encountering Bugs in over 30 pictures out of Bugs' 168 short lineup.
Note that there is some controversy over when exactly Elmer debuted, depending on whether or not you count Egghead, who was called "Elmer" in some of his later cartoons.
Bugs Bunny — " A Wild Hare ", 1940, various, notably Avery . A famous, snide, Brookyln/Bronx-accented Karmic Trickster and cultural icon. For decades, always considered the "main character" and "star" of the core cast.
As with Elmer, there is some controversy over whether Bugs debuted earlier, with the prime suspects being four cartoons by Ben "Bugs" Hardaway and Jones, including "Elmer's Candid Camera". However, the rabbit in those cartoons is basically Daffy with rabbit ears, and "A Wild Hare" is the first cartoon featuring a rabbit that is recognizably Bugs.
In the third and fourth of the pre-"Wild Hare" cartoons, the formative rabbit was in fact advertised as Bugs Bunny by the studio; take that for what you will. (As for where the name came from, take your pick: the initial model sheet for the character, by Charles Thornson, was supposedly labeled "Bugs' bunny," ie. director Ben 'Bugs' Hardaway. Mel Blanc would later claim he came up with the name at the same time as the voice — 'bugs' being Brooklyn slang for 'crazy'. Still another version has the name drawn from a hat by Leon Schlesinger's secretary. Tex Avery, meanwhile, just wanted to call him "Jack E. Rabbit".)
Tweety Bird — "A Tale of Two Kitties", 1942, Clampett. "I tawt I taw a puddy tat!" In Bob Clampett 's hands, Tweety was a pink, sadistic trickster who used his wits to get rid of cats. Under Friz Freleng , Tweety became yellow (the Hays Office balked because the pink made him look naked), found a recurring adversary in Sylvester, and often depended on an umbrella-wielding Granny or an angry bulldog to get rid of the "bad old puddy tat". Time has seen modern generations often mistake Tweety for a female (this doesn't happen in Spanish-speaking countries, as its local name, "Piolín", is unequivocally male).
Pepe Le Pew — "Odor-Able Kitty", 1945, Jones. A Funny Foreigner and Handsome Lech , completely oblivious to his body odor problem... and thus to why all the pretty 'young ladiee skonks' keep running from him in disgust. Of course, the fact that they're nearly all actually cats, unaware that they've had white stripes painted on their backs, doesn't help either. Can at times be a Depraved Bisexual : Pepé has gone after a male cat who was painted up as a skunk in his first cartoon, a white-striped Sylvester at the end of 1954's "Dog Pounded", and accidentally made out with a man on a Tunnel of Love ride in 1951's "Scent-imental Romeo." Based in part on characters made famous by actor Charles Boyer.
Sylvester the Cat — "Life With Feathers", 1945, Freleng. A cat with a speech impediment who usually tries to eat Tweety or Speedy Gonzales, with little success, making him a mild version of the Villain Protagonist . One of the most versatile of the ensemble, prone to neuroses and usually the star of the comic melodramas. In Robert McKimson's hands, slobby Sylvester has a hyper-articulate son named Sylvester, Jr., whom Dad tries to impress by chasing what turns out to be a baby kangaroo; when he retreats gibbering at the "giant mouse!" Junior is mortified. Also known for a trio of spooky cartoons in which he is Porky Pig's pet, where, despite being The Voiceless for these shorts, Sylvester attempts to convey to his master that their lives are in danger (twice from murderous mice, once from a curious alien); unfortunately, Porky is Captain Oblivious for most of this, believing Sylvester to be cowardly and paranoid, and only in the first short of the trio does he realize the truth.
Yosemite Sam — "Hare Trigger", 1945, Freleng. A brash little outlaw with handlebar mustachios and a severe temper problem, introduced as 'a more worthy adversary' for Bugs than the meek Elmer. Said to be a caricature of his short, brash, redheaded creator. Introduced as a Wild West bandit, he eventually became the stock blowhard villain character: Civil War general, Viking, pirate, Black Knight (no Python references please), politician, Arab sheik, etc. Oddly enough, he wears his bandit mask no matter what role he plays. Said to have been inspired by Chuck Jones' great-uncle, a short, redheaded retired Texas Ranger.
Foghorn Leghorn — "Walky Talky Hawky", 1946, McKimson. A loud, obnoxious rooster with a Southern accent, based on Kenny Delmar's 'Senator Claghorn' radio character. Considers himself the life of the party; demonstrates by tricking little Henery Hawk out of capturing him, abusing the barnyard dog by whomping his ass with a wooden board and painting his tongue green, or babysitting a genius chick named Egghead, Jr. in order to cozy up to his widow hen mother.
Marvin The Martian — "Haredevil Hare", 1948, Jones. An Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain who wants to see an Earth-Shattering Kaboom , and is the Trope Namer thereof. Invariably foiled by Bugs. Like the Tasmanian Devil, he only appeared in a handful of shorts from the original shorts, but became popular enough to be featured in nearly every adaptation thereafter. His universe was expanded in the 2000s animated show Duck Dodgers . A CGI film starring Mike Myers as Marvin was planned in 2008 and ultimately shelved.
Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner — "Fast and Furry-ous", 1949, Jones. A speedy bird and the coyote who uses a variety of backfiring Acme Company traps and mail-order gadgets to try to catch him — 'try' being the operative word. The coyote was named in his first face-off against Bugs (Operation: Rabbit), where he became "Wile E. Coyote, Super Genius ". The Road Runner remains mute (aside from his iconic "beep beep!") to this day. Incidentally, Time Warner Cable for a long time used them as the mascot for their "Road Runner" internet service; no longer the case since the company was spun off as independent from Time Warner in 2009.
Speedy Gonzales — "Cat-Tails for Two", 1953, McKimson. Another Funny Foreigner and good-natured Trickster who moves at Super Speed to help his poor Mexican mouse friends get cheese from "el gringo pussygato" (usually Sylvester). Has a lethargic cousin named (inevitably) "Slowpoke Rodriguez" who uses a gun to incapacitate cats instead. For obvious reasons , the Speedy shorts — particularly the late 1960s ones with Daffy as his antagonist — tend not to be received well by animation fans and historians. Ironically, despite being blacklisted for a while in the U.S. for stereotyping, he's the most popular Looney Tunes character in Mexico.
The Tasmanian Devil — "Devil May Hare", 1954, McKimson. The destructive, hurricane-spinning, Extreme Omnivore who talks in Hulk Speak when he talks at all. Though he only appeared in five Golden Age-era cartoons, he is nowadays considered as popular as Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, having been nicknamed Taz and often appearing in merchandise, comic book stories, and even his own TV spinoff ( Taz-Mania ).
Accidental Misnaming : From Hoppy Go Lucky:
Bennie: Are ya gonna show me how to catch mouses in the warehouse, George? Are ya?
Sylvester: Okay, so we're gonna catch mouses in the warehouse. And stop callin' me George! My name is Sylvester.
Bennie: But I can't say Sylvester, George.
Sylvester: Okay, so I'm George.
Accordion Man : Some characters are subject to this.
Accidental Athlete : Happens to Cool Cat in Bugged by a Bee. Subverted in that the bee gets all the credit in the end and not Cool Cat.
Activation Sequence : In "Compressed Hare", Wile E. Coyote activates a 10-billion-volt electromagnet (to catch Bugs Bunny after he eats a fake metal carrot). It takes several seconds to power up the magnet, including activating what appears to be a power generator.
Actor Allusion : Bugs Bunny mentioning Cucamonga is a reference to when Mel Blanc was the announcer on Jack Benny's radio show and would shout, "Train leaving on track five for Anaheim, Azusa and Cucamonga!". It's funny because that's physically impossible for a single train to do.
Adaptation Species Change : There's a short where Goldilocks is a mouse and the Three Bears are replaced with the Three Cats (Sylvester and his family).
Adipose Rex : A lot of the medieval-based Looney Tunes portray their kings as fat (and often Fat Bastards ).
Affably Evil : Marvin the Martian most notably, who was intentionally created to be incredibly dangerous but very softspoken and polite.
Elmer Fudd, on occasion.
"Gowwy, Mr. Wabbit. I hope I didn't hurt you too much when I killed you."
Sylvester the Cat (particularly in the cartoons where he has a son who's constantly ashamed of him)
Wile E. Coyote, in the Suddenly Voiced cartoons where he plays a genius trying to catch Bugs.
"One mustn't be rude, even to one's breakfast."
Agony of the Feet : In "Cheese Chasers," Hubie and Bert, hell-bent on ending their own lives after eating too much cheese, hit Claude's foot with a hammer, trying to provoke him into eating them.
Alan Smithee : There were a few shorts where the director was left uncredited, but not because the work was so bad that the director wanted nothing to do with the project (even Norm McCabe put his name on his cartoons, despite revealing that they were awful years later ). The uncredited Looney Tunes cartoons were mostly due to the director having been fired or quit and WB Studios at the time had a rule stating that only those who were employed were allowed to have their names in the opening credits of the shorts.
There are at least two cartoons that have a true Alan Smithee credit. Both directed by Friz Freleng. "Hollywood Daffy", Freleng refused credit on after Mike Maltese presented the story and gags. Freleng felt the cartoon was too wild and crazy to suit his own style (something Bob Clampett would have directed), but was obligated to direct it anyway. This is why the cartoon has no director's credit. Freleng also isn't credited on "Dough for the Do-Do", a color remake of Bob Clampett's "Porky in Wackyland". Freleng felt it was based on Clampett's idea, and he felt it would be plagiarism if he credited the cartoon as his own.
A correspondent at Facebook says that Freleng was suspended for a month after a run-in with the Warners front office over "Hollywood Daffy" and his refusal to direct it. Hawley Pratt wound up directing it.
1942's "Crazy Cruise" is uncredited; Tex Avery started it, but was fired after the "Heckling Hare Ending" incident. Robert Clampett finished it. Avery is also uncredited on the banned cartoon "All This And Rabbit Stew," which he directed.
Frank Tashlin goes uncredited in "Hare Remover" (1945). He went under "Frank Tash" and "Tish Tash" in his earlier cartoons.
1934's "Those Were Wonderful Days" and "Pettin' in the Park" both credit then-regular musical director Bernard Brown as the actual director of the cartoons, which virtually everyone involved with the studio back then denies was even remotely the case. The most commonly accepted theory is that these were actually the first two cartoons directed by Frank Tashlin, but he had quit the studio (temporarily; he returned the following year) before they were released, resulting in Brown being credited for whatever reason.
Bob Clampett's final short, 1946's The Big Snooze, didn't credit him. However, it's been widely known that he directed it (and even if it wasn't, you could still tell it was his' pretty easily.)
Alcohol Hic : Used in numerous shorts when a character is drunk. Most notably, "High Note", where the drunk note hiccups throughout most of the short as he stumbles around.
Alien Invasion : Bugs accidentally causes an alien apocalypse on Earth at the end of "Hare-way to the Stars".
Bugs: Run for the hills, folks, or you'll be up to your armpits in Martians!
Alliterative Name : Most, if not all of the Looney Tunes characters (Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Road Runner, Porky Pig, Cool Cat, etc).
All Just a Dream : The ending of "Smile, Darn Ya, Smile!", parodied in "The Mouse That Jack Built", plus "Water, Water, Every Hare", "Scrap Happy Daffy" and "The Wearing of the Grin".
"Scrap Happy Daffy" was more of an " Or Was It a Dream? ", considering Daffy wakes to find the goat and a group of nazis stranded at the top of his scrap heap.
"The next time you dream, INCLUDE US OUT!"
"A Cartoonist's Nightmare", as suggested by the title.
"A Waggily Tale" plays with this; Junior wakes up from his nightmare of being a dog and is relieved. He goes to hug his dog, who tells the camera, "That's okay with me, 'cause I'm not a dog, neither. I'm really another little boy having a dream."
Amusing Injuries : A huge part of the series' comedy falls into this category.
Angrish : Yosemite Sam is the rackin-frackin' KING of this trope.
Bugs Bunny goes into an Angrish tirade in Rabbit Rampage before the unseen animator (Elmer) erases his head.
Daffy spouts some angrish in "Fast Buck Duck" after one of his failed attempts to enter the mansion's yard.
He also loses it in Duck Amuck
This seemed to be The Tazmanian Devil's default mode.
Animal Athlete Loophole : Bobo the Elephant in "Gone Batty", Bugs Bunny in " Baseball Bugs ". The latter in particular had Bugs invoke Loophole Abuse everywhere.
Boulevardier From The Bronx (Freleng, 1937) is a baseball film, but the only athletes present are two roosters (Claude and Dizzy Dan) and a turtle as catcher who uses his shell as a chest protector.
The backs of Dan's outfield can be seen prior to the start of the game, a pig is Dan's first strikeout victim, and a dachshund scores an inside-the-park home run.
Animal Nemesis : The "Rabbit Season/Duck Season" cartoons (and some of the Bugs/Elmer cartoons that are a remake of "A Wild Hare") invariably contain variants on this.
Animated Actors : "You Ought To Be In Pictures," "Duck Amuck," "Rabbit Rampage," "This is a Life?", "A Star is Bored," and "Blooper Bunny"
Animated Anthology : The Cartoon Network show, titled The Looney Tunes Show . In addition to a Framing Device , there will be a revival of the original Merrie Melodies concept in the form of two-minute music videos featuring the Looney Tunes themselves, as well as 2½-minute CG Road Runner shorts.
Animation Bump : Just about all of Chuck Jones early shorts, which often have very tight, solid animation (especially shorts like Old Glory ) especially in contrast to the other directors. Bob Clampett shorts (once he was handed Tex Avery 's unit in the 40's) also had some of the most lavish animation in the studios history, and Tex Avery 's shorts were already undergoing this in the early 40's.
Anticlimax : "The Wild Chase" is about Speedy Gonzales and Road Runner racing each other. The cartoon ends with Sylvester and Wile E. Coyote crossing the finish line instead.
Anti-Sneeze Finger : In the short "Frigid Hare", Bugs Bunny stifles an Eskimo's sneeze this way to keep the ice ledge they're on from breaking. And then Bugs sneezes.
Anti-Villain : Elmer Fudd, Sylvester and Wile E. Coyote.
Ant War : "The Fighting 69 1/2th" featured red and black ants fighting over a picnic lunch.
Some ants declare war on Elmer Fudd in "Ant Pasted."
Anvil on Head : An iconic feature of Looney Tunes.
Arch-Enemy : Bugs and Elmer, Sylvester and Tweety, Coyote and Road Runner .
Art Evolution : The earliest shorts had a very strong Disney influence in their animation (no surprise, considering the studio was founded by Harman and Rudolph Ising , as well as Friz Freleng , all of who were former employees of Disney) but in the mid to late 30's Tex Avery and Bob Clampett slowly but surely began trying to veer off into a less Disney like cartoon style. Chuck Jones initially did VERY Disney like shorts with his Sniffles cartoons, until he decided to drop the saccharine stuff and do funny cartoons-and while Bob and Tex had already abandoned most of the Disney-esque art by the 40's, Chuck Jones and Robert McKimson personal art styles wiped out any remaining trace of the original Disney influence that was clinging to the studio at that point.
Character-specific example: Speedy Gonzales, in his 1953 debut, looked much different than the version by Friz Freleng's unit in 1955. The latter design (which downplayed the visual stereotypes like buck teeth and greasy black hair) stuck, and is the one most people remember today.
Robert McKimson 's unit went through a significant art evolution; when he started directing in 1946, his characters had a lot of girth. Around 1950 or 1951, his unit began to slim the characters down; Bugs, for example, actually began to look like the model sheet McKimson himself had created.
