What happened to Looney Tunes?

[Mist]

CN used to air Looney Tunes all the time.

I understand they have new original programs to air, but why in the world is it not on Boomerang? Boomerang is a network for classic cartoons, so where are the Looney Tunes? They can certainly get rid of some of their no-quality shows like Cattanoga Cats, Cow & Chicken or Perils of Penelope Pitstop in favor of the Looney Tunes.

[Ykwia]

I don't know. Something about Warner Bros. keeping Looney Toons locked in their vault.

[Uncle_Lina]

They have the pre 1948 cartoons, which aren't as well known as the ones after that period, then again there are a good bundle of great Bugs, Porky and Daffy cartoons to show, plus the first few Foghorn Leghorn, Sylvester and Tweety and Pepe Le Pew cartoons are there, yet no Road Runner or Speedy Gonzales.

[Anarky]

There's just something so...CRIMINAL about not making these classics readily available to the public. The same goes for Disney and the like. When I was a kid all these properties were syndicated. I grew up w/ a healthy mix of old & new toons. In one afternoon I could watch Looney Tunes & Transformers.

Now these characters are treated like name brands. Disney could sell a million sets Mickey Mouse ears and sweatshirts yet there's no need to broadcast the very cartoons that made the Mouse an icon.

If you want the real goods I'd recommend purchasing the dvds. To date I own the following classics:

1. The Chronological Donald Duck Vol & 2 (getting Vol 3 via deepdiscount June sale)
2. The Looney Tunes Golden Collections (Vol 1-4, getting Vol 5 via dd as well)
3. Popeye Vol 1 (Vol 2 this summer)
4. Woody Woodpecker Vol 1 (vol 2 via dd sale as well)
5. The Pink Panther Vinyl collection (I don't suppose MGM has any plans for another vinyl follow-up set, just the individual disc releases)

I'll eventually buy the Flintstones, at least the earlier seasons. I'll probably get the whole series however I was never a fan of the Pebbles & Bam-Bam era.

[Mist]

I agree. It really is a crime that networks like Boomerang are not airing some of the most best cartoons in the history of animation, in favor of shows like Mike, Lu and Og and Cow & Chicken.

I've never really heard anything about WB putting the Tunes 'in the vault' before. (Are they trying to copy Disney or something?) So I'm gonna need a source on that.

Hm, I wonder. Is it possible absence of Looney tunes has something to do with standards? Like it was mentioned, WB had a problem with Speedy Gonzalez, thinking it was racist. I remember WB also having a problem with Porky's stutter, thinknig it to be distasteful, becuase some real-life people have stuttering problems, also Elmer Fudd uses a real gun, and guns are a big no-no in cartoons nowadays.

[ROBOTRON]

:sweat: - Good topic...I'd like to know why they aren't on anymore too...its like they lost the license to show them or something...it just ceased.

Really ticks me off too, because its just the type of toon Boomerang should be airing.

[Racattack!Force]

Good question.

[The Nameless]

I agree. It really is a crime that networks like Boomerang are not airing some of the most best cartoons in the history of animation, in favor of shows like Mike, Lu and Og and Cow & Chicken.

Now hatred of Mike, Lu and Og I could understand, but Cow & Chicken? Nuh-uh. That show's too whacked out for me to hate.

Anyway, they should show Looney Tunes again, in a WATCHABLE timeslot. Dump the preschool block, Boomerang. Your target audience doesn't want to see that.

[Toony Loon]

Hm, I wonder. Is it possible absence of Looney tunes has something to do with standards? Like it was mentioned, WB had a problem with Speedy Gonzalez, thinking it was racist. I remember WB also having a problem with Porky's stutter, thinknig it to be distasteful, becuase some real-life people have stuttering problems, also Elmer Fudd uses a real gun, and guns are a big no-no in cartoons nowadays.

With all the potty humor in CN's newer trashy cartoons, I don't see how the censors can't take a Mexican Mouse, a stuttering pig, and a hunter using a gun! PC-ness is not only stupid, it's confusing. They can allow potty humor, and not a little st-st-st-stutter.

I think Looney Tunes is off TV, because CN and Boomerang want to air more "hip" cartoon shows. Since kids have been poisoned with shows with limited animation and weak potty humor, the TV people think that Looney Tunes would be too old for them, and the jokes would be stupid. They don't realize that classic cartoons are funny, even when they don't have as many cheap jokes.

