Tacodidra

Crusader! made my all-time favorite MLP fan song – I heard it when I was new to the fandom, and it still sounds great all these years later.

Congratulations, my friend! You deserve it!

@Samurai Equine Thanks, my friend!

Since I enjoyed the classics so much (even the less popular years were fun to watch for the most part), I wanted to go through the revivals too. Of course there was some stuff I left out like the later movies and TV series, as there's so much content, including some I'm really not interested in like "Baby Looney Tunes". But now I've seen almost everything with the original crew significantly involved, as well as all the theatrical shorts trying to revive the original Looney Tunes spirit. The most significant thing I haven't seen is the early 60s' "The Bugs Bunny Show" – if I ever manage to see more full episodes of it, I'll go back and update the blogs for the early 60s.

A lot of what I've covered here was something I had only read about before – a few of these have been shown on TV here, but especially some of the specials haven't been seen much in decades. Some have been forgotten for a reason (the Groovie Goolies special), but the Ford/Lennon cartoons are the best content the characters have been in since the early 60s.

It feels a bit weird that I've seen them all now after so many years, but it was definitely a fascinating project! And it has inspired me to watch other cartoon classics too, most notably Tex Avery's MGM and Lantz filmography.

@Samurai Equine Justice for Spike and Tyke at last! WB just announced those two shorts will be on the upcoming Blu-ray compilation of Cinemascope Tom and Jerry cartoons. While they're not as good as the best of Tom and Jerry, they still deserve to be seen.

@Samurai Equine It's alright, my friend – thanks for the reply!

The first year since 1934 when Buddy was at his peak that none of the familiar characters appeared... I found myself liking the new characters more than I expected to, especially Merlin and Second Banana (I enjoyed what McKimson did with the latter, in particular). I like to think of the Paulsen interviews as the last hurrah for Daffy and Foghorn, at least – those were only three minutes each, but genuinely some of the best material the characters had had in ages.

It is indeed the same cartoon! The special has a very complicated history, but it seems that Warner Bros.-Seven Arts picked up "A Yellowstone Christmas" for distribution and asked Benedict to create more footage for it, but by the time he was done, the company had been sold and had no interest in it anymore. As other companies acquired it, various edits of different lengths would appear, some with additional animation and live-action scenes, now carrying the title "Santa and the Three Bears". There's a blog that covers the different versions in detail: http://jldelbert.blogspot.com/2021/12/the-unusual-history-of-santa-and-three.html

@ZiggWheelsManning Thanks, my friend!  

I still have a little post-1969 Looney Tunes content left to watch – I'll mostly focus on the cartoons some of the original crew (most significantly Jones and Freleng) worked on. I'm planning to cover these in a postscript of sorts.

Most likely Tex Avery's MGM cartoons will be the next thing I watch after that. I found a new appreciation for his Looney Tunes (watching them chronologically really emphasized the effect he had on the series), and I've seen too little of his non-WB work.

@Samurai Equine Certainly one of the least shown years... I had seen a few of these years ago, but a lot of it was completely new to me.

Yeah, that's fairly common in cartoons (pink elephants, not mechanical ones). But I hadn't thought about Ella being pink until now... Maybe these cartoons were about Rimfire's drunken antics all along?

Considering how many cartoons WB made that took place in historical settings, I'm surprised it took this long for them to make one about time travel (there was "The Old Grey Hare", but without an actual time machine, and it took place in the future instead). I just wish they had done it in a better cartoon instead of the worst Daffy and Speedy short.

@Samurai Equine They (and some of the other crew too) were in their fifties at that point, while the earlier directors and writers were a lot younger (in fact, Howard had had a couple of earlier stints at the studio in the late 30s and early 50s). So I guess it makes sense they wouldn't have been as interested in the contemporary popular culture. The first Cool Cat cartoon did have a younger writer (Bob Kurtz), so maybe that explains that character being more modern than the others.

@ZiggWheelsManning I may have a slightly more positive view on those cartoons than most people do, but even I must admit the run from "Daffy Rents" to "Go Away Stowaway" (14 Daffy and Speedy cartoons, only one Road Runner in between) was a bit tough at times. But after this year, we'll have just two more shorts with that infamous pairing!

I remember reading about the Nickelodeon airings back when I watched the Looney Tunes on Cartoon Network and wishing I had seen those! Bosko, Buddy, the W7 cartoons – of course I know now they're not really the best of the WB cartoons (apparently Nick got the leftovers after ABC picked the cartoons they wanted for "The Bugs Bunny & Tweety Show"), but I was interested in seeing all those rarities. I did see the first Cool Cat and one of the Merlin cartoons ("Feud with a Dude") on TV as a kid, but that era is very rarely shown here.