Artifact Title : The Merrie Melodies series used to be reserved for the cartoons that were just animated musicals with thin, simplistic plots (in an attempt at copying the "Silly Symphonies" series from Disney). By the late '30s, Merrie Melodies began to feature cartoons that weren't centered around advertising a song from the WB music library. The name difference became even more meaningless in 1944, when Looney Tunes (originally a black and white series) fully switched to color, and recurring characters also began to be used in Merrie Melodies as well. By then, the only difference in the two series was the title and theme music. In fact, Friz Freleng outright commented on the fact that he never initially knew whether the short they'd be creating was a Merrie Melody or a Looney Tune, and it didn't matter anyway.
Artistic License ï¿½ Biology : Roadrunner, Daffy, Tweety, Hatta Mari [the large-chested female pigeon spy from 1944's "Plane Daffy"]
And the Dodo in " Porky in Wackyland " looks nothing like the real thing did.
Lampshaded in Chuck Jones biography "Chuck Amuck", where when he discusses how people have told him that his characters are "realistic", he compares the characters to their real life counterparts, ending with Tweety compared to a real canary, with Jones sheepishly admitting that the only similarity he was able to find being that they're both birds.
Artistic License ï¿½ History : Bugs's account of the American revolution to his nephew Clyde, in "Yankee Doodle Bugs".
Actually, a lot of historical-themed Looney Tunes shorts have this, but get away with it because of the Rule of Funny .
Many shorts relied on Hollywood History , or the overly-patriotic American history taught widely in schools at the time (i.e. giving Christopher Columbus a Historical Hero Upgrade , Native Americans a Historical Villain Upgrade , etc.)
In "Southern Fried Rabbit", Yosemite Sam claims to be holding the Mason Dixon Line, not letting any 'Yankees' across it. When Bugs tells him that the Civil War is long since over, Sam says he's no clock watcher. Later on, he catches some Yankees, but they're actually the New York Yankees — though they were in Chattanooga—so perhaps they were a Yankees minor league affiliate.
The short "Daffy Duck and the Dinosaur", with a caveman set along a dinosaur.
Art Shift : "Bartholomew versus the Wheel" isn't drawn in the typical style (looking more like something from Harold and the Purple Crayon).
Neither is "Senorella and the Glass Huarache," which seems to resemble a mid-60s or '70s De Patie -Freleng cartoons. (Not much of a surprise, as many De Patie -Freleng staff members worked on this short.)
Look at any number of Freleng's cartoons of the 40s and 50s and you'll see contrasting animators styles within each film. In The Wabbit Who Came to Supper (1942) you'll see Jack Bradbury, Cal Dalton and Gerry Chiniquy's styles (Bugs' face in each cartoon is wildly inconsistent); in "Show Biz Bugs" (1956) has Chiniquy, Virgil Ross and Art Davis' styles (less jarring).
Bob Clampett's cartoons even more so, to the extent that Clampett would intentionally play up the contrast of Rod Scribner's loose, wild animation and Robert McKimson 's more subtle, Disney-like animation.
Ascended Fanboy : Bugs Bunny was given the honorary rank of Master Sergeant in the US Marine Corps after the cartoon " Super Rabbit
"
Ash Face : A regular gag whenever firearms or explosions are involved. Sometimes the basis for a Blackface gag.
The Bad Guy Wins : "What's Opera Doc?", though granted Elmer is too remorseful to savour it , and Bugs isn't really dead.
"Fresh Airdale", big time.
"Little Red Riding Rabbit" sort of has one too, in which by the end of the short, even Bugs is getting tired of Red Riding Hood's constant interruptions. He then switches the Big Bad Wolf, who was about to fall onto red hot coals because of all the furniture Bugs threw on him, with Red. Bugs and the Wolf, arms around each other and sharing a carrot, watch proudly as Red soon gets what she deserves.
"Tortoise Beats Hare", "Tortoise Wins by a Hare", and "Rabbit Transit". Though Bugs could also be considered the bad guy, considering how much of a jerk he was to Cecil Turtle in the first place.
Although never shown actually eating his prey, nearly every Henery Hawk short ends with him carrying off Foghorn Leghorn so he can eat him.
Hypo-Chondri-Cat
averted in Fastest with the Mostest
Ralph uses toy balloons to fly in an attempt to snatch a sheep in ''A Sheep In The Deep". Unfortunately for him, Sam has a peashooter.
Banana Peel : Examples include ï¿½Tweet Zoo,ï¿½ ï¿½The Three Little Bops,ï¿½ and ï¿½A Sheep in the Deep.ï¿½
Battle Discretion Shot : Happens near the climatic end of the Bugs Bunny short "Knights Must Fall".
Bat out of Hell : Completely subverted with the bat Sniffles the Mouse meets in "Brave Little Bat". He's drawn almost identical to Sniffles, except he has a pair of tiny wings beneath his arms, and he's downright Adorkable in personality.
Big Ball of Violence
Big Eater : Occurs many times. One such example is the rival chicken in "Cock-a-Doodle Duel" downing dozens of hot dogs at once.
Big Little Man : One short inverts this. Beaky Buzzard finds a small reptile peeking through some rocks. Noting that the creature seems shorter than him, Beaky tries to grab it and take it home for dinner. Turns out "Shorty" is just the small head of a huge dragon.
Big "NO!" : A few shorts have this:
The Chuck Jones Warner Brothers cartoon Duck Amuck :
Daffy: All right. Let's get this picture started.
(iris out and THE END appears)
Daffy: Nooooo! Nooooo!
The Friz Freleng cartoon "Bucaneer Bunny" has Yosemite Sam (a.k.a. Pirate Sam) say a couple of Big No's when Bugs attempts to throw a matchstick inside his pirate ship which is filled with gunpowder.
It is reused in a similarly-themed cartoon "Captain Hareblower".
Also one near the end of the McKimson short "Sleepy Time Possum" in which Paw Possum, disguised as a dog, gets catapulted by his son
Bizarre and Improbable Golf Game : "My Bunny Lies Over the Sea"
Black Comedy : The Chuck Jones shorts are often quite cynical and jaded in their humor, and Jones was quite fond of using Chew Toy characters such as Wile E Coyote, and portraying his interpretations of the characters as more nasty and flawed than the other directors (such as his iconic Straw Loser take on Daffy Duck , turning Bugs into a more veangeful, passive aggressive trickster with somewhat less playfulness, creating Marvin, an alien villain who wants to destroy the earth for blocking his view of Venus, etc.). Even some of his oneshots like Fresh Airedale and Chow Hound run on this. Ironically, as the Looney Tunes franchise ran its course, Jones toned down this aspect of his cartoons to be lighter and sometimes even sentimental in tone.
"Mice Follies" has shades of this; Alice and Trixie are beaten up by a cat who's invaded their home, but because it's in the dark, they think it's their husbands, Crumden and Morton, who are furious at them for staying out too late.
Bloodless Carnage : Despite the high levels of violence in several cartoons, there was never any blood, although Bugs Bunny or Daffy Duck would sometimes cover himself in ketchup pretending that he's bleeding in order to throw off his enemies, squeeze a tomato, or pour red ink (as seen in "Hare Trigger").
Sam: (gets angry, then demurely) Why did you pour ink on my head? (gets angry again)
One particular example is in "The Whizzard of Ow", wherein during the climax, Wile E. Coyote's mode of transportation turns into a crocodile, which proceeds to bite the Coyote's nose off.
Bomb Whistle : Used to punctuate a character, particularly the Coyote, taking a long fall (though there have been exceptions).
Bookends : "Feather Finger" begins and ends with Daffy begging for money.
Daffy: Gifts, donations, charity... ANYTHING!
"The Ducksters" begins with Porky on a conveyor belt headed for a bandsaw; the ending turns the tables by having Daffy on the conveyor belt.
Born in the Theatre : Most Looney Tunes, classic or modern, aired in theaters before they aired on television, and they often have gags messing with the Fourth Wall of Film .
Bowdlerization : When aired on television (and sometimes, home video — usually gray-market, public domain videos; the official release videos and DVDs try to make it as uncut as possible. If there are any missing scenes, it's because some of those scenes were lost long ago), a lot of the violent and politically-incorrect scenes and gags will be altered or cut. There's a website dedicated to tracking down what cartoons were edited and what channel edited them: [1]
Box-and-Stick Trap : On Bugs Bunny's first regular appearance, A Wild Hare , Elmer uses such a trap to try and get Bugs, but catches a Smelly Skunk instead.
Elmer tries it again in "Hare Remover". Bugs finds the trap amusing ("My grandfather told me about these things, but I never thought I'd see one.") and decides to humor Elmer and get trapped, since he went to such trouble to make one.
Elmer uses the trap a third time in "Pests for Guests", this time on the Goofy Gophers Mac and Tosh. As soon as the trap falls, the sounds of a car driving are heard from inside, followed by a loud car crash. An alarmed Elmer lifts the box to see what happened, accidentally letting the gophers out.
Wile E. Coyote often tried the deadfall trap on the Roadrunner, and at least once on Bugs. You can probably guess how those turned out.
Breaking the Fourth Wall : The damage done to it ranges from large cracks to pulverizing it to a fine powder. On more than one occasion, near the end of a cartoon, the film suddenly breaks, leaving the screen white. A character from the cartoon then steps out onto the white screen and says, "Ladies and gentlemen, due to circumstances beyond our control, we are unable to continue with this picture."
Breakout Character : THE WHOLE SERIES has lived and breathed this trope. It all started with Friz's Batman Gambit in 1935 to jump start Leon's ailing cartoon studio with several new cartoon characters in the short "I Haven't Got A Hat"-two pups named Ham and Ex, Kitty, Oliver Owl, Beans the Cat and Porky Pig. Porky was an instant hit with audiences, even though the studio thought for some reason that Beans would be the studio's next bankable star-but he too quickly faded into obscurity while Porky became the studio's star—THEN, two more stars broke out from Porky's cartoons-a little Daffy Duck from "Porky's Duck Hunt" and the Bugs Bunny prototype "Happy Hare/Bugs' Bunny" from "Porky's Hare Hunt", "Hare-Um Scare-Um" and "Presto-Change-O." Oh, and Bugs Bunny himself obviously.
The Tasmanian Devil, despite only appearing in five of the original shorts, became immensely popular due to later spin-offs and merchandising. Essentially nearly every mainstream character was decided this way, having usually been cast as a one-timer or side role alongside a an intended star before becoming popular with the audience.
Brick Joke : Lots of Looney Tunes cartoons will have gags/characters that don't really add to the story until the big punchline later in the film. A lot of Road Runner cartoons run on this (a perfect example is a retractable wall from "Stop, Look and Hasten" (1954, Jones)). An example from "Little Red Walking Hood" (1938, Avery), which had Egghead walking past the action randomly:
Wolf: Hey, bud. Just a minute, bud. Just who the heck are you anyway??
Egghead: Who, me? I'm the hero of this picture! (clobbers wolf with a mallet)
The Dover Boys has a gag similar to the "Little Red Walking Hood" one: a strange, mustached man in a sailor suit wanders through the cartoon several times, looking like a walking Big Lipped Alligator Moment and nothing else. That is until he ends up hooking up with the girl the heroes had been trying to save the entire cartoon.
At the beginning of "Often an Orphan", Charlie Dog sees a car coming up, then adopts Puppy-Dog Eyes , remarking, "Big, soulful eyes routine. Gets 'em every time." However, the car passes by without notice. At the end of the cartoon, Porky does the same thing , and it worked for him.
The vehicle that picked him up as a dog catcher truck.
Broken Record : Two instances: In 1933's "Bosko's Mechanical Man", when a record keeps skipping at "white as..." in "Mary Had a Little Lamb"; and 1961's "Daffy's Inn Trouble" when Daffy's record keeps skipping during "The Latin Quarter", which prompted the audience to throw fruits and vegetables at him in disgust.
Also, in the 1991 short "Blooper Bunny", one of the outtakes involves the background music skipping the same five notes over and over.
Bugs: (to crew) Ehhhh, what's up, doc??
Brother Chuck : Except for Daffy Duck, a lot of Porky's old sidekicks seem to have disappeared. Anyone remember Gabby the Goat? How about Beans the Cat, Ham and Ex, and/or Oliver Owl? Oh, and what happened to Porky's love interest, Petunia Pig?
Throughout the 1930s and 40s, it seemed WB were experimenting with numerous new recurring characters and scenarios to use as a mainstream cast, as time passed the cast was narrowed down to a select few that were developed or renovated (e.g., Bugs, Daffy, Sylvester) while many other previous established characters got the shaft (e.g., Hubie and Bert, Charlie Dog). Others such as Henery Hawk and Porky himself also got taken Out of Focus somewhat, but still had minor roles on occasion.
In the 70s, Ralph Heimdahl and Al Stoffel revived Petunia for some occasional appearances in the Bugs Bunny newspaper comic strip. She was the sweet kid Robert Clampett reimagined her as, not the uppity diva Frank Tashlin created her as. She was also a regular castmember in the old Gold Key and Whitman comics for decades, along with Porky's nephew, Cicero,
and both appeared in all the Looney Tunes merchandise of the era (coloring books, toys, etc.). Petunia also made a handful of obscure animated reappearances (one in "Porky and Daffy Meet The Groovie Ghoulies" and also recently in some of the official site's flash cartoons).
Another prominent Expanded Universe character that few remember these days is Bugs's girlfriend, Honey Bunny. Honey Bunny got displaced by Lola Bunny when Space Jam came out.
Bulletproof Vest : Daffy Duck advertises one in The Stupor Salesman adding, "Guaranteed to get your money back if it fails to work!"
Butt Monkey / The Chew Toy : Almost every single character falls victim to these two very painful tropes. Some, like Bugs Bunny, Tweety, and Roadrunner are smart enough to stay out of harm's way ( though not always ); others, like Daffy Duck (the greedy narcissist, not the manic screwball), Porky Pig, Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam, Sylvester, and Wile E. Coyote are the worst offenders.
Butt Sticker : in the cartoon "Rabbit Punch" Bugs Bunny lifts the Champ over his head, but can't hold him up for long and is crushed. When the Champ sits up, Bugs is flattened on his back.
"I tawt I taw a puddy tat!"
"Sufferin' succotash!"
"That's a joke - ah say - that's a joke, son!"
"I'm only three-and-a-half years old."
"I like him, he's silly."
"I'M the rootinest, tootinest, fallootinest, shootinest hombre north, south, east AND WEST!!"
"Meep Meep!!"
"Andale, andale! Arriba, arriba! Eeee-ha!"
"Duck Dodgers In the 24 1/2 Century"
'turn out that light!!!'
"Of course you realize, dis means war! "
And as a group: DON'T YOU BELIEVE IT!!, EAT AT JOES, and AAHHH, SHADDUP!
Catch That Pigeon! : Or in this case, roadrunner, canary, rabbit, duck, white-striped black female cat, Mexican mouse...
Cat Stereotype : Sylvester is the codifier for the unsuccessful black and white cat stereotype.
Cats Are Mean : Ironically, Warner Bros. was much more egalitarian about this trope than other studios like Disney . Outright subverted in shorts like "The Night Watchmen", "We, The Animals Squeak", "Fresh Airedale", "Chow Hound" and the Porky/Sylvester trilogy.
Caught in a Snare : Foghorn Leghorn sees Henery building a snare trap and points out how a smart chicken like him would just jump over it... which is just what Henery wanted, as the spot Foghorn lands is where the trap door was.
Chameleon Camouflage : A gag in "Unnatural History" involves a chameleon who proudly showcases his ability to change his color over any background. Then, he comes to plaid and breaks down.
Character Focus : Because he's a spotlight-stealer by nature (literally, in one case ), most adaptations post-1960 are less about the whole Looney Tunes ensemble and more about Daffy Duck finding himself!
Chased Off into the Sunset : Played straight in the 1934 Merrie Melodies short "The Miller's Daughter". At the end of the cartoon, the lady of the house angrily lashes out at the cat, thinking it had broken a lamp. The two statues watch with pleasure as she chases the cat out of the house and into the distance.