[Blackstar]

With all the potty humor in CN's newer trashy cartoons, I don't see how the censors can't take a Mexican Mouse, a stuttering pig, and a hunter using a gun! PC-ness is not only stupid, it's confusing. They can allow potty humor, and not a little st-st-st-stutter.

I think Looney Tunes is off TV, because CN and Boomerang want to air more "hip" cartoon shows. Since kids have been poisoned with shows with limited animation and weak potty humor, the TV people think that Looney Tunes would be too old for them, and the jokes would be stupid. They don't realize that classic cartoons are funny, even when they don't have as many cheap jokes.

I'd like to hear some examples of the "potty humor" in the so-called "trashy cartoons" on CN that people here keep talking about. I've seen Chowder, Foster's, Ed3 and the like and none of them seem to be any less tasteful than Looney Tunes or the classic MGM shorts.

My Gym Partner's a Monkey is crap. I'll give you that, but it's really not fair describe all of CN's programming as trash just because they have 1 or 2 bad shows.

[Racattack!Force]

but it's really not fair describe all of CN's programming as trash just because they have 1 or 2 bad shows.
Sadly, that exactly what happened. All their shows ended up being defined by a few rotten apples. Now whenever someone hears of a new cartoons coming to Cartoon Network, they automatically think it's going to suck. :sweat:

[ZumbidoMetal]

Apparently Warner Bros. Television has been trying to sell the Looney Tunes package to others networks. I've heard rumors of talks with Nick and even Disney. But obviously nothing has happened yet.

I think Warner Bros. made a HUGE mistake in letting CN have exclusive tv rights. Their treatment in last few years has only hurt the brand and the classic cartoons sell ability in future syndication.

[warnerbroman]

My Gym Partner's a Monkey is crap. I'll give you that, but it's really not fair describe all of CN's programming as trash just because they have 1 or 2 bad shows.wow talk about "Brutally honest" lol

[ltnut]

Apparently Warner Bros. Television has been trying to sell the Looney Tunes package to others networks. I've heard rumors of talks with Nick and even Disney. But obviously nothing has happened yet.

I think Warner Bros. made a HUGE mistake in letting CN have exclusive tv rights. Their treatment in last few years has only hurt the brand and the classic cartoons sell ability in future syndication.

WB should have kept LTs on Saturday mornings on one of the networks, but with how each network has eventually ether gone with shows from a sister cable network or bought a package deal from one distributor, the only chance now might be on CW, but even that may not happen.

As far as cable networks I'd prefer to see LTs end up on Nick. Disney doesn't really treat their classic cartoons much better than CN/Boomerang treats LTs. I understand why they don't have the post 48 LTs, but CN owns the pre-48s and there's no valid reason why they shouldn't at least show the ones with Bugs, Daffy, and other classic characters.

[Brandon Pierce]

My suggestion only is to contact the networks themselves and show them that there is interest.
Here are the phone numbers to many networks that could idealy be considered a new home for Looney Tunes:

A&E
1-212-210-1400

Animal Planet (most of the cartoons featured animals, so why not?)
1-301-986-0444

Canadian Broadcast Company
1-604-662-6608

Disney Channel (this one's a stretch since they rarely play their own classics)
1-818-569-7500

E!
1-323-954-2400

ABC Family
1-310-235-5100

FX
1-310-444-8123

Hallmark
1-818-755-2400

History Channel (perhaps a program similar to Toonheads, showcasing classic animation history)
1-212-210-1375

Nickelodeon (unlikely candidate, since WB has already done talks with them which have lead to nothing)
1-212-258-8000

Sci-Fi Channel (as if anything they show nowadays has anything to do with science)
1-212-413-5000

SpikeTV (getting desperate now)
1-212-846-4412

TBS
1-404-885-4370

TNT
1-404-885-4238

USA
1-212-413-5000

VH1
1-212-846-7800

[Eric B]

TBS and TNT are Turner, like CN and BOOM. But I wish they would open those back up to Cartoons, to drain off some of the excess stuff from CN that they dump on BOOM, but really doesn't belong there. That would free up space for Looney Tunes.
Perhaps WB should dissolve Turner, or at least take over operation of one of those channels as a base for its own properties. Why send it back to Nick? They too eventually bury the stuff, like they did when they got the Amblin shows back the last time.