@Samurai Equine I'm starting to think it's because of how unpopular these cartoons were. A little after their release, they were used for TV packages like "The Merrie Melodies Show" and "The Daffy Duck Show", but otherwise, it seems the TV airings focused on the earlier, more popular shorts. Cartoon Network here even showed a few post-1969 cartoons, but absolutely nothing from the W7 era.

I've always liked Cool Cat's design, though there's a certain pair of characters I prefer from this era (they'll appear next year). Top Cat was great – I remember watching the show a lot when we first got CN! The Pink Panther was the most popular of the "cool cats", but many studios had those kinds of characters in the 60s... There was also Paramount's "The Cat", but he was quite forgettable and only got a few cartoons.

I kind of wonder what Lovy and writer Cal Howard were trying to do... We'd get hip characters like Cool Cat, but then the next cartoon would parody W.C. Fields or Dorothy Lamour decades after their peak in popularity. The earlier cartoons had a lot of cultural references too, but usually more topical ones.

The alien cupcakes are adorable! They and planet pops should be a real thing!

@Samurai Equine Hi, my friend! I've enjoyed sharing it... and will definitely do so for the remaining three years too.

Those two cartoons are definitely among the highlights of the year (and the DePatie-Freleng era in general). "The Solid Tin Coyote" is one of Larriva's best, the different themes in some of his cartoons make them stand out. Daffy being bothered by Speedy's music was used as an idea for three cartoons, one of which is yet to come. But it was one of the most believable reasons for the duck to chase the mouse, and those are all among the stronger Daffy and Speedy cartoons.

@ZiggWheelsManning At this point, the cartoons had lower budgets, and that definitely showed in the animation. The Road Runner cartoon that looked off to me was "Run, Run, Sweet Road Runner", the first of the Larriva shorts. Wile E. Coyote's shorter ears in some scenes in particular – the later ones stay on model a lot better.

@Samurai Equine It will be like this for a while, especially with Daffy and Speedy. Decent filler for the various TV packages, at least.

As lazy and chopped up as the two Jones cutdowns were, they certainly look better than the average cartoon from this era. I'll also add that the animators created very different work depending on the director. Virgil Ross and Bob Bransford's work on the Larriva Road Runners can't really be mistaken for Freleng or Jones cartoons, though the shorts they worked on definitely look better than the first one credited to Hank Smith and Tom McDonald (who had no previous experience working on the Road Runner or any WB cartoons).

@ZiggWheelsManning It seems to be the least popular character pairing in the history of the Looney Tunes, and one that has been used very rarely after the classic era (I can only think of a couple of occasions in the early 80s). While I genuinely liked some of the cartoons, I think almost all of them ("A Taste of Catnip" being an exception, along with the ones where the two were portrayed as friends) would have worked better with Sylvester in Daffy's role.

Porky and Daffy is my favorite of those pairings, those cartoons had both characters at their best.

Nice work! The best of TLT's FNAF songs, and it seems to work well in different styles!

@Samurai Equine I agree! "You Ought to Be in Pictures" from 1940 is my favorite example, but the WB cartoons did that on multiple occasions... starting with the original pilot short "Bosko the Talk-Ink Kid"!

I guess it's mostly done now because it's cheaper than making a fully animated film. I especially don't like the overused concept of cartoon characters finding their way into our world (I even heard there was an MLP movie like this planned at one point!) – the cartoon worlds are almost always more interesting anyway. "The Incredible Mr. Limpet" essentially does the opposite of this with the underwater sequences.

@Samurai Equine Likewise – whoever was responsible for the Nordic Cartoon Network package (the cartoons I'm most familiar with) really seemed to like Taz, as all of his cartoons were included! Not just the four Bugs and Taz classics and "Ducking the Devil" but also 1979's "Fright Before Christmas" (yes, they showed it throughout the year).

"Dumb Patrol" wasn't included in the TV packages here for whatever reason... apart from when it was shown in the special "Bugs Bunny: All American Hero". It seems to be one of the less remembered Bugs cartoons, the fact that it wasn't by one of the main directors probably hasn't helped.

The first three cartoons to have the abstract titles are all fun and experimental at the same time – it would have been nice to see more one-shots after these ones (there will be a few later on, but we'll have to wait a little). Though I like the DePatie-Freleng era more than most people do, some of the earlier variety was certainly gone.

It seems to be a rather divisive film from what I've read. It's not the absolute best thing the WB cartoon studio worked on, but I found it entertaining with its unique idea. We never got to see a fully animated feature from the original studio, but Limpet gives us an idea of what one might have been like.

@Samurai Equine The WB crew certainly liked bulldogs! Marc Anthony remains my favorite, of course, but Percy seems quite nice in the end.