Porky may exist as the only consistent example that rarely brings it upon himself.
Chirping Crickets : Occurs in "Show Biz Bugs" after Daffy dances to "Jeepers Creepers" and the audience is silent.
Daffy: Ingrates.
Christmas Episode : "The Shanty Where Santy Claus Lives", "Gift Wrapped"
Christmas Special : 1979's Bugs Bunny's Looney Christmas Tales, which featured three shorts: "Bugs Bunny's Christmas Carol" (featuring Yosemite Sam as, who else, Scrooge), "Freeze Frame" (a Road Runner short set at wintertime), and "Fright Before Christmas" (a Bugs/Taz short). The first and last segments were directed by Friz Freleng , while the Road Runner short was by Chuck Jones .
There was also a modernized speical called Bah, Humduck! A Looney Tunes Christmas, which is A Christmas Carol but with Daffy as Scrooge.
Cigar-Fuse Lighting : In "Catty Cornered", Sylvester the Cat hides Tweety under an empty can. When the mobster Rocky finds Tweety under the can, he lights a firecracker with his cigarette and places under the can for Sylvester to find.
Circling Birdies : Often the result of falling anvils, falling boulders, mallet hits, falling pianos, fights covered up by the big, dusty ball of violence . Birdies don't always circle around the character's head — sometimes it's stars, sometimes it's brightly-colored dots or orbits, sometimes it's something completely different (like kings as seen in 1949's "Rabbit Hood.")
Cliff Stack : Pretty much created the trope.
Clip Show : "His Hare-Raising Tale", "This is a Life?", "Feather Bluster", "Tweet Dreams", "Hare-Abian Nights", and "Freudy Cat".
"Devil's Feud Cake" was probably the most blatant of all, as it contained very little original footage — it was actually a drastically cut down version of an episode of The Bugs Bunny Show.
Clothes Make the Superman : Subverted in "Fast and Furry-ous" (Wile E. Coyote wears a superhero outfit, only to learn the hard way that just because you wear it doesn't mean it grants you the ability to fly). Lampshaded in "Goofy Groceries," "Super Rabbit" and "Stupor Duck."
Although batman capes do allow Sylvester, Sam, and Wile E to fly at different points - but don't protect them from collisions of course.
Clothing Reflects Personality : The premise of "Bugs' Bonnets": Every time a new hat blows onto Bugs or Elmer, they change their personality to reflect the hat.
Cloud Cuckoo Lander : Daffy, especially in the earlier shorts. Even later he isn't the most stable of beings at times.
The demented flying fish in the Porky Pig film "The Sour Puss" certainly qualifies.
And literally, with the Dodo.
Some non-Tweety cartoons had Sylvester showing signs of mischievous irrationality (Back Alley Oproar, Doggone Cats, Kitty Kornered).
Clown Car Base : Sam's wood-burning stove holds a 1950s New Years' Eve party (and, in a later clip show, a late 1970s disco party), in "Rabbit Every Monday".
Coattail-Riding Relative : In "Hare Trigger", Bugs Bunny briefly hides from some rabbits waiting alongside the railroad tracks.
Bugs: '"A few of my poor relations. They're always ready for a touch."
Cold Opening : While not a cold opening in the strictest sense, many Road Runner shorts from the late '50s and early '60s (particularly "Beep Prepared" and "Hopalong Casualty") featured a bit of action before the title of the cartoon was displayed.
There's also "Porky's Romance", in which an introduction to Petunia Pig is made before the title card is shown. She keeps tripping over her lines and becomes increasingly desperate.
Off-stage voice: Shhh! Petunia, don't get excited, don't get excited...
Covered in Kisses : Happens in a few WB cartoons:
In "Bugs Bunny and the Three Bears", Bugs flirts with Mama Bear to escape harm from the other Bears. But he does too good a job, and she becomes the Abhorrent Admirer and eventually has her way with him resulting in this trope.
In "The Super Snooper", the Femme Fatale turns out the lights and we hear kissing noises. When Daffy Duck turns them back on he has lipstick marks all over his face which she gently wipes off.
In "A Gander at Mother Goose", a cartoon based on various children's rhymes, features a segment with Jack and Jill. When the narrator gets to the part about Jack falling down the hill, nothing happens. He repeats the line a few more times before Jack rushes back down, his face smeared with lipstick, tells the narrator to forget about going up the hill to fetch a pail of water, and rushes eagerly back up the hill.
The trope also happens at the end of "Katnip Kollege" during the iris out when Kitty Bright covers Johnny Cat with kisses leaving lipstick marks on him.
Every cat painted with stripes (Penelope Cat, Sylvester, etc.) experiences this when Pepe Le Pew encounters them smothering them with kisses.
Cranium Chase : On the short "Mouse Menace", a robot cat loses its head. It feels around for it but picks up a toaster and puts it on for a while before eventually stumbling into its own head.
Credits Gag : "Wabbit Twouble" featured the crew members' names written in Elmer Fudd speak .
Similarly, "A Scent of the Matterhorn" featured the crew members' names written in faux French.
"Nutty News" features upside down opening credits.
"Tortoise Beats Hare" has Bugs Bunny reading the credits before reaching the title and freaking out.
Crossover : Sylvester, Elmer Fudd, Mama Bear, Henery Hawk and Porky Pig all appear in Daffy's The Scarlet Pumpernickel. Daffy appears in Foghorn Leghorn's The High And The Flighty.
Daffy and Taz are paired together in Ducking the Devil, their only classic cartoon together.
The climatic drunk car chase of "You Don't Know What You're Doin"! The whole city is wobbling and bouncing like jelly, and the dog chasing Piggy even hallucinates a sewer grate transforming into a hideous monster.
Porky's encounter with Nick O'Teen and a legion of personified smoking and tobacoo products in "Wholly Smoke".
Porky's nightmare of wearing the Leprechaun's shoes in "Wearing of the Grin".
Elmer's Dream Sequence after Bugs invades it in "The Big Snooze" ( Bob Clampett 's very last short for Warner Bros., by the way).
Disproportionate Retribution : Bugs Bunny is reigning king of this trope. Some cartoons gave him a decent motivation (someone attempting to kill him, destroying his home, etc.), but far more often he would make someone's life a living Hell (or, very rarely, an actual dying Hell) just for annoying him.
Marvin the Martian is perfectly willing to kill billions of lives just because their planet was blocking his view of Venus.
The Ditz : Schulz, Private Snafu, Hermann Göring, Elmer Fudd on occasion, etc.
Domestic Only Cartoon : The original 1930-1969 shorts, the TV specials, the compilation movies, and some of the theatrical shorts from the '90s.
Double Entendre : The most notable is the "beavers damming a river" gag used first in "The Eager Beaver" (Jones, 1946) and "Unnatural History" (Levitow, 1959).
Downer Ending : The Tex Avery short "Circus Today" ends with the diver falling to his death leading the band to play "Taps".
Dream Within a Dream : "A Waggily Tale": Most of the short is a boy's dream about being a dog himself after mistreating his dog . After making up with his dog and promising to treat him better, the dog tells the audience, "That's okay, because I'm not really a dog, neither. I'm another little boy having a dream."
Driven to Suicide : Occasionally used and played for laughs, though, thanks to Values Dissonance , a lot of the suicide gags (particularly the ones involving guns to the head and nooses) are not allowed to be shown on televised versions of these cartoons, lest some young, impressionable mind think its okay to commit such atrocity .
Cheese Chasers. Hubie and Bertie OD on cheese and decide to commit suicide. So they try to get Claude to eat them. Claude is pestered so badly, he gets turned off to eating mice and decides to commit suicide himself. He tries to antagonize Marc Antony to beat him to death. See Fridge Logic for the bulldog's response to all this. At least he doesn't decide to end it all, at least.
Though he does try to flag down the nearest dog catcher to turn himself in, which is pretty much Suicideby Cop .
Henry Bear trying to off himself in "Bear Feat", only for Junior to save him.
Droste Image : "I Was a Teenage Thumb" ends with the narrator saying the knight who was the size of a thumb had a son who was the size of his thumb, who had a son the size of his thumb, and so on, and so on.
Dysfunctional Family : The Three Bears, with the oversized idiot cub Junyer constantly getting punched in the face by his short, hot-tempered father, and the mother bear being too passive to do anything about it. On the Chuck Jones documentary, Chuck Jones: Extremes and In-Betweens, Matt Groening stated that the Three Bear family was where he got the idea for The Simpsons being a dysfunctional cartoon family.
Duck Season, Rabbit Season
Early Installment Weirdness : The early B&W shorts before 1936 are very, very different from the Looney Tunes characters most of us are familiar with from childhood, to where one would be hard pressed to believe they're part of the same series as Bugs Bunny and others. The differences are as follows:
First, the art style is completely different; the characters were drawn in a pie eyed "rubberhose and dumbbell" style that was common back then.
The strong individual directing styles, post-modernistic humor, fourth wall busting and satirical comedy that the iconic Looney Tunes are known for is virtually nonexistent; the gags are standard slapstick and surreal distortions of the characters, with occasional vulgar humor sandwiched in.
The crop of shorts from circa the 1933 to 1935 period also tended to have sentimental or juvenile Disney style content and humor, a mindset that Looney Tunes would eventually become the total antithesis of. The early shorts of Chuck Jones up to around 1942 likewise aimed for this, and it's a startling contrast to his more famous work.
In contrast to the wide ensemble of characters with distinct personalities littered through both the character driven and oneshot cartoons, the early Looney Tunes relied on characters with either one-dimensional or nondescript personalities —including their first lead stars such as Bosko the Talk-Ink Kid and Buddy. The Bosko cartoons also had no major or recurring characters outside of him, Honey and Bruno. Stock funny animal characters also tended to pop up more than cartoon humans in these early shorts, and even the ones that did pop up tended to be celebrity caricatures drawn in a similar rubberhose style, instead of the more observant caricature style the series eventually settled into. Of the series iconic cast, only two of its major stars (Porky Pig and Daffy Duck) are present in the 1930's, and in Daffy's case, his introduction and subsequent rise to fame was rather late in the 30's era of the series. Porky appeared as early as 1935 and immediately became a series star, but even then, his roles and characterization are quite different from the more famous shorts he's starred in.
The musical style of the series before Carl Stalling's arrival, which by no means bad and featuring excellent songs and compositions, was much more standard musical fare than the distinctive, energetic musical style Stalling brought to the franchise.
The Merrie Melodies were initially more distinctive from the Looney Tunes shorts; prior to around the late 30's, they were animated music videos with no recurring characters (outside of the first five with Foxy and Piggy) that was mandated to have a song number in every single cartoon, something that was eventually dropped to make them another series of gag shorts that are indistinguishable from the Looney Tunes series (although the music video aspect of them would make a comeback eventually ).
Ear Trumpet : " Now Hear This
" is about an old man who finds a new ear trumpet in place of his old and worn-out one. He is overjoyed to have a new shiny trumpet, but it is, in fact, Satan's lost horn, and it turns the old man's world into a synesthetic, nightmarish acid trip sequence.
Eat the Camera : The early Harman-Ising Looney Tunes frequently used a gag where a character would run or fly towards the screen screaming or laughing, and their mouth would almost always envelop the camera! Sometimes it was even the same or similar piece of animation used over and over!
"Sinkin in the Bathtub", ironically, is a subversion, as Bosko comes very close to the camera, but he falls off screen instead.
"Lady, Play Your Mandolin" has a drunk horse running, and laughing mad, towards the camera from a hallucination in the mirror. This piece of animation would be reused in shorts like "You Don't Know What You're Doin!" and "I Love A Parade"!
"Smile, Darn Ya, Smile!" has Foxy eating the camera as his out of control trolley launches him screaming towards the screen.
"Shuffle Off To Buffalo" has a stork carrying a baby towards the screen, whose crying mouth envelops the whole screen.
Even the post Harman-Ising shorts occasionally used this gag. "Hollywood Capers" has the Frankenstein monster literally eat a camera, and we see it from the cameras POV.
"The Woods Are Full of Cuckoos" has "Moutha Bray" end her song number by eating the camera as she sings "Hey Maaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnn!"
"To Beep or Not to Beep" has has Wile E. Coyote falling off a cliff, with a cactus landing on him after the fact. The pain launches him into the air and his mouth covers the whole screen (in red) as he screams in pain.
Edited for Syndication : Looney Tunes became notorious for being chopped up when shown on many networks, either edited to remove overly violent gags or "insensitive" racial stereotypes. Some shorts were merely edited for time to make room for more commercial breaks. As a result, there was much rejoicing when the Golden Collections presented the cartoons as they were originally seen in theaters. In many instances, it was like watching them for the first time.
The 1961 Bugs Bunny cartoon "Prince Violent" had its title changed to "Prince Varmint" for television in the 1980s.
Two cartoons had recent edits that were rather dubious, considering what goes on in today's cartoons. The Hasty Hare had footage of astronomer I. Frisby ( caricature of Friz Freleng ) writing his resignation removed, and Drip-Along Daffy had Porky's final line taken out—after Daffy, in janitor's outfit and clean-up barrel, says "I told you I was gonna clean up this one-horse town!", Porky says to us "Lucky for him this is a one-horse town!"
Surprisingly, a recent showing of part of "Bugs Bunny Bustin' Out All Over" let a butterfly calling Bugs a jackass slip by!
The epithet "jackass" has been used on W-B cartoons before. In 1945's A Tale Of Two Mice, Babbitt tells Catstello (both as mice) that if his plan to get the cheese doesn't work, "I'll...I'll be a jackass!" It doesn't, and Catstello hammers it in ("Jackass! Jackass!! Yer a jackass!! Hee-haw!"). 1950's Mississippi Hare has Col. Cornpone asking Bugs "If'n I had four legs and went 'hee-haw,' what would I be?" Bugs: "Why, you'd be a jackass." (Resulting in one of Bugs' perfectly timed duels.)
Edutainment Show : The three shorts, "By Word of Mouse," "Heir Conditioned," and "Yankee Dood It," commissioned by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation which educated the viewer on how the capitalist economy works and why it's a superior one. These shorts came about in the mid-50's at the height of Red Scare , and it's easy to tell . In fairness, they did at least attempt to make these shorts interesting by throwing gags in between the edutainment, but in all, they pale in comparison to their regular output.
1939's " Old Glory " is educational as well, though unlike the aforementioned Sloan shorts, it doesn't contain comedy at all. Rather, it's a history lesson on the Revolutionary War and the formation of the U.S., with Porky learning about it from Uncle Sam in the wraparounds.
Eek, a Mouse!! !: Subverted in "Unnatural History": A mouse scares a giant elephant, but the mouse itself is scared by a tiny elephant even smaller than he.
Epic Fail : Wile E. Coyote's specialty.
Also the specialty for Elmer Fudd, in such cartoons as "Good Night, Elmer" (where he spends the entire cartoon trying to put out a candle flame and wrecks his room in the process. And when he finally extinguishes it, it's morning) and "Ant Pasted" (where a bunch of ants fight back against him, though he did deserve it for throwing fireworks at them . Still, the fact that he can't even fight back against ants counts as a major fail).
Face Doodling : "Daffy Doodles"
Failure Is the Only Option : Just ask Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam, Wile E. Coyote, Sylvester, Daffy Duck (post- Flanderization ), etc.
Fake Rabies : In "The Waggily Tale", when Junior dreams he is a dog, his owner brushes his teeth with shaving soap, causing him to be mistaken for a mad dog.
Family-Unfriendly Violence : Surprisingly and ironically, much less common than in other contemporaneous classic cartoon series, like Tom and Jerry . Any violence will tend to leave the recipient more dazed or angry than seriously hurt, and if the victim in question has fur or feathers, the only real damage they suffer is losing said fur or feathers.
