Charles Martin Jones was an American animator, painter, and voice actor, best known for his work with Warner Bros. Cartoons on the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of shorts. He wrote, produced, and/or directed many classic animated cartoon shorts starring Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner, Pepé Le Pew, Marvin the Martian, and Porky Pig, among others.
Bugs Bunny is a fictional character created in the late 1930s at Warner Bros. Cartoons and voiced originally by Mel Blanc. Bugs is best known for his featured roles in the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of animated short films, produced by Warner Bros. Earlier iterations of the character first appeared in Ben Hardaway's Porky's Hare Hunt (1938) and subsequent shorts before Bugs's definitive characterization debuted in Tex Avery's A Wild Hare (1940). Bob Givens, Chuck Jones and Robert McKimson are credited for defining Bugs's design.
Looney Tunes is an American animated cartoon franchise produced and distributed by Warner Bros. It began as a series of short films that originally ran from 1930 to 1969, concurrently with its partner series Merrie Melodies, during the golden age of American animation. Following a revival in the late 1970s, new shorts were released as recently as 2014. The two series introduced a large cast of characters, including Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and Porky Pig. The term Looney Tunes has since been expanded to also refer to the characters themselves.
The Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film is an award given by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) as part of the annual Academy Awards, or Oscars, since the 5th Academy Awards, covering the year 1931–32, to the present.
Speedy Gonzales is an animated cartoon character in the Warner Bros. Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of cartoons. He is portrayed as "The Fastest Mouse in all Mexico" with his major traits being the ability to run extremely fast, being quick-witted and heroic while speaking with an exaggerated Mexican accent. He usually wears a yellow sombrero, white shirt and trousers, and a red kerchief, similar to that of some traditional Mexican attires. To date, there have been 46 theatrical shorts made either starring or featuring the character.
Isadore "Friz" Freleng, credited as I. Freleng early in his career, was an American animator, cartoonist, director, producer, and composer known for his work at Warner Bros. Cartoons on the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of cartoons. In total he created more than 300 cartoons.
Merrie Melodies is an American animated comedy short film series distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures. It is the companion series to Looney Tunes, and featured many of the same characters as the former series. It originally ran from August 2, 1931, to September 20, 1969, during the golden age of American animation, though it had been revived in 1979, with new shorts sporadically released until June 13, 1997. Originally, Merrie Melodies placed emphasis on one-shot color films in comparison to the black and white Looney Tunes films. After Bugs Bunny became the breakout character of Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes transitioned to color production in the early 1940s, the two series gradually lost their distinctions and shorts were assigned to each series randomly.
Knighty Knight Bugs is a 1958 Warner Bros. Looney Tunes cartoon directed by Friz Freleng, The short was released on August 23, 1958, and stars Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam.
Warner Bros. Animation Inc. is an American animation studio which is part of the Warner Bros. Television Studios division of Warner Bros., a flagship of Warner Bros. Discovery. As the successor to Warner Bros. Cartoons, which was active from 1933 to 1969, the studio is closely associated with the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies characters, among others. Warner Bros. re-established its animation division in 1980 to produce Looney Tunes–related works, and Turner Broadcasting System merged with WBD predecessor Time Warner in 1996. In March 2001, Hanna-Barbera was absorbed into the studio.
Tweetie Pie is a 1947 Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies cartoon directed by Friz Freleng. The short was released on May 3, 1947, and stars Tweety with Sylvester, who is called "Thomas" in this cartoon.
A Wild Hare is a 1940 American animated comedy short film directed by Tex Avery, produced by Leon Schlesinger, and distributed by Warner Bros. as part of the Merrie Melodies series. The film was released on July 27, 1940, and features Elmer Fudd and Bugs Bunny, the latter making what is considered his first official appearance.
Edward Selzer was an American film producer and publicist who served as head of Warner Bros. Cartoons from 1944 to 1958. He served in the US Navy and fought as a Golden Gloves boxer. He won a boxing exhibition for the Navy and was awarded with a weekend pass. While out on leave he met a New York chorus girl named Laura Cohn; he later married Laura in 1927 and relocated to Los Angeles where they had two children; Phyllis and Robert.
Bugs Bunny: Superstar is a 1975 Looney Tunes documentary film narrated by Orson Welles and produced and directed by Larry Jackson. It was the first documentary to examine the history of Warner Bros. Looney Tunes with its animated cartoon characters.
What's Cookin' Doc? is a 1943-produced, 1944 Warner Bros. cartoon in the Merrie Melodies series, directed by Bob Clampett, and stars Bugs Bunny. The short was also written by Michael Sasanoff, and was animated by Robert McKimson, along with uncredited work by Rod Scribner, Phil Monroe and Virgil Ross. The film was released on January 8, 1944.
Now Hear This is a 1962 Warner Bros. Looney Tunes cartoon directed by Chuck Jones and Maurice Noble, and written by Jones and John Dunn. The short was released on April 27, 1962. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film the following year.
Warner Bros.' library of Oscar-nominated cartoons were showcased in a DVD set released by Warner Home Video on February 12, 2008 that included their own Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies, as well as Tom and Jerry, Droopy, and other classic MGM cartoons, together with entries from Max Fleischer's Popeye and Superman series. All cartoons selected for this release were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film, with the exception of the film So Much for So Little, which won the Academy Award for Documentary Short Subject. A total of 41 cartoons were chosen for this set, 15 of them being Oscar winners.
Old Glory is a 1939 Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies animated cartoon directed by Chuck Jones. The short was released on July 1, 1939, and stars Porky Pig. The cartoon was commissioned by Warner Bros. as a counterpart for a series of live-action films about American patriotism.
Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 3 is a DVD box set from Warner Home Video that was released on October 25, 2005. It contains 60 Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies theatrical short subject cartoons, nine documentaries, 32 commentary tracks from animators and historians, 11 "vintage treasures from the vault", and 11 music-only or music-and-sound-effects audio tracks.
Looney Tunes Platinum Collection: Volume 3 is a Blu-ray and DVD release by Warner Home Video. It contains 50 Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons and numerous supplements. It was released on Blu-ray on August 12, 2014, and was released on DVD on November 4, 2014.
Tex Avery Screwball Classics is a series of single-disc Blu-ray and DVD sets by Warner Bros. Home Entertainment's Warner Archive unit collecting various theatrical cartoons from animation director Tex Avery during his tenure at the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio's cartoon division between the years of 1942 and 1955. It is the first comprehensive collection of Avery's MGM shorts to be released on home media in North America since The Compleat Tex Avery series of laserdiscs in the 1990s, with many of the shorts having been previously unreleased on DVD or Blu-ray.