You're welcome! As popular as certain characters had got, it's great to see WB still releasing some unique one-shots. The abstract WB opening is a bit divisive among fans (mostly due to the later cartoons that used it), but I've always liked it. I'll always associate it with Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner, as almost all cartoons with that opening that aired here were Road Runner shorts.

I loved how Jones and Co. developed the Ralph and Sam concept as it went on. From the sheepdog doing it for his job to the wolf also being employed to the two being friends and even helping each other sometimes (like Sam promising to fill in for Ralph).

It's fun to see the titles they got away with, considering that "It Happened All Night" (eventually released as "Porky's Badtime Story") was too much in 1937! Both definite highlights – "Banty Raids" must have been one of the first Foghorn cartoons I saw, thanks to it being featured in "Daffy Duck's Movie: Fantastic Island" (I still associate many cartoons with those compilation movies).

@ZiggWheelsManning That was my favorite of the Looney Tunes compilation movies! Out of the four I've seen, that is – I never saw "Looney Looney Looney Bugs Bunny Movie" for some reason (I'm planning to change that soon).

@Samurai Equine Thanks for the comment, my friend!

Yeah, Wentworth looks more like an adult – maybe it's a little like Junyer from the Three Bears cartoons, that he's bigger than his "father" makes the cartoon seem less cruel and funnier. Though he's also unusual in being a kid character voiced by an actual kid ("Bartholomew versus the Wheel" would be another example a couple of years later) instead of just having Mel Blanc or June Foray voice him.

The captain in "Good Noose" is a parody of Charles Laughton (yes, I had to look that one up!)... as is the king in "Shishkabugs"! It must have been very rare to have a caricature of the same person is consecutive shorts. Out of the two, I definitely found the king funnier.

Looney Tunes Wiki claims it's the shortest Bugs Bunny cartoon from the classic era, so maybe there's the explanation. I remember the Nordic Cartoon Network showing the even shorter 1990 cartoon "Box-Office Bunny" a lot, probably whenever a filler cartoon was needed for the Looney Tunes block.

@Samurai Equine Thanks, my friend!

The Barnyard Dawg will have a couple more appearances before being retired. It's a bit sad how many of the familiar characters stopped appearing in the early 60s... I've always found Henery a very underrated character – it's often forgotten that originally he was supposed to be the star, with Foghorn as the supporting character.

Hugo's second appearance "Spaced Out Bunny" was released in 1980 (originally as one of the segments in the special "Bugs Bunny's Bustin' Out All Over") – many of the later productions seem to be quite rare for some reason. I like how Jones was bringing back many of his underused characters at that point, like Gossamer.

You're welcome! One of the truly underrated shorts from the era. 1962 has another Jones one-shot I really like... I'll say more about that soon.

@Woohoo I saw that scene (one of the best gags in the short), of course, but had no idea that was the first one.

The Looney Tunes have been culturally influential in even more ways than I'd have thought.

@Samurai Equine Some really rare ones here – the case of "The Bugs Bunny Show" is a sad one. The negatives were chopped up to reuse some of the bridging sequences for later shows, and as a result, WB only has black and white copies of the full episodes. I hope we see more of the full shows someday – if we do, I'll update my review to include the missing ones.

"Hyde and Go Tweet" is such a classic, it was one of the cartoons I saw on my sister's tape when I was little and therefore one of the first I remember. I really like how Freleng almost always included a different concept or setting in the Sylvester and Tweety cartoons, and that's one of the most imaginative.

Definitely! There were some great characters who only appeared in one short, but in many cases, a second short would probably not have had the same appeal (sometimes this was proven in the later decades, like with "Another Froggy Evening"). Pete Puma might be my pick for most underused (just one classic era appearance and still a popular character among fans). From this year, Trixie deserved better too – three Honey-Mousers cartoons, but she was only featured in one of them.

Jones' musical cartoons are always great, and so are Freleng's, for that matter. It would have been nice to see "High Note" get that Oscar it was nominated for, though the winning entry "Munro" was interesting in its own right (having watched all the cartoons the WB nominees lost to, I must say there are some in the bunch I didn't get at all). The kind of cartoon the studio wouldn't have made just a few years later, as they started using established characters more and more.

Team pony, now and always. 

To be honest, it took me years to find out why it was called "breakfast" (not that I gave it that much thought). It was one of the first English words I remember learning, and I only found out later that "fast" meant more than just quick.

Very disappointing. MYM was my favorite thing about G5 – at its best, a match for FIM and EqG. I never felt TYT would be able to carry the generation the same way MYM did, but the best episodes of it were enjoyable too. G5 deserved a lot better than the way both of its series ended.

I hope that video leaked a while ago isn't representative of the next MLP series... I'm sure the series itself would be fully animated unlike the clip, but storywise, there was nothing in that clip I found interesting.