Sometimes this would happen off-screen. For example, in "Knights Must Fall," we never see the immediate impact of Bugs crashing into those knights with his iron armor (we just hear the raucous and witness the judges' reactions to it). However, the end of the cartoon shows him managing a used armor dealership, which includes his nemesis' armor, so we can assume he either killed all those knights or they were forced to turn in their armor after losing the joust.
Fatal Fireworks : In the Merrie Melodies cartoon "It's Hummer Time!" one of the punishments the dog gives the cat is "Happy Birthday," where the cat is given a birthday cake with firecrackers instead of candles and he must blow them out before they go off. Of course he doesn't succeed.
Fat Bastard : Bugs Bunny took on (read: administered a Humiliation Conga to) Hermann Goering in Herr Meets Hare.
Most of the kings they have (see Adipose Rex )
Finger Snap Lighter : Seen in "Knight-Mare Hare"
Fire and Brimstone Hell : As seen in "Draftee Daffy", "Satan's Waitin'", "Devil's Feud Cake", an episode of "The Bugs Bunny Show", "The Looney Looney Looney Bugs Bunny Movie", "The Three Little Bops", and alluded to at the end of "The Hole Idea".
Friz Freleng's cartoons in general have this a lot (along with characters going to Fluffy Cloud Heaven ), particularly the Censored 11 short, "Sunday Go To Meetin' Time," in which a lazy, black man named Nicodemus skips church and hits himself in the head while chasing a chicken, and finds himself in Hell for all of the sins he committed when he was alive (such as skipping church in favor of gambling, stealing chickens, stealing watermelon, and just raising hell [or "dickens", as the cartoon put it]).
"The Three Little Bops" uses it to turn the Big Bad Wolf from an anti-heroic wannabe to a smooth player:
Pig #1: The Big bad Wolf, he learned the rule
You gotta get hot to play real cool!
Flanderization : Different directors often focussed on different aspects of a character, most notably with Daffy, Bugs, Elmer Fudd, and Porky.
This even got a Lampshade during an Affectionate Parody of Invasion of the Body Snatchers .
Flipping the Bird : If the Hays Office would only let Catstello, he'd give Babbitt the boid all right.
Fluffy Cloud Heaven : A lot of Friz Freleng cartoons have this afterlife (and the fire-and-brimstone Hell) as a recurring setting for any character who dies or has a near-death experience (cf. "Sunday Go to Meetin' Time," "Satan's Waiting," "Back Alley Oproar"). Other directors have done this trope too, but Freleng deserves special mention for using it often.
Flynning : In "The Scarlet Pumpernickel", Daffy as an Errol Flynn -type swashbuckling action hero engages in this kind of sword duel with Sylvester as a Basil Rathbone-type villain.
Force Feeding : Pigs Is Pigs , "A Tale of Two Mice" and "Chow Hound"
Forgot I Could Fly : This became a running gag for Daffy in the Duck Dodgers spin-off and recent webtoons on the Looney Tunes website.
The short "The Million Hare" predates those:
Bugs Bunny: (watching Daffy plummet to the ground) I wonder if that silly duck remembers he can fly... {hears slam noise down below) ...Nope, guess not.
Hard Head
Hat Damage : Done to Foxy in "One More Time" and Daffy in "Ali Baba Bunny".
The Hat Makes the Man : In "Bugs' Bonnets", random hats fly by and land on Bugs' and Elmer Fudd's heads, altering their behavior to match each time.
Have a Gay Old Time : Lots of the dialogue in the cartoons were written back when their meanings were innocuous. Just remember that there was a time when "gay" meant "happy and lighthearted," a "dick" was a police officer or a police detective, a "pussy" meant a cat, and "making love" more or less meant just kissing (though the Pepe Le Pew cartoons kinda blurred the line with that one), so if you hear any of these words in the cartoon, don't stick them in the Getting Crap Past the Radar page (unless you're sure it's a bona fide Double Entendre ).
Let's not forget the title "Boobs in the Woods".
Heart Beats out of Chest :
In the short "The Grey Hounded Hare", this happens with Bugs Bunny upon seeing the fake rabbit used to lure the dogs around the dog track.
Also happens to one cat chased by Pepé LePew after she falls into a can of paint and presumably loses her sense of smell.
Hellevator : Not an elevator, but in "Satan's Waitin'", an escalator transports Sylvester to Hell. The escalator makes a return appearance in "Devil's Feud Cake" when Sam first appears in Hell.
Hollywood Natives :
In "Eight-Ball Bunny", Bugs Bunny and a penguin are caught by a South American tribe and put on a pot. They are saved when the natives are scared away by "el bwana", a No Celebrities Were Harmed version of Humphrey Bogart as Fred Dobbs from The Treasure of the Sierra Madre .
In "Boyhood Daze", Mr. Imagination Ralph Philips has a fantasy of saving his parents from the Dakiris.
Honest John's Dealership : Acme.
Also, Daffy frequently played the role of a pushy door-to-door salesman strong-arming a reluctant character into buying unwanted goods, as in such cartoons as "The Stupor Salesman" and "Design For Leaving".
How We Got Here : "The Old Grey Hare" features a sequence of Elmer and Bugs as babies when they first met.
Huge Rider, Tiny Mount : Subverted with Red Hot Ryder from "Buckaroo Bugs" (Clampett, 1944).
Humanlike Foot Anatomy : Spike and Hector, the two bulldogs, Sylvester the cat, and most other cats and dogs in are shown plantigrade.
Porky Pig averts this trope in The Looney Tunes Show by having the unguligrade stance that real pigs have, but he usually appears more digitigrade or plantigrade. Also, Porky Pig normally has feet and hooves shaped like slippers.
Speedy Gonzales has two-toed feet that look like rabbit or hare feet.
The bird characters Daffy Duck , Tweety, Foghorn Leghorn , Henery Hawk, and Yoyo Dodo have a plantigrade stance, as do most other bird characters. Averted with Roadrunner since he keeps the digitigrade stance that real birds have.
Daffy Duck also has feet rather like those of a cat or a rabbit in the Looney Tunes in the Sixties .
Illogical Safe
Immune To Slapstick : Yes, even Looney Tunes , the quintessential slapstick cartoon series, has examples of such:
A key criticism towards Lola Bunny in her debut in Space Jam , who despite being boosted a new leading character to the franchise, played very little part in the cartoony antics of the original cast (to the point even some of the live action characters fall victim to squash and stretch slapstick more than she does). The one instance she is put at harm by one of the Monstars, it is Played for Drama and averted by Bugs performing a Heroic Sacrifice . The character was revised for The Looney Tunes Show , with the character having a more abrasive personality, albeit still mostly in a dialogue centric sense.
Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner . The Road Runner is one of the few regulars to never be the butt of a gag. While most Looney Tunes protagonists are more frequently dishing out slapstick abuse than taking it, they at least have some exceptional cases. The Road Runner's most distinguishing wacky characteristic was holding up a sign reading his opinions.
Impossible Insurance : In "Fool Coverage", Daffy is an insurance salesman trying to sell Porky some life insurance. He promises the policy will pay Porky one million dollars for a black eye... provided it was the result of an elephant stampede happening in his house between 3:55 and 4:00 PM on July 4 during a hailstorm. At the end of the cartoon, that is exactly what happens! To try to save face, Daffy adds "and a baby zebra" to the clause. Cue baby zebra.
A variation of this occurs in "Boobs In The Woods." After asking Porky if he has a fishing license and a hunting license, Daffy asks if he has "a license to sell hair tonic...to bald eagles...in Omaha, Nebraska." Porky does, oddly enough.
Impossible Shadow Puppets : "One Meat Brawl" ends with what looks like a Shadow Discretion Shot of a big fight, but turns out to be the characters using shadow puppets. "That way, no one gets hurt."
Inconvenient Itch : In the short "An Itch In Time", Elmer's dog tries very hard not to scratch a flea bite lest he get the ultimate penalty: a bath!
Inconvenient Summons : "A lad in his lamp".
Induced Hypochondria : "Hare Tonic"; "The Hypo-Chondri-Cat"; "Dr. Devil and Mr. Hare"
Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain : Arguably a Trope Codifier , as almost every villain in the series was a moronic Butt Monkey as likely to fall by their own idiocy as by the actions of the protaganists themselves. Even the rare subversions of this trope (eg. Nasty Canasta, Rocky and Muggsy) ultimately suffered Villain Decay and fell victim to it.
The Coyote was, in fact, so sympathetically ineffectual that in many viewers' minds the Road Runner became the real villain of the pieces. Hilariously referenced by "Weird Al" Yankovic in UHF:
"Okay. Right now I'd like to show you one of my favorite cartoons. It's a sad, depressing story about a pathetic coyote who spends every waking moment of his life in the futile pursuit of a sadistic roadrunner who mocks him and laughs at him as he's repeatedly crushed and maimed! Hope you'll enjoy it!"
Inescapable Net : Used by Elmer on the Proto-Bugs in Elmer's Candid Camera. He escapes and turns the tables on Elmer via Faking the Dead .
Ink-Suit Actor : Jack Benny, Mary Livingstone, Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, and Don Wilson appear (as mice!) in the 1959 short, "The Mouse That Jack Built."
Victor Moore voiced his cartoon likeness in 1945's "Ain't That Ducky".
Instant Bandages
Instant Gravestone : There's a gag in the short " Baseball Bugs " where a player tries to catch a fly ball ("I got it! I got it!"), gets plowed into the ground by it, and a gravestone pops up where he stops (reading: "He got it").
Instrumental Theme Tune : Sort of. The iconic theme songs, "Merrily We Roll Along" (for Merrie Melodies) and "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down" (for Looney Tunes) do indeed have lyrics, but they're never used when introducing the shorts. All we hear are the instrumental versions of them.
"The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down" used lyrical variants in Daffy Duck And Egghead and Boobs In The Woods while "Merrily We Roll Along" was performed by an animated Eddie Cantor in Billboard Frolics and Toy Town Hall. Before becoming its theme, "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down" was used as background music in a segment of "Porky's Garden" (Avery, 1937).
The escaped panther from " Tree for Two "
The fox from Porky Pig's short "Chicken Jitters"
Daffy Duck antagonists Nasty Canasta and Rocky the Gangster were sinister imposing thugs ( and even got away with their actions ). Naturally when they ended up in the Bugs Bunny series afterwards, they took a serious downgrade in menace.
Daffy himself acted like this is a few of his pairing with Speedy, notably in "Assault & Peppered" and "Well Worn Daffy".
At least four Jekyll-and-Hyde-type examples:
The lawyer from "The Case Of The Stuttering Pig".
Mr. Hyde from "Hyde and Hare".
The transformed Sylvester from "Dr. Jerkyl's Hide".
The transformed Tweety from "Hyde and Go Tweet".
Koosh Bomb : Where it became famous. Especially the Roadrunner cartoons.
Large Ham : Every character in the main cast (and maybe a few from the minor cast)
Later Installment Weirdness : The original studio briefly shut down in 1963 and reopened that same year, but there were some downright bizarre changes in direction for the franchise during its final six year period, to where even the original Harman-Ising era cartoons have more in common with the more iconic Looney Tunes than these later cartoons:
First, and most notably, is that there were no more new Bugs Bunny cartoons made.
Second, Daffy Duck, previously a comedic goofball or hopeless loser, became a straight-up antagonist to Speedy Gonzales , who became the recurring stars of these later cartoons.
Third, a new crop of characters, including Cool Cat, Bunny and Claude and Merlin the Magic Mouse, were introduced in 1967. The tone and humor of their cartoons has little in common with the other Looney Tunes series. The last ten shorts of the franchise would star these newcomers instead of any of the original characters.
After 1964, no new oneshot cartoons were made, with the exceptions of "Norman Normal" (which was billed as a Cartoon Special instead of a Looney Tunes or Merrie Melodies short) and "Rabbit Stew and Rabbits Too".
Fourth, the art direction and animation discarded full animation and the studios original slick house style in favor of very Limited Animation and heavily stylized designs in vogue with the TV cartoons of the day. Character shorts (i.e. Bunny and Claude) and oneshot shorts alike (i.e. "Norman Normal", "Bartholowmew Vs. the Wheel") look completely out of place in the series as a whole.
Fifth, the directors strong individual styles (the few left over anyway, which included Friz Freleng and Rob Mc Kimson ) practically vanished into ether, with ultra formulaic meat & potatoes cartoons popping up in their steed.
Latex Perfection : Often used when a Paper-Thin Disguise would not work, or for some kind of surprise ending. Sylvester did so in "Muzzle Tough" (1954) posing as a female dog (it's so convincing it fools a dog catcher !), along with "Fowl Weather" (1953) as a goat (which Tweety manages to identify the true identity of anyway.) Daffy Duck also did this at the end of "What Makes Daffy Duck" (1948) wearing a rubber dog mask to make his ranger-dog disguise flawless. Ralph Wolf also features this in "A Sheep in the Deep" (1962) with a "disguise duel." A few cartoons have also revolved around this trope for more than half of the short, including "I Got Plenty of Mutton" (1944, a wolf disguising himself full-body as a sexy female sheep to lure a ram away from his protected herd, which works all too well , and "Paying the Piper" (1949, the Supreme Cat wears a full rat suit and mask to provoke Pied Piper Porky with).
Lazy Artist : It's extremely rare, but it's quite noticeable when it happens. Two occur in 1943's "Porky Pig's Feat": As Daffy issues a challenge to the hotel manager, a cel of Daffy is photographed painted side up in a frame (The redrawn version even renders that errant cel drawing!). At the end when Porky and Daffy discover Bugs Bunny in the adjacent room, Daffy's left arm is shown unpainted.
Lampshaded in "Invasion Of The Bunny Snatchers" (1992). Pod carrots from space replace Daffy, Yosemite Sam and Elmer with poorly drawn and animated duplicates.
Also seen in "Odor of the Day" (1948), when Pepe Le Pew (disguised as a doctor) carries a flattened dog on a stick he walks with a limited animation walk cycle (the kind Hanna-Barbera and Rocky and Bullwinkle usually did.)
As yon weary traveler enters his castle on his steed in Robin Hood Daffy, the edge of the cels on which he's drawn can be seen for about a second.
Bob Clampett's "Tin Pan Alley Cats" (1943) pads out some two minutes with reused animation and backgrounds from Porky in Wackyland . The reused art is recrafted in color.
Legacy Character : The cat chased in Pepe Le Pew shorts varied from short to short, in both appearance and name, though these days is referred to by the consistent moniker Penelope Pussycat.
Some sources give the name Brownie Mouse to various rodents used in Sylvester cartoons.
Leitmotif : The opening jingle of "Stage Door Cartoon" was recycled in numerous late 40s/early 50s shorts as the theme for Bugs Bunny (and was later used as the tune for "What's Up Doc?").
Carl Stalling had a tendency to associate tunes with specific characters. Foghorn Leghorn sings or hums "The Camptown Races" in numerous shorts.
"I Cover the Waterfront" was often used during establishing shots of docks and harbors.
"Baby Face", "Oh, You Beautiful Doll", "It Had To Be You", "The Lady in Red", and "You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby" were often used when a beautiful woman was on-screen.
"A Cup of Coffee, a Sandwich, and You" or "Shortnin' Bread" often played whenever a character was eating or preparing food.
"Trade Winds" often accompanied tropical settings, while "Winter" was used in snowy settings.
"Over the Waves" and "She Was an Acrobat's Daughter" were frequently used in acrobat/swinging sequences.
"Rock-a-Bye Baby" was used for baby-centric scenes, or characters trying to get another character to sleep.
"How Dry I Am" and "Little Brown Jug" were reserved for drunk characters.
"I'm Looking Over a Four Leaf Clover" and "In My Merry Oldsmobile" were used in automobile/highway sequences.
"Blues in the Night" (aka "My mama done told me...") was often used whenever a character experienced bad luck or was down in the dumps.
"Frat" and "Freddie the Freshman" were almost always used in sports scenes.
"Me-ow" was a recurring cat-based theme.
"Der Erlkönig" was often used for Yosemite Sam, but was also heard in non-Sam shorts, usually accompanying evil characters.
"I've Been Working on the Railroad" was used for train and/or train tracks gags.
"We're in the Money" was used countless times when a character either received riches or was dreaming of it.
"Hooray For Hollywood" and/or "You Ought to Be in Pictures" played whenever Hollywood was involved.
"Pretty Baby" often played when babies were on-screen.
"You're in the Army Now", "We Did it Before (and We Can Do It Again)", and "Columbia, Gem of the Ocean" were used for war cartoons/gags.
"You're a Horse's Ass" was used whenever a character realized they fell for a prank or were insulted. Appropriately, it was also used as the main theme for Private Snafu.
"William Tell Overture" (Finale Movement) was usually used for horse-riding scenes. The Storm Movement was used, appropriately, for storm sequences. "Ranz des Vaches" was used for sunrise sequences.
"Sweet Dreams, Sweetheart", "Too Ra Loo Ra Loo Ral" and "Brahms's Lullaby" were used for sleeping gags/scenes. Occasionally, "By the Light of the Silvery Moon" was used if said scenes also involved the moon.
When Bill Lava took over as composer, he created an opening fanfare for Bugs Bunny cartoons. This fanfare was used for four cartoons, "False Hare", "Hare-Breadth Hurry", "The Iceman Ducketh", and "Mad as a Mars Hare".
Bill Lava also had a recurring theme for Speedy Gonzales during the 1964-1968 era. A variant of it was used as the title music for "The Music Mice-Tro."
Let's Get Dangerous! : Any time Bugs Bunny says, "Of course you realize... This Means War! !", you can be certain that whoever provoked him like this will soon be entering a world of hurt.
Limited Animation : Some of the best uses of this format in cartoon history. Most cartoons in the '30s and '40s utilized full animation just like Disney and other contemporaries. However, Chuck Jones experimented with limited animation in The Dover Boys , liberally using quick smears and held poses. But limited animation (that is, less actual character movement) was never widespread until the mid '50s, when budgets got slimmer. Nevertheless, the various units worked around the limitations quite well, even if the animation wasn't as full as the previous two decades.
Played straight with the "Larriva Eleven" (that is, eleven Road Runner shorts directed by Rudy Larriva instead of Chuck Jones) and three Daffy/Speedy shorts from 1967, all outsourced to Format Films.
Limited Special Collector's Ultimate Edition : From 2003 to 2008, Warner Bros. released the Looney Tunes Golden Collection series, spread across six volumes and covering over 400 classic cartoons, hours upon hours upon hours worth of commentaries, documentaries, interviews and historical bonus content in general. However, for the kiddies, a Vanilla Edition series of these DVDs were released called Looney Tunes Spotlight Collection, which were essentially bare bone collections featuring the more well known, family friendly Looney Tunes shorts. The new single-disc Super Stars DVDs follow the Vanilla Edition practice, but the Platinum Edition line is a continuation of the Golden Collection-style releases.
Lighter and Softer : Contemporary revivals of the characters (most egregiously the 90's and 2000s ones, where Warner Bros. were really trying hard to cash in on the franchise) tended to downplay or outright eschew the violence and politically incorrect humor of the original cartoons, and portray the Tunes as friends rather than constant comedic adversaries. This and the outdated context of the cartoons has unwittingly led to the misconception that Looney Tunes, which were originally made for general (learning more towards adult) audiences, were intended as childrens cartoons. Invasion Of The Bunny Snatchers was specifically made to satirize just how watered down the Looney Tunes had become by then.
Loads and Loads of Characters : Looney Tunes has many characters, apart from Bugs and the gang. Only a majority of them are one-shots .
Longer-Than-Life Sentence : At the end of the short "Baby Buggy Bunny", after Baby Face Finster has been jailed, Bugs Bunny shows up and gives him this classic line;
Made of Iron : Everyone.
Mad Love : Pepé Le Pew, though there are some examples of this from the Bugs Bunny cartoons.
Make It Look Like an Accident : In "From Hare to Heir", Yosemite Sam plays the nephew of a king who is desperate for money. Bugs comes by his castle offering him 1 million pounds if he can prove himself a man of mild temper (with penalties deducted from the sum for every time Sam loses his cool). After failing to control his fits of rage, Sam decides the easiest solution is to simply off Bugs and make it look like an accident. Needless to say, he fails in rather spectacular fashion.
Malaproper : In "Thumb Fun", Daffy says he's going to get Porky slapped with a "habeas corpuscle".
In "Daffy Doodles", he tells Porky to wait till J. Edgar Who's-Its hears about this.
Bugs Bunny in "Roman Legion Hare" (which for some unknown reason has been left out of Cartoon Network's screenings of the cartoon):
Bugs: Like the Romans say, "E Pluribus Uranium!"
Maurice Chevalier Accent : French characters will always talk with this accent, like the villain Blacque Jacques Shellacque in Wet Hare .
Metronomic Man Mashing : The adorable little Chicken Hawk does this to Foghorn Leghorn Once an Episode .
Mickey Mousing : So much so that there are musical accents to something as simple as characters blinking. Arguably, though, this is part of the charm of the music.
Mime and Music-Only Cartoon : Many of their cartoons are dialogue free, or fairly close to it. Some examples:
Any Road Runner short that isn't "Zip Zip Hooray" or "Road Runner a Go-Go" (the only vocal is RR's "beep beep!")
Cat Feud (1958)
Prest-o Change-o (1939), Curious Puppy (1939), Dog Gone Modern (1939), Snow Time For Comedy (1940), Stage Fright (1940) (all starring two dogs. Only vocals in "Dog Gone Modern" are the house welcoming the two dogs.)
Double Chaser (1942)
Much Ado About Nutting (1953)
Peck Up Your Troubles (1945)
The Bird Came C.O.D. (1942) (only vocal is "Mm-mm")
Baton Bunny (1959)
Joe Glow the Firefly (1941)- only vocal is "GOOD NIGHT!" at the end.
Rabbit Stew And Rabbits, Too (1969)
No Barking (1954) - save for Tweety's lines at the very end.
Mouse Warming (1952) (for the most part)
Go Fly a Kit (1957)
Minion with an F in Evil : "SCHULTZ!"
Also, K-9 could count as this to Marvin.
Mind Screw : Some syndicated versions of "The Up-Standing Sitter" inexplicably replaced the 1948 Looney Tunes outro with the "Bugs In Drum" outro from "Hare Tonic" and "Baseball Bugs"... with the 1937 Merrie Melodies closing music rather than the 1941-1946 Looney Tunes closing music (also, Bugs' "And That's The End!" line is muted out). What the hell?
Minored In Ass Kicking : The professor in "By Word of Mouse"
Mirror Routine : In "The Prize Pest", Daffy and Porky (dressed in a frightening costume) briefly imitate each other's actions in a doorway.
Daffy: Suffering catfish! I didn't realize I was that hideous! (realizes) I'm not! (does a wild take, screams, and runs away)
In "Attack of the Drones", Daffy does one with a replica robot. At the end of it, Daffy gets blasted anyway.
Misplaced Wildlife : The Chinese roadrunner in "War and Pieces," Playboy the Penguin on "Frigid Hare"
Missing Episode : While there aren't any shorts missing, many of the original prints containing their original title cards are lost. There's also an ending scene from The Stupid Cupid that's currently lost.
Mr. Muffykins : Petunia's dog in "Porky's Romance". The mean-spirited little beasty annoys Porky so much that he ends the short by kicking it through the closing iris.
Mix-and-Match Critter : The chicken/turtle hybrid from "The Good Egg".
Mood-Swinger : A frequent gag.
In "Daffy Duck Hunt", Daffy pretends to be shot and wails "I'm-a goin', Iiiiii'm a goin'..." only to turn chipper: "Goodbye now!" In the same short, he emerges from the freezer dressed in a scarf:
Daffy: What a trip. What a trip! Blizzard all the way. Snow twenty feet deep, but we had to get the serum through. It was mush, mush, mush all night. (grabs Barnyard Dawg and pushes him around the kitchen) Come on! Mush! Mush! Mush! Mush! Mush! (slams Dawg into the door) Suddenly the glacier cracks! There's a roar! Tons of ice! No escape! AAAGGGGHHH!!!!.... How's things been with you?
"Knighty Knight Bugs": When Bugs is informed he must retrieve the singing sword or be executed, he goes from laughing incredulously to crying.
and his dragon in "Knighty Knight Bugs".
Sam: "Whoa, dragon, WHOA!!"
Motion Blur : Speedy, Road Runner, anyone who needed to leave/arrive in a hurry.
In a host segment of The Bugs Bunny Show, Bugs demonstrates a cartoon "zip" out of and into a scene (complete with vibration to a stop upon entering), the zip-out in regular speed and in slow motion.
Motor Mouth : Sniffles the Mouse, at least in his later shorts.
Foghorn Leghorn is a Motor Syrinx.
Long (and deservedly) forgotten Little Blabbermouse (cartoon of the same name and "Shop, Look, And Listen").
Shorty from "Rabbit's Kin". His voice is actually Mel Blanc's normal speaking voice, sped up to a high pitch and really fast speed.
The Movie : Quite a few, actually:
Bugs Bunny Superstar (1975), a documentary narrated by Orson Welles and featuring nine '40s cartoons in their entirety along with interviews of Freleng, Avery, and (especially) Clampett.
The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Movie (aka 'The Great American Chase) (1979), the first of several Compilation Movies combining footage from vintage shorts with newly-animated bridging material. This one, directed by Chuck Jones and featuring only his cartoons, is "hosted" by Bugs Bunny from his mansion as he expounds on the history of "the chase" in animation.
The Looney Looney Looney Bugs Bunny Movie (1981), directed by Friz Freleng and only featuring his work. It was broken into three separate stories (one was a remake of "Devil's Feud Cake", one was a crime drama parody, and the final was an awards ceremony), and was the first compilation to build a (more-or-less) coherent storyline by weaving old and new material together.
Bugs Bunny's Third Movie: 1001 Rabbit Tales (1982), directed by Freleng and mostly made of his work, but also featuring material from some Jones shorts. Unlike the previous entry, it consisted of one long story: Daffy and Bugs competing to be the best book salesman but constantly getting sidetracked on the way to their selling locations, with Bugs ending up forced to read stories to Yosimite Sam's bratty son. It was the first of the compilation films to feature Robert McKimson's work (a brief clip of "Aqua Duck" is seen towards the end).
Daffy Duck's Fantastic Island (1983): The fan-favorite character combination of Daffy and Speedy also got a movie, built around a parody of Fantasy Island .
Daffy Duck's Quackbusters (1988), directed by Greg Ford and Terry Lennon, the last of the compilation movies and generally regarded as the best. It had the strongest plot (which was about Daffy opening a ghost-catching/exorcism company with Bugs and Porky) and the animators took care to imitate the old animators so the transition from bridging sequences to the classic cartoons was smoother. It's also the only Looney Tunes film to exclusively use Carl Stalling and Milt Franklyn music for the bridging sequences. The rest used new music from a variety of composers.
Space Jam (1996): The first fully original Looney Tunes film, combining animation and live action . See its entry for more info.
Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003): Again, see its entry for more info. Of note, a planned series of new theatrical shorts being developed around this time was cancelled due to this film's lackluster box office performance.
Moving Buildings : The episode "Designs for Leaving" has Daffy Duck outfit Elmer Fudd's home with modern gadgets. One of these is an elevator that lowers the second story... which crushes everything in the first story. Also, the Big Red Button that Elmer is warned not to push lifts the entire house hundreds of feet up in the air, in case of tidal waves. And, Daffy has yet to install the little blue button to bring it back down.
Mr. Imagination : Ralph Phillips, in "From A to Z-Z-Z-Z" and "Boyhood Daze"
Multiple Demographic Appeal : Despite syndication packages in America and the rest of the world labeling the Looney Tunes as "kiddie fare," even going so far as to edit gags deemed too "adult." However, there are videos and DVDs, both official and unofficial, that preserve these "adult" gags uncut for all to see.
Mundane Wish : The genie in "A-Lad in His Lamp" tries to prevent Bugs from making one of these. But Bugs gets so irritated with his constant interruptions of his wishes that he tells the genie to cut it out. Ironically, Bugs ends up wishing for a carrot, which is pretty mundane.
Murder, Inc. : Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs has a scene of the Queen calling "Murder Inc." to "black out So White." Murder Inc.'s rates for killing people are: $1.00 for killing anyone, 50 cents (half-price) for killing midgets, and, since the cartoon premiered around the time that America was involved in World War II , free for killing Japs.
The rat-faced Mexican villain from 1938's "My Little Buckaroo" will put anybody on the spot for $2.75. Mothers-in-law: $2.50.
"Katnip Kollege".
Mustache Vandalism : Many, many times. One example:
"Daffy Doodles" has Porky Pig as a policeman and Daffy Duck as a mustache vandal. When Daffy finally gets arrested and imprisoned at the end of the cartoon, Daffy tearfully repents and promises he'll never draw another mustache... he'll draw beards instead.
My Card : Wile E. Coyote's "Super Genius" card
Owl Jolson's, too, in "I Love to Singa".
The hotel manager in "Porky Pig's Feat" hands Daffy his card. Daffy punches it into paper dolls.
Daffy: You've had your coffee ration for this week, Robespierre!"
My God, What Have I Done? ?: Elmer Fudd's reaction whenever he thinks he's finally killed Bugs. No matter how hard he's been trying throughout the episode to shoot Bugs he always breaks down in tears when he thinks he's finally done it, calling himself a murderer. Which calls into question why he's a hunter in the first place.
The dog in Hare Ribbin' (1944) goes through similar contrition after taking a bite out of the rigged Rabbit Sandwich. When he wails "I wish I were dead!", Bugs hands him a gun and he blows his brains out, only to rise, stop the iris out and say "This shouldn't happen to a dog!" (Clampett's director's cut of the cartoon has Bugs shoving the gun in the dog's mouth and pulling the trigger.)
Another example done by Elmer in the end of What's Opera, Doc? .
Mythology Gag : The name of the high-rise building in which Porky lives in Porky's Pooch (1941): Termite Terrace. (Of note, all the backgrounds in the cartoon are live-action photographs.)
Naked People Are Funny : The ending of "All This And Rabbit Stew" .
Name Drop : This exchange from the Bugs Bunny cartoon French Rarebit (1951):
Bugs: Of course if you really want something good, you can't beat a good old Louisiana back bay bayou bunny bordelaise...à la Antoine.
Chef Francoise: À la Antoine?! You mean ze Antoine of New Orleans??
Bugs: I don't mean Antoine o' Flatbush!
Antoine's actually exists in New Orleans. It's at 713 St. Louis St. and has been in business since 1840.
Neck Lift : Bruno the bear does it to Bugs Bunny in "Big Top Bunny". So does Gossamer (aka "Rudolph") in Hair-Raising Hare.
Negative Continuity : Completely. In many series, characters meet each other for the first time in every cartoon, and any "facts" given about a character in one cartoon (like Elmer being a vegetarian in "Rabbit Fire") are for that cartoon only and aren't intended to carry over into subsequent instalments.
In Lighter Than Hare, Yosemite Sam is an alien with tons of robots whose trying, not to hunt Bugs Bunny, but abduct him. He also wears an astronaut suit and helmet instead of a cowboy hat, but otherwise looks exactly the same.
Never Wake Up A Sleepwalker : One short involved a Fox disguising itself as a Guard Dog using this trope to smuggle chickens out, counting on the real Guard Dog's fear of causing him to his advantage.
Another, "The Unbearable Bear" featuring Sniffles the Mouse, involves a policeman chasing a burglar in his own home, but both parties trying to stay quiet because the policeman's wife is sleepwalking. Though it's more because they're both afraid of what she'll do to them if she wakes up.
New Job as the Plot Demands :
Porky frequently switches jobs, as does Daffy.
Also, this is partially Yosemite Sam's whole schtick. While he started out as a Western outlaw, he later became whatever antagonist the short needed (but always kept his tiny bandit mask).
Pirate - Buccaneer Bunny, Mutiny on the Bunny, Captain Hareblower
Confederate soldier - Southern Fried Rabbit
Prison guard - Big House Bunny
Enemy knight - Knighty Knight Bugs
Alien invader - Lighter Than Hare
Viking - Prince Violent
Claim jumper - 14 Carrot Rabbit
Hessian mercenary - Bunker Hill Bunny
Rival mountain climber - Pikers Peak
Castaway - Rabbitson Crusoe
Political campaigner - Ballot Box Bunny
Sultan - Hare-abian Nights
Duke - From Hare To Heir
King's cook - Shishkabugs
WWI German Pilot - Dumb Patrol
Newspaper Dating : Elmer in "The Old, Gray Hare"
No Celebrities Were Harmed : Some Real Life Big Bads were humiliated — particularly around World War II, when all of their cartoons had the characters fighting against Adolf Hitler , Joseph Goebbels and his Nazi regime or Japanese soldiers, like in Tokio Jokio and Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips . In a more friendly fashion, Hollywood celebrities such as Humphrey Bogart , Frank Sinatra , and Al Jolson were often lightly mocked.
Prior to Abbott and Costello being caricatured as cats (later mice) as "Babbitt & Catstello," Laurel and Hardy were caricatured as crows in pursuit of a grasshopper in A Hop, Skip And A Chump.
Bing Crosby tried to stop release of "Bingo Crosbyana" (1936, Freleng) because it depicted him as a vainglorious cowardly fly.
Friz Freleng is caricatured as the astronomer who loses his mind after seeing what he saw in his telescope in The Hasty Hare.
The Gremlins in Bob Clampett's Russian Rhapsody are caricatures of Warner cartoon staffers.
The tour guide character in "Little Blabbermouse" and "Shop Look and Listen" is a caricature of W.C. Fields .
The two castaways in "Waikiki Wabbit" (1943) were caricatures of animator Ken Harris and storyman Michael Maltese. The two even furnished the voices to their cartoon counterparts.
Jackie Gleason and Art Carney, as their The Honeymooners characters Ralph Cramden and Ed Norton, were caricatured as hobos in Half Fare Hare. In fact, they Honeymooners cast were caricatured as mice in Bob McKimson's three Honeymousers cartoons ("The Honeymousers," "Cheese It—The Cat" and "Mice Follies").
"People Are Bunny" has a caricature of Art Linkletter, then the host of the NBC game show People Are Funny and CBS's Art Linkletter's House Party. Here he's called Art Lamplighter.
"Person to Bunny" had Edward R. Burrows, a parody of famous journalist Edward R. Murrow .
No Ending : Quite common - a lot of the shorts were just abruptly cut in the middle of the action.
In the case of "The Heckling Hare" it was Executive Meddling .
In Hare-Um Scare-Um (1939), hunter John Sourpuss tells proto-Bugs Bunny that "I can whip you and your whole family!" A bunch of bunnies arrive to take him up on the challengeï¿½then the film cuts off. In the original ending, the looney rabbits beat Sourpuss up on-camera, eventually driving him looney himself. Though no hard evidence has been found, it's often speculated that the scene was deleted for being too similar to the ending of Daffy Duck And Egghead one year prior. The footage has been restored to the cartoon for Looney Tunes Platinum Collection: Volume 2.
"Ride Him, Bosko!" is probably the standout example; the animators just up and leave without showing if Bosko rescues Honey or not.
No Fourth Wall : Every single cartoon breaks the fourth wall at last once. Duck Amuck is one of the most famous and insane examples ever made.
No Guy Wants to Be Chased : Is used quite often whenever a female Abhorrent Admirer goes after one of the male characters. Was also used in three Pepé Le Pew cartoons (1949's "For Scent-imental Reasons," 1952's "Little Beau Pepé ," and 1959's "Really Scent"), proving to modern audiences that, yeah, Pepé may be seen as a "rapist," but he's not a Karma Houdini (in those instances at least).
No More for Me : In "Who's Kitten Who?", Hippety Hopper hops by a man on the sidewalk. The man immediately drops a bottle of alcohol from his pocket and nervously walks away.
When a shrunk-to-the-size-of-a-mouse Gossamer in "Water, Water Every Hare" enters a mousehole, kicks the mouse out and puts up a sign that says "I quit!," the mouse drops a bottle of booze and says "I quit, too!"
Lampshaded by Daffy in "Rabbit Seasoning" after he pokes out of the hole he and Bugs are hiding in and Elmer blasts him:
Bugs: You go up and act as a decoy and lure him away.
Daffy: (dazed) No more for me, thankth! I'm drivin'!
Bugs: Ah well, like they say, never send a duck to do a rabbit's job.
No OSHA Compliance : Ralph is a wolf who's job is to eat sheep. Sam is a guard dog, whose job is to prevent Ralph from eating sheep. They both use the same punch clock, but the activities usually involve Ralph being injured at the end of the shift. Not that this is the only example .
Non-Mammal Mammaries : Hatta Mari in "Plane Daffy"
Non Sequitur Thud : Lots of them, some of which are the funniest and most memorable lines in the shorts. Daffy seems to be the most common victim.
Daffy: And the lights went out, all over the world! ("Stupor Duck")
Daffy: Starkle starkle, little twink, up above the skating rink! ("Swing Ding Amigo")
Daffy: No more for me, thanks! I'm drivin'! (Rabbit Fire)
Visual non-sequiturs: The penguin trio of "The Penguin Parade" (1938) stop their song midway to make grotesque faces at us; Bugs making a fruit salad on Elmer's head in Rabbit of Seville .
No Sympathy : In "Greedy for Tweety":
Nurse Granny: And how's the doggie's limb this morning? (Granny pats Hector's leg, who emits a pained groan) Oh, still tender, eh? Well, maybe that'll teach you to stop chasing the pussycat. (to Sylvester) And how's the... pussyfoot today? (pats Sylvester's leg, who also groans) Oh, still sensitive? Well, maybe now you'll leave that little birdie alone. I hope this teaches both of you a lesson.
Not Rare Over There : In "The Bee-deviled Bruin", Papa Bear nearly gets himself killed trying to get honey from a hive in a tree outside his home. Eventually, he gives up and asks for a bottle of ketchup. Mama Bear goes to get it... from a cupboard filled to the brim with jars of honey.
Not So Remote : In "Big House Bunny," Sam Schultz eagerly digs his way out of his cell and up into what appears to be a lush jungle. In fact, it's the collection of potted plants house in the Warden's office.
Obvious Stunt Double : Used in the short "A Star is Bored", where Daffy is Bugs' stunt double for any dangerous scene. He's dressed in a rabbit outfit but you can still see his duck face.
Off Model : Not uncommon, particularly in Bob Clampett 's shorts, where he gave the animators leeway in deviating from the model sheets in favor of a specific action or expression. However, there was plenty of unintentional off model, such as one scene from "Hare Lift", where Yosemite Sam briefly turns into a robot when he is wearing his parachute! Explanation: As Sam got smaller and smaller plummeting to the ground as the parachute opened, the animation of the automatic pilot, who abandoned the plane just moments before, was used.
The size difference between Daffy and Speedy seemed to fluctuate wildly, especially in the Alex Lovy-era shorts. One particularly glaring instance
is in "Skyscraper Caper" when Daffy walks by Speedy's house; Speedy is drawn much larger than he should be.
Offscreen Teleportation : The minah bird is a master of this.
Oh Crap! : Wile E. Coyote, Private Snafu, Ralph Wolf, and Those Wacky Nazis do this a lot. Even Bugs Bunny gets a few every now and then.
One-Shot Character : Many, many examples. In fact, Merrie Melodies started as a revolving door of one-shot cartoons and characters. Here are just some examples:
Meatless Flyday (featuring a slap-happy spider trying catch a fly)
Fresh Airedale
A Hick, a Slick, and a Chick
Bone Sweet Bone
Early to Bet (The Gambling Bug was only seen once)
Sleepy Time Possum
Rabbit's Kin (Pete Puma was only seen once in the original LT shorts)
Much Ado About Nutting
To Itch His Own
Mouse-Placed Kitten
The Mouse That Jack Built is sort of this, as it stars radio personality Jack Benny as a mouse. He also appeared (as "Jack Bunny") in Malibu Beach Party
High Note
The Mouse on 57th Street
Nelly's Folly
I Was a Teenage Thumb
Now Hear This
Senorella and the Glass Huarache
Flying Circus
Rabbit Stew and Rabbits Too! (though it was intended to be a series)
Open Sesame : "Uh... open... sarsaparilla? Open Saskatchewan?"
Also, "Abracadabra," and "Hocus Pocus," which transformed one of Bugs' villains (vampire Count Bloodcount, from 1963's Transylvania 6-5000) into and out of his bat form, respectively. Bugs eventually found great joy in torturing the vampire with such linguistic madness as 'Abraca-pocus' and 'Hocus-cadabra', which caused the villain to transform into a half-bat, a half-man and various other combinations. "Newport News" turned him into Witch Hazel (Bugs: "Oh, brudder... I can do better than that!"), and "Walla Walla Washington" turned him into a two-headed vulture.
Or My Name Isn't... : Subverted in "To Duck or Not to Duck": "There's something awfully screwy about this, or my name isn't Laddimore... and it isn't."
Yosemite Sam does this several times as well, such as in "Mutiny on the Bunny" ("I'm-a sailin' with the tide, or my name ain't Shanghai Sam... and it is.") and in "Big House Bunny" ("You'll do fifty years, or my name ain't Sam Schultz!").
Bugs: Eh... (gulps) Eh... what's up, doc?
Pie in the Face : A gag in "Slick Hare" involved Bugs masquerading as a waiter, ordering Elmer Fudd to make pies. When Fudd would make the pie, Bugs would take it, leave, and immediately come back in, smacking Fudd in the face with the pie.
Bugs: Your pie, sir.
Pink Elephants : A drunk is terrorized by a trio of pink elephants in "Calling Dr. Porky".
Also played with in "Punch Trunk"; a drunk stumbles out of a bar, notices the miniature elephant on the sidewalk, looks at his watch, and tells the elephant, "You're late!" He then lampshades this by saying, as he walks off, "They used to be pink..."
Pin-Pulling Teeth : Any time someone uses a grenade.
Pintsized Powerhouse : Tweety when he was under Bob Clampett's direction. Not so much when he was under Friz Freleng's direction, but he still had his moments. Chester the dog in " Tree for Two " and "Dr. Jerkyl's Hyde." Also Henry Chickenhawk in his various " Foghorn Leghorn " appearances.
Pirate Parrot : In "Buccaneer Bunny", Yosemite Sam, as the pirate Seagoin' Sam, has a parrot that follows Bugs Bunny around pointing out his hiding places. Bugs asks the parrot "Polly want a cracker?", and when the parrot agrees , gives him a lit firecracker.
Plummet Perspective : When Wile E. Coyote falls.
Poisoned Chalice Switcheroo : Done in "The Fair-Haired Hare" when Sam tries to drug Bugs: Bugs spins the table so fast that Sam can't keep track of which glass contains the poison.
Pooled Funds : In "Ali Baba Bunny" starting at 2:15
.
Poor Communication Kills : In "Long-Haired Hair", Giovanni Jones should have just explained to Bugs that he needed to practice singing and that Bugs' singing and music playing was disturbing his practice, as opposed to angrily causing harm to Bugs and his instruments without saying anything.
Portable Hole : The premise of "The Hole Idea" concerns an inventor making a portable hole and it falling into criminal hands.
Powder Trail
Precision F-Strike : 1940's The Hardships Of Miles Standish has a cockeyed Indian plunking a fellow Indian on the head with a bow and arrow. The hurt Indian turns and mouths "Goddamn son of a bitch!" It is rumored that the Indian actually voiced it but was silenced before the cartoon was released.
The legendary Porky Pig "blooper" in which he hits his thumb with a hammer and stammers "Son of a b-b-b-b...son of a b-b-b...son of a b-b-b-b..gun!" He then turns to the camera and says " You thought I was gonna say 'son of a bitch,' didn't you? " Oh yes, it's real, all right — it was included on "Looney Tunes Golden Collection Vol. 4" as an extra. See it here.
Just averted in Blooper Bunny. Daffy's beak gets impaled by the loose plank Bugs noted earlier.
Bugs: Now can we cut?
Daffy: You smug son of a— (Bugs just does make a "cut" motion to camera, and the scene is abruptly cut)
1960's Rebel Without Claws: The Confederate general, consigned to using Tweety as a messenger, walks off and mutters "Damn yankees!" As the North turns Sylvester loose as an interceptor, Tweety turns to us and says "I tawt I taw a damn Yankee tat!"
Averted in Tortoise Beats Hare (1941) after Bugs discovers that Cecil Turtle won the race:
Bugs: (about to throttle Cecil's neck) Ooh, you blankety blank blank toitle!
The Road Runner's bogus scientific name in 1959's "Wild About Hurry": Batoutahelius.
1936's Boulevardier From The Bronx: Claude tries to catch a fly ball but has dozens fall among him. He says "Aw..." followed by a razzing sound effect.
Prehistoria : Most notably Caveman Inki, Prehysterical Hare, and especially Wild Wild World
Press-Ganged : In "Mutiny on the Bunny", Bugs Bunny is forced into service by sea captain Yosemite Sam (who in this cartoon goes by the appropriate moniker of Shanghai Sam).
Prickly Porcupine : A gag in "Unnatural History" involves kissing porcupines, who leap into the air in pain every time they do so.
Private Detective : Daffy plays this role in several cartoons, including the following:
Duck Drake in "The Super Snooper".
Joe Monday in "Rocket Squad".
The title character in "Boston Quackie".
The title character in "China Jones".
Pro Wrestling Episode : In " Bunny Hugged ", Bugs was the mascot of wrestler Ravishing Ronald, but when he gets pummeled by the Crusher, Bugs steps into the ring as the Masked Terror.
Also, "Porky The Wrestler" (1936, Avery). Porky is mistaken to be wrestling champ Hugo Bernowskiwoskinowskiskowski and faces Man Mountain in the ring.
Produce Pelting : Numerous instances, such as in One Froggy Evening when the frog doesn't sing on cue for the audience, and "Show Biz Bugs" when Daffy is hit with a single tomato after his "trained" doves fly away. See also the "Daffy's Inn Trouble" example above in Broken Record .
Public Domain Animation : Some of the cartoons have slipped into the Public Domain . Most of them are from the '30s and early '40s, though.
Pulling the Rug Out :
In Porky's Romance, Porky Pig is attempting to propose to his girlfriend Petunia when her spoiled dog Fluffnums pulls a mean-spirited trick on Porky by pulling the rug out from under him and the fickle and selfish Petunia laughs at him, causing Porky to leave the house and walk off in shame.
Porky Pig's Feat, has Daffy Duck pulling the rug out from under the hotel manager, causing him to fall down several flights of stairs.
Pun-Based Title : Practically every WB short has one of these.
Punch Clock Hero : Sam the Sheepdog / Punch Clock Villain : Ralph the Wolf are literal ones. It's their job, and once they punch out, they're pals again.
Real Award, Fictional Character :
In the 1944 short "What's Cookin' Doc?", Bugs Bunny believes he's a shoo-in for Best Actor at the Oscars, but James Cagney wins it instead, causing Bugs to have a meltdown. He ends up getting a Booby Prize Oscar, shaped like him.
Bugs Bunny is awarded a Nobel Prize in The Looney Tunes Show episode "The Shelf." Subverted when this genius bunny succeeds in demolishing his entire house while building a shelf to display his award.