And I wish they would just swap the pre-48 LT's for the pre-92 JLA, so the entire LT library would be together wherever it goes; as the post-92 JLA stuff is so different from the earlier cartoon that it wouldn't matter if that library is divided.

And now that a couple of people mention it; I wonder if they could be trying to do to the LT's what Disney did with Mickey Mouse. Bury the cartoons, and just use them as for merchandising. Is that why Disney did that in the first place? Perhaps to create some sort of "mystique" about the characters that you would not get if their cartoons were constantly exposed and playing over and over.

[Brandon Pierce]

Disney has always been quite protective of their shorts library. You never really saw them on many networks outside of the Disney Channel from the 80s onward. And Disney Channel was like Boomerang at the time. If you had Disney Channel, you could be the king kid of the neighborhood. If you didn't have that channel, you didn't see the shorts.

I myself never got real full exposure to the classic Disney shorts until I was at least 10 or 11 years old (circa 1997 or 98), when Disney Channel started becoming an easy access network. And, of coarse Disney had it's own VHS line with classic shorts, but that was minimal compared to what WB was putting out with their cartoons.

[Eric B]

I remember you could see Mickey Mouse and the Mickey Mouse Club in syndication in the 70's, and then at some point they just disappeared completely off TV for good, yet you saw Mickey Mouse on everything else (Mickey Mouse Pitch & Pop; I remember) —toys, games, clothes, etc.
I did not get full cable until the 90's, and I was into WB and HB, and was never into Disney anyway.

[Silverstar]

Disney has always been very protective, almost to the point of being elitist, with their shorts. When I was a kid, you could see local or syndicated packages of shorts from various studios (something that could never happen nowadays) with titles like Bugs & Popeye or Bugs & Woody or Woody & Popeye, but you never saw a Bugs & Mickey or Donald & Popeye show. Back in the 70's, you could only see Disney shorts on The Wonderful World of Disney, or if you were really lucky, your local movie theater might have aired some Disney shorts during the weekends or on holidays.

[Toony Loon]

I'd like to hear some examples of the "potty humor" in the so-called "trashy cartoons" on CN that people here keep talking about. I've seen Chowder, Foster's, Ed3 and the like and none of them seem to be any less tasteful than Looney Tunes or the classic MGM shorts.

My Gym Partner's a Monkey is crap. I'll give you that, but it's really not fair describe all of CN's programming as trash just because they have 1 or 2 bad shows.

Oh, Chowder, Foster's, and Ed3 aren't that trashy, but I meant the "new-new" stuff like Gym Partner that is replacing those three shows gradually. Those are the CN shows I am talking about. The three shows you mentioned are actually toned-down in potty humor, and are actually quite funny, but Gym Partner and many of the newer shows are not. Looney Tunes/MGM are distasteful, but I like the fact that they can be distasteful without making potty humor, like "new-new" CN shows do. Lines such as "it was booty killed the beast," and characters farting is not funny to me.

I remember WB doing such things as packaging Tiny Toons, Looney Tunes, and other shows that used classic characters to make room for Pokémon and other new shows. It was a pretty strange idea, but I guess it worked for a bit.

In Chicago's Music Box Theatre, there is an annual Looney Tunes film festival in the summer. It usually packages 12 LT/MM cartons and shows them on the big screen. They show all post-1948 cartoons, with quite a few Pepe Le Pew shorts. There have been some classics like Duck Amuck and What's Opera Doc, but I have also seen some rarely-seen shorts (since they aren't on television) like Bill of Hare and Heaven Scent (which was shown frequently).

[DarthGonzo]

Disney has always been very protective, almost to the point of being elitist, with their shorts. When I was a kid, you could see local or syndicated packages of shorts from various studios (something that could never happen nowadays) with titles like Bugs & Popeye or Bugs & Woody or Woody & Popeye, but you never saw a Bugs & Mickey or Donald & Popeye show. Back in the 70's, you could only see Disney shorts on The Wonderful World of Disney, or if you were really lucky, your local movie theater might have aired some Disney shorts during the weekends or on holidays.

Hey, at least almost all of Disney's entire shorts library either is available on DVD (Mickey, Goofy, Pluto, