(Acknowledgment to the essential tomes: Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies, by Jerry Beck & Will Friedwald Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons, by Leonard Maltin and Bugs Bunny: Fifty Years and Only One Grey Hare, by Joe Adamson. Over 1,000 were produced, so I’m bound to have missed a classic or two. canon, including a top 10 of essential masterworks.
On this 90th anniversary, here is a sampling of 90 of the looniest and merriest cartoons in the Warner Bros. Freleng would say, ‘Ah, bullshit! Let’s knock ’em dead.’” “There was only one guy … Chuck, at the time, had the Disney syndrome: the urge to make the most beautiful cartoons going. writer Michael Maltese recalled in an interview with Joe Adamson that appeared in Film Comment. “They never went for the cute stuff at Warners,” Warner Bros. While Walt Disney was focused on elevating the art of animation, Warner Bros.’ dream team of writers and directors were hell-bent on just making each other laugh. From the start, the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies animated shorts were designed as a more iconoclastic alternative to Disney’s artistically groundbreaking Silly Symphonies. Looney Tunes cartoon, “Sinkin’ in the Bathtub,” was released. On April 17, 1930, the very first Warner Bros.