Bugs Bunny argues with the humorless Kate Houghton during Looney Tunes: Back in Action about rehiring Daffy Duck , and bolsters his argument with four Oscar statuettes and a chunk of granite with his Walk of Fame star on it. For the record, four Warner Brothers cartoons have won an Oscar, but only one went to a Bugs Bunny cartoon" "Knighty Knight Bugs." Bugs Bunny also has an actual star on the Walk of Fame.
Reality Ensues : The plot of every Private Snafu story.
The first Looney Tunes theme was an instrumental of "A Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight".
The second Looney Tunes theme was an instrumental of "Whistle and Blow Your Blues Away".
The fifth Looney Tunes theme, and the most famous one, was an instrumental of "The Merry Go Round Broke Down". (The third and fourth themes were studio originated, "Beauty And The Beast" and "Porky Signature" respectively.)
The first Merrie Melodies theme was an instrumental of "Get Happy".
The second Merrie Melodies theme was an instrumental of "I Think You're Ducky".
The third Merrie Melodies theme, and the most famous one, was an instrumental of "Merrily We Roll Along".
Rearrange the Song : There are different arrangements of each of the Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes opening themes. In particular, "Merrily We Roll Along" and "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down" got a ton of adjustments over the years (the latter had a very strange-sounding version in the 1960s!)
Both themes were composed prior to being used for their respective series. "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down" was a 1934 standard and was first used as the LT theme in the cartoon "Rover's Rival" (1937, Clampett). "Merrily We Roll Along" was composed in the footsteps of a short-lived play of the same title in 1935. It became the MM theme in "Boulevarider From The Bronx" (1936, Freleng) and was used with different lyrics beforehand ("Billboard Frolics" and "Toytown Hall").
Recitation Handclasp : Giovanni Jones (the fat opera singer) assumes this posture in " Long-Haired Hare ."
Recycled In Space : During the 1964-1969 Dork Age , the WB animation studio tried recycling the Road Runner formula with woodland animals, resulting in Rapid Rabbit — who uses a blowhorn as his trademark — and Quick Brown Fox. Only one cartoon with this premise was produced.
Recycled Soundtrack : Ten of the eleven Road Runner cartoons directed by Rudy Larriva use the same music cues over and over.
The Remake : A few examples:
1937's "Porky's Badtime Story" was remade in color in 1944 as "Tick Tock Tuckered". Most of the differences were merely cosmetic.
1938's "Injun Trouble" was remade in color in 1945 as "Wagon Heels".
1938's " Porky in Wackyland " was remade in 1949 as "Dough For the Do-Do". Besides being in color, "Do-Do" had a completely new soundtrack, some vocal differences, and a brand new ending. Many of the gags are the same between both cartoons, though. Animation of some of the Wackyland inhabitants was repurposed and crafted in color for 1943's "Tin Pan Alley Cats," with the Fats Waller cat substituting for Porky.
1939's "Scalp Trouble" was remade in 1944 as "Slightly Daffy", with only a few differences in gags.
1941's "Notes to You" was remade in 1948 as "Back Alley Oproar". Notably, the first short had Porky as the protagonist, while the remake replaced him with Elmer.
1948's "Gorilla My Dreams" was remade in 1959 as "Apes of Wrath". Unlike "Slightly Daffy" and "Dough For the Do-Do", though, this one was its own entity, and the only similarities were in their premises.
1946's " Baseball Bugs " was more or less remade in 1954 as "Gone Batty", with an elephant in Bugs's place.
1948's "Mouse Wreckers," starring Hubie and Bertie as two mice who drive Claude Cat to a psychological breakdown, was loosely remade in 1958 as "Gopher Broke," where the Goofy Gophers physically and mentally torture D'Brer Dog to the point of insanity. Chuck Jones directed "Mouse Wreckers", while Robert McKimson directed "Gopher Broke".
An episode of "The Bugs Bunny Show" was remade as 1963's "Devil's Feud Cake". In fact, nearly all the animation was recycled into the new short. The major change was that the Carl Stalling and Milt Franklyn soundtrack was replaced by a new score by Bill Lava.
The Remnant : Yosemite Sam as a Confederate General who won't let Bugs across the Mason-Dixon line in "Southern Fried Rabbit". When Bugs tells him the Civil War is long over, Sam dismissively calls him a "Clockwatcher" and refuses to stand down until he gets official word from General Lee.
Reused Character Design : Ralph the Wolf looks suspiciously similar to Wile E. Coyote.
Rhyming List : This
short uses a rhyming list each floor for an Elevator Floor Announcement .
Ridiculously Fast Construction : In "Hare and Loathing in Las Vegas", a casino complex is built near his rabbit hole in a matter of seconds.
Right Behind Me : Happens to Bugs in "Devil May Hare" when he insults Taz, who happens to be standing right behind him.
Taz: Flattery'll get ya nowhere.
Rod And Reel Repurposed :
In Rabbit Romeo, Elmer Fudd uses a carrot on a hook to lure Bugs Bunny into being a mate for his Slobovian rabbit Millicent.
Elmer also used it in Stage Door Cartoon, where i.e. tried to trap Bugs by lowering a carrot down his rabbit hole.
Roger Rabbit Effect : "You Ought To Be In Pictures."
Romantic Comedy : The Pepé LePew shorts. Though, in this PC age, some people would put them more in the Black Comedy Rape category. In fact, for some, it's funnier to think of it this way.
"Hare Splitter", which has Bugs and another rabbit fighting over the same girl.
Something Completely Different :
The 1942 Any Bonds Today is only 1 minute and 38 seconds long and is in essence a propaganda short where Bugs, Porky and Elmer Fudd sing and dance to motivate people to buy war bonds to support the war effort. It's one of the shortest cartoons available in the Looney Tunes filmography and features no plot or conflict at all.
1968's "Norman Normal", which is entirely dialog-based humor, with none of the slapstick and wacky gags associated with the series. It also didn't feature Mel Blanc or any of the other regular voice artists. In fact, it wasn't called a Merrie Melody OR a Looney Tune; it was instead called a "Cartoon Special".
Old Glory , which has no jokes and is instead a visual retelling of the founding of America.
Something Else Also Rises : Usually, it's eyes bugging out, though that's more popular in the cartoons Tex Avery did when he left Warner Brothers and went to MGM; other times, it's ears or tails becoming erect. On one obscure Frank Tashlin cartoon called "I Got Plenty of Mutton," it was a ram's horns, and they even glowed red . How that got past the Hays Office is anyone's guess .
Sophisticated as Hell : In one Foghorn Leghorn cartoon, after the rooster pulls a prank on the resident farm dog, the dog reacts this way:
"There's but one cause for me to follow... I'LL MOIDER DA BUM!"
Sound-Only Death : Subverted at the end of Ballot Box Bunny. When Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam learn that they lost the election to a literal dark horse , they decide to settle for a Russian Roulette . Sam is the first to hold the gun to his head and pull the trigger, but doesn't get the bullet. When Bugs is the next to do so, the scene irises out to black and we clearly hear a gunshot. However, the scene irises back in on Bugs' side, showing he just missed his head. A second iris-in on Sam's side shows he took the blast instead .
Sound Track Dissonance : Carl Stalling's successor as musical director Milt Franklyn died halfway through scoring the Sylvester and Tweety cartoon The Jet Cage, from 1962. William "Bill" Lava took over and the difference in music is quite jarring.
The same could be said for "Freudy Cat", where Lava's music in the wraparounds clashes with the original Carl Stalling music heard in most of the old clips. Given that "Freudy Cat" centered on Sylvester going to a psychiatrist about his "giant mouse" problem, the schizophrenic (pardon the pun) music to fit the mood could have been done intentionally.
Six cartoons from 1958 had pre-scored background music tracks (called "needle-drop" in the industry) selected by John Seely, employed during a musician's strike. Most of the tracks heard were also used in Gumby and, soon after, Hanna-Barbera's early TV shows. Those cartoons were Prehysterical Hare (Bugs Bunny), Bird In A Bonnett (Sylvester and Tweety), Weasel While You Work (Foghorn Leghorn), Hook, Line And Stinker (Road Runner), Hip Hip Hurry! (also Road Runner) and Gopher Broke (Goofy Gophers).
Played for laughs in "Porky's Preview." Carl Stalling parodies the Looney Tunes theme and creates some hilarious off-key scores, especially with "La Cucaracha."
Speech Impediment : Daffy, Sylvester, Elmer Fudd
Daffy's voice in Porky's Duck Hunt was originally based on that of producer Leon Schlesinger. Chuck Jones told that after the cartoon was completed Leon had to screen it, so everyone wrote their resignation in advance. Leon never caught on; he thought it was a funny voice.
The Spinoff Babies series: Baby Looney Tunes .
Private Snafu certainly counts, as it is clearly set in the same universe as Looney Tunes.
Spiritual Successor : Tiny Toon Adventures , which featured many of the Looney Tunes in recurring roles, as well as its semi- Spin-Off , Animaniacs , and its spin off, Pinky and the Brain . We do not speak of the Tiny Toons/Pinky and the Brain crossover series, Pinky, Elmyra, and the Brain, which moved far too into conventional sitcom territory to be considered in the same spirit as the Looney Tunes anyway.
Chuck Jones 's early short "Tom Thumb In Trouble" is played completely straight, and is actually a very good little fairy tale cartoon, just not a funny one. Years later, after he'd matured in his craft, Jones did "I Was A Teenaged Thumb," which uses wonderfully surreal humor and highly stylized, graphic design-style character designs.
Spit Take : In "My Generation G-G-Gap", Porky does a really long one when he sees his daughter on TV at the rock concert.
Split Personality : Daffy pretends to have one in "The Prize Pest", in order to repeatedly scare Porky in his "alter ego" state.
The Sponsor : In the " Birds Anonymous " short, Sylvester joins the titular group to kick the bird-eating habit, and his sponsor is there to make sure he doesn't try to eat Tweety in a moment of weakness. However, the sponsor himself falls Off the Wagon and goes after Tweety, while Sylvester tries to stop him.
Tweety: Once a bad ol' putty tat, always a bad ol' putty tat!
Stock Footage : Abuses this enough to get a whole page
tracking virtually every usage of this trope in the original shorts!
The first opening to The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show (i.e. the one without the new Darrell Van Citters animation) reuses the Bugs and Daffy song and dance animation from The Bugs Bunny Show's opening.
Stopped Reading Too Soon : A gag in "Hare-Less Wolf" involves Charles Wolf reading instructions on how to operate a hand grenade. He pulls the pin before reading that you only have a few seconds to throw the grenade before it explodes.
Straight Man and Wise Guy : When paired together, Bugs typically fills the former role and Daffy the latter.
Stuff Blowing Up : To the point where they recycle the same explosion footage at almost every opportunity.
Stylistic Suck : "Porkys Funny Pictures", a self-parodying cartoon-within-a-cartoon written and drawn by Porky Pig himself in the short 'Porky's Preview'.
Used as a narrative point in 'Invasion of the Bunny Snatchers': several characters are kidnapped by alien carrots and replaced with inferior clones, all the clones being drawn horribly lazily and animated in ways parodying the most infamously cheap animation methods used in later Hanna-Barbera cartoons.
Submarine Pirates : The plot of Porky the Gob involves a hunt for a pirate sub, staffed by some outlandish characters, one of which has an outlandish uniform and an even more outlandish mustachio. Porky, left alone to guard his ship, manages to fend off an attack by the sub, capture it, and claim the reward.
Sudden Anatomy : During the "Rabbit of Seville" short, Bugs grows an extra finger on each hand when he plays Elmer Fudd's head like a piano, since the music couldn't be played using the four-fingers-per-hand he usually has.
The stripping lizard from "Cross Country Detours" (even though her "anatomy" was blocked with a Censor Box )
Suddenly Voiced : In the cartoons where Wile E. Coyote goes after Bugs Bunny, Wile E. speaks in a pretentious, intellectual voice (though there is one exception: "Hare-Breadth Hurry," where Bugs is recast as the Roadrunner. In that cartoon, as in the usual Road Runner cartoon, Wile E. Coyote didn't speak at all).
His first lines of dialogue, to Bugs in "Operation: Rabbit":
Wile E.: Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Coyote. Wile E. Coyote, genius. I am not selling anything nor am I working my way through college. (Bugs tries to speak) So, let's get down to cases. You are a rabbit, and I am going to eat you for supper. (Bugs feigns fear) Now, don't try to get away. I am more muscular, more cunning, faster and larger than you, and I'm a genius. (Bugs now looking bored) While you could hardly pass the entrance examinations to kindergarten. (Bugs yawns) So I'll give you the customary two minutes to say your prayers.
Bugs: I'm sorry, mack, the lady of the house ain't home. And besides, we mailed you people a check last week.
Wile E. does speak in The Adventures Of The Road Runner, a two-reeler intended as the pilot for TV series (which would come about in 1966), in which he answers a child's question on why he wants to catch the Road Runner, and then using film to examine his shortcomings. This feature was edited for TV into two separate shorts, "Zip Zip Hooray" and "Road Runner-A-Go-Go."
The cat from "A Fractured Leghorn" is a mute until the very end of the short, when he tells Foghorn to " shaddap ".
In "Hobo Bobo", the one shot character Bobo the elephant says his first and only line ending the cartoon:
Bobo: Batboy, smatboy! I'm still carrying logs!
In "Joe Glow the Firefly", the firefly shouts "GOOD NIGHT!" after being silent beforehand.
Super Speed : Road Runner and Speedy Gonzales
Surprise Jump : There's a series of shorts in which a puppy runs behind a cat and barks loudly, causing the cat to jump up in shock and hold on to the ceiling. When there isn't a ceiling, the cat ends up on a tree, a telephone pole, or even the wing of a passing airplane.
Sweeping Ashes
Sympathetic Inspector Antagonist : The Sheriff in the "Bunny and Claude" cartoons.
Porky in some of his bouts against Daffy (he is a policeman in "Daffy Doodles" and "Riff Raffy Daffy" for example).
Synchro-Vox : Used in a brief scene in "Invasion of the Bunny Snatchers".
Talking Animal : Subverted in "Unnatural History": A man shows a skeptical producer his talking dog, who answers all his questions with bark variants ("Ruth", "Roof", "Ralph"). The unimpressed producer throws them out, and the dog asks his master, "Maybe I should've said "DiMaggio?"
Talking with Signs : Seen a lot in the Wile E. Coyote/Road Runner cartoons.
Sylvester does this in ''Peck Up Your Troubles" as he is trying to catch a woodpecker:
Sylvester's sign: Why didn't I think of this before? (starts walking up in mid-air)
Sign #2: Anything can happen in a cartoon!
Tar and Feathers : In one Road Runner cartoon, Wile E. Coyote tries to capture the Road Runner with a tar-and-feather machine. Not surprisingly, Wile E. is the one who winds up tarred and feathered, after which the Road Runner runs up holding a sign that reads , "Road runners already have feathers."
Taxman Takes the Winnings : In the short "The Wabbit Who Came to Supper", Elmer Fudd expects to inherit $3 Million from his Uncle Louie. But when Louie dies, Elmer has to pay an Inheritance Tax, State Tax, County Tax, Defense Tax, Special Tax and Property Tax...leaving him owing the government $1.98.
Team Rocket Wins : Yes, there is a moment in which Wile E. Coyote is successful in capturing the Road Runner. Thanks to Rule of Funny , the Coyote is much...much smaller than the Road Runner when the former captures the latter causing Wile E. to be absolutely baffled as to what to do with the Roadrunner upon capturing him.
There are numerous viewer-created "Coyote Catches Road Runner" clips on You Tube, but this video
, culled and composited from Fast And Furry-ous, is by far the funniest.
Elmer Fudd gained the odd victory against Bugs (eg."Rabbit Rampage", "Hare Brush" and "What's Opera, Doc?" (although in that last one, he felt remorse for supposedly killing Bugs, who is only faking it)).
Daffy Duck, even post-Flanderization had a few spectacular victories to balance his Butt Monkey role (eg. "Ducking The Devil", "Mucho Locos").
With some assistance from Speedy Gonzales, Sylvester chalks up a win at the end of 1964's A Message To Gracias.
With some assistance from Bugs Bunny, the Big Bad Wolf (from the "Three Little Pigs" story) chalks up a win at the end of 1949's The Windblown Hare.
Shep, the egotistical canine from Chuck Jones' Fresh Airedale, is more Took a Level in Jerkass than villain, although his goal—to eliminate a Scottish terrier who was deemed the city's top dog—would seem evil enough to qualify him as a villain. It goes awry as Shep nearly drowns and the terrier rescues him. But when the terrier collapses from exhaustion, everybody—the press included—fetes Shep as a hero that rescued the terrier.
Used in I Love To Singa
. A receptionist receives a telegram from a sleazy deliveryman. She reads it and the camera pans away.
We just received another telegram, Station GOMG. Stop. Your program coming in great. Stop. Think it's fine. Stop. Glad to hear your amateurs. Stop. They're all very funny. [camera pans back to show her continually pushing away the deliveryman as he keeps trying to hold her] Stop! Keep up the good work. Stop! Good luck. STOP! The gang. STOP! [she pushes him offscreen and he crashes]
The Hardship of Miles Standish has a singing telegram
punctuated by STOPs.
The Television Talks Back : In "Dog Collared", Porky sees a newscast on TV about a missing dog (the same dog that had been pestering Porky the whole cartoon), and anyone who returns it will get a reward of $5,000.
Porky: (amazed) A thousand b-b-b-b-bucks?
Announcer: No, five thousand b-b-b-b-bucks !
Ten Paces and Turn : "Mississippi Hare," "Wild And Wooly Hare" and "Hare Trimmed"
Zig-zagged in "Jack Wabbit And The Beanstalk." Bugs says for the giant to count 20 paces then turn and fire. Bugs thinks he's outsmarted the giant as the galoot disappears into the horizon, but then he reappears on the other side— The 20 paces were enough for him to circumnavigate all the way back.
Tertiary Sexual Characteristics
Thanksgiving Episode : "Tom Turk and Daffy", "Holiday for Drumsticks"
Bugs Bunny's Thanksgiving Diet is a TV special that incorporates several vintage shorts, though strangely enough neither of the above.
Once the practice of "That's all Folks!" writing itself out at the end became the standard, there were quite a few cartoons that subverted and/or averted it:
The Major Lied Till Dawn (Tashlin, 1938—the elephant trying to remember something says it)
Porky's Duck Hunt (Avery, 1937—Everything already written out as Daffy jumps around on the letters)
Old Glory (Jones, 1939—it and the Merrie Melodies/Produced by Leon Schlesinger tags simply fade in over the waving American flag on the original print)
The Old Grey Hare (1944, Clampett—titles already in place; card shakes violently after the dynamite Elmer was holding at the iris out explodes)
Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs (1943, Clampett—all titles already displayed over animation of the grandmother and child from the beginning in a rocking chair)
A Ham In A Role (1949, McKimson) starts off with a dog taking a pie in the face and strumming his lips idiotically, followed by a static "That's all, Folks!" title card.
The Three Little Bops (Freleng, 1957—an iris out and a simple "The End" on the screen)
Lumber Jack Rabbit (Jones, 1954—all three title elements simply fade in as part of the 3-D effect in which the cartoon was made. At the opening, the W-B shield zooms so far in as if to leap into the audience.)
What's Opera, Doc? ? (Jones, 1958—already written out)
Two Crows From Tacos (Freleng, 1959—again a simple fade in)
Stop, Look, and Hasten (Jones, 1954—The Road Runner writes it out in desert dust before it dissolves into the concentric circles ending card)
Guided Muscle (Jones, 1955—"That's all, Folks!" is already written out as the humiliated coyote drags the ending card into shot)
Whoa, Be-Gone! (Jones, 1958—Same as Guided Muscle, but the Road Runner is the one pulling the ending card downwards via window shade as Wile E. encounters the mine field while endured in the tornado)
Nelly's Folly (Jones, 1961—everything except "That's all Folks" on the lower end of a black background)
Coyote Falls (O'Callaghan, 2010—The phrase is written on the back of a truck)
Fur of Flying (O'Callaghan, 2010—Wile E. Coyote says it in his own special way )
Rabid Rider (O'Callaghan, 2010—Written on the side of a mountain the Road Runner rides past)
I Tawt I Taw a Puddy Tat (O'Callaghan, 2011—Written on a shirt on a clothesline Tweety flies past)
Daffy's Rhapsody (O'Callaghan, 2012—A card with the phrase written on it appears, then giant bullet holes appear in it. Daffy and Elmer run through them, with Elmer stopping and aiming his gun right at the camera, saying, "Now I'm weally, weally mad." He then brings down his gun to do his Signature Laugh , before bringing it up again and firing)
Several Merrie Melodies films re-edited in the 40s as Blue Ribbon re-releases had "That's all, Folks!" replaced with "The End" in Lydian script over the concentric circles title cards.
The 1967 redrawn edition of The Village Smithy (1937, Avery) has the outline of "That's all folks!" against a red background; a white card is slowly pulled from left to right behind it to cheaply simulate writing itself out (the original print from 1937 has the title writing itself out against a black background). Virtually all other redrawn Looney Tunes either had the Warner-Bros.-Seven Arts closing titles or the spliced-in late 50s That's all Folks! Looney Tunes closing titles.
The first Looney Tune to use Porky in the drum was "Rover's Rival". Looney Tunes would go back to the self-writing "That's all folks!" in 1946.
Completely averted in the "Dork Age" cartoons from 1964 to 1969, where the ending was the abstract WB logo then the Warner Bros.-Seven Arts logo followed by a self-printing "A Warner Bros. (-Seven Arts) cartoon, a Vitaphone (Vitagraph) release."
At the end of Who Framed Roger Rabbit Porky is one of two policemen with back to the camera dispersing the crowd saying "There's nothing to see here, that's all folks!" He turns to face the camera saying "Hey, I like that!" then assumes the classic pose as he repeats the line, sharing the iris-out with Walt Disney's Tinkerbell.
Invasion Of The Bunny Snatchers (1991, Ford, Lennon) has a premature "That's all folks" which Bugs stops so the cartoon can continue. It ends with a very poor computer-animated Porky Pig attempting the drum ending tag—Bugs kicks it out and places the real Porky in the drum for the tag line.
Blooper Bunny (1992, Ford, Lennon) has a quick "That's all Folks!" title card after the Bugs Bunny "special", then at the end after Bugs' final line, we see "That's all Folks!" written by hand on the film tail.
Space Jam (1996) ends with Bugs starting out the phrase but interrupted by Porky, Daffy, the Nerdlucks, and Michael Jordan .
Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003) ends with Porky's stuttering going on long enough to miss the cue, and then he just angrily mutters, "Go home, folks," after the studio lights shut off.
They Fight Crime! : The Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries, also several original shorts pairing Daffy and Porky as crimefighters ("Rocket Squad," "Deduce, You Say", "Boston Quackie," Daffy solo in The Great Piggy Bank Robbery , "The Super Snooper" and "Stupor Duck"). And good ol' Bugs in "Super Rabbit."
"The Unmentionables": Bugs Bunny threatens mobster Rocky with a carrot. Rocky laughs it off, until the carrot fires on his face.
"Drip-Along Daffy": Nasty Canasta is felled by a tiny wind-up soldier... whose rifle packs a mighty wallop.
This Means War! : Originally used by Groucho Marx , but has come to be associated with Bugs Bunny.
Those Wacky Nazis : Targets in such such World War II cartoons as The Ducktators , Tokio Jokio , Herr Meets Hare , Russian Rhapsody , Plane Daffy and Daffy the Commando .
Three-Dimensional Episode : "Lumber Jack Rabbit", which was the only short produced in 3D.
Three Stooges Shout-Out : In what is probably the earliest shout-out of this trope the cartoon "Wholly Smoke" (1938) has three cigars resembling the Three Stooges rise out of a cigar box and each one gives him an eyepoke. ◦ "Hollywood Steps Out" shows caricatures of famous Hollywood actors of the time, including the Three Stooges poking each others eyes in tune to the music.
The Stooges also appear in "Porky's Hero Agency" (1938) indulging in face slaps and eye pokes before Medusa turns them into statues. "Porky In Wackyland" has very loose caricatures of them as a three-headed being occupying a single body. His mother was scared by a pawnbroker's sign.
Time Travel : From 1946's "Mouse Menace"—in less than a second, Porky zips into town and returns with a pet carrier (with a cat inside).
Porky: (to us) A flat tire held me up, folks.
Also seen in "The Pest That Came To Dinner", after Porky calls the exterminator on the phone to come over to rid his house of the termite, after which the exterminator shows up not a few seconds later.
Exterminator: Got held up in traffic, sonny.
Tiny-Headed Behemoth :
In "The Bashful Buzzard", Beaky tries to wrestle what he thinks is a small lizard out from between some rocks, behind which lie the enormous body of a dragon.
A similar reveal is used in the earlier "Prehistoric Porky" with Porky's pet dinosaur, its terrier-sized head peeking out of a small doghouse while the rest of the body lies behind it.
In "Thumb Fun", Daffy Duck confronts the driver of a tiny car. When the driver steps out, however, he's a seven-foot, 300-pound thug with a tiny head hardly visible atop his broad shoulders.
Title Drop : In "What's Up, Doc?", Bugs sings, what else, his catchphrase.
Also in "Scaredy Cat", Porky title drops the name of the cartoon to Sylvester when trying to convince him nothing's in the kitchen after trying to drag Sylvester in the kitchen once again.
In both "I Taw a Putty Tat" and "Bad Ol' Putty Tat", Tweety Bird himself title drops both of them respectively and they're also his catchphrases.
In "Rabbit Punch", Bugs title drops the name of the cartoon when heckling "The Champ" after the announcer counts down when Bugs is knocked out by "The Champ".
Title Montage : The first opening for The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show (i.e. the one without the new Darrell Van Citters animation) features clips from old cartoons, including "What's Up, Doc?", "Hot Cross Bunny", "Stupor Duck", "Person to Bunny", and " Long-Haired Hare ", among others.
Toilet Humor : The implied bed-wetting scene in "Porky's Badtime Story"/"Tick Tock Tuckered" as well as "Daffy Duck Slept Here"; one of the racing dogs in "The Greyhounded Hare" is named Whizzer (though it can follow that he was named for his speed and not weak bladder).
"The Sneezin' Weasel": The baby chick runs for the bathroom after having castor oil administered to him.
Too Dumb to Fool : The giant in "Jack-Wabbit and the Beanstalk."
Giant: Hey, wait a minute! Trying to pull a fast one on me, eh? Well, he [Bugs] can't outsmart me, because I'm a moron!
Too Dumb to Live : Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam, Marvin The Martian, the Tasmanian Devil, Daffy Duck, in short, Bugs Bunny's enemies.
Oh, and did we mention Wile E. Coyote?
Too Kinky to Torture : Daffy Duck at the end of Bob Clampett's "The Wise Quacking Duck". after getting his feathers shot off and being put in a gas oven, Daffy is somehow alive and quips, "Say, now you're cooking with gas!" while drizzling jus all over himself
Pepé Le Pew on most occasions — the most infamous one being 1953's "Wild Over You," where Pepé goes after an escaped wildcat, despite the fact she keeps beating the tar out of him. (His ending line is proof that "Wild Over You" fits this trope: "If you have not tried eet, do not knock eet!")
Toothy Bird : Most of the birds are at least on occasion.
Traveling-Pipe Bulge : In "Billboard Frolics", a cat traps a dog in a piece of pipe, which bulges where the dog thrashes around inside.
Train Job : How Yosemite Sam gets his introduction in "Hare Trigger". He later tries (unsuccessfully) to rob a train in "Wild and Woolly Hare".
Tranquil Fury : The Tasmanian Devil would occasionally slip into this.
Uncle Tomfoolery : The reason why there's a collection of cartoons called The Censored Eleven
, though there are some WB cartoons with extensive black stereotypes in them that aren't part of this collection, but have been banned from syndication all the same.
Unexplained Recovery :
A Running Gag involves characters like Wile E. Coyote getting seriously injured and then being perfectly fine in the next scene with no explanation as to how they recovered from their injuries.
Hugo, the Lennie expy abominable snowman Bugs and Daffy met once in The Abominable Snow Rabbit (1961), ended up melting into a puddle ("He melted! He really was a snowman! ") in his first appearance. He ended up inexplicably coming back in all his yeti-like glory in Spaced Out Bunny (1980) and was last seen on the moon, recruiting Marvin the Martian as his new "George".
Hugo: (with Bugs in his grip) Oh boy, oh boy, at last my own little bunny rabbit.
Elmer breaks down in this way in What's Opera, Doc? after being duped by Bugs disguised as Brunhilde. He then unleashes his fury and the elements on Bugs :
Elmer: I'LL KILL THE WABBIT!! AWISE, STORM! NORTH WINDS, BWOW! SOUTH WINDS, BWOW! TYPHOONS! HUWWICANES! EARTHQUAKES! '''SMOG!!!'''
Visual Pun : A staple. Usually in the form of a character turning into a lollipop with the word "Sucker" emblazoned across it, a donkey with the word "Jackass" on it, or a heel with the words "First Class Heel" on it (in those days, a "heel" is what we would call these days a "jerk," "bastard," "asshole," or "douchebag").
Vomit Discretion Shot : Despite being seasick many times in "Tweety's S.O.S.", we never actually see Sylvester vomit.
Vocal Evolution : There are many examples, but the one that stands out the most is how Mel Blanc portrays Bugs from proto-Bugs Bunny to the voice we all know and love.
Marvin the Martian's first voice in "Haredevil Hare" is higher pitched. Mel Blanc deepened it in the next cartoon, "The Hasty Hare", and kept it that way for the remaining cartoons.
Wet Cement Gag :
One short had Hippety Hopper jumping into wet cement, to the anger of the worker paving the sidewalk.
On the Bugs Bunny cartoon "Homeless Hare", a construction foreman falls into wet cement, completely submerged except for his cigar. The worker smoothing down the cement doesn't notice when he falls, and simply keeps smoothing, plucking out the cigar to smoke it.
One Chuck Jones cartoon involving Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner has the coyote smooth a large square of fresh concrete across a roadway, aiming to bog down the bird in the stuff. Instead, it's subverted when the Road Runner's insane speed parts the concrete down the middle, splashing the nearby coyote with the stuff. The poor coyote takes about six steps away in defeat when the concrete hardens around him, turning him into a Living Statue .
We Sell Everything : Considering the company ACME stands for A Company that Makes Everything, and their label is on many of the things used by the characters, it's a case of this trope.
The Acme Company is seen for the first time: in live-action form, curiously enough in Looney Tunes: Back in Action . Since the head of the company is evil in this movie, Bugs and Daffy get everything they need from a conveniently placed Walmart instead.
Whammy : Every time the cat in Robert McKimson's Early To Bet loses to the bulldog at gin rummy, he has to spin a "penalty wheel" and suffer whatever physical punishment it lands on (from a cabinet file corresponding to the wheel number).
What Happened to the Mouse? : Or in this case, the monkey. In the Sylvester and Tweety cartoon, "Canary Row," Sylvester lures an organ grinder's monkey away with a banana before clubbing him in the head off-screen and stealing his clothes. You'd think there should be a scene where after Sylvester's latest attempt at catching Tweety fails, the organ grinder and the still-injured monkey return to exact their revenge on Sylvester . That never happened.
Whole Episode Flashback : "Wild Wife", which concerns a frazzled housewife describing her hectic day to her skeptical husband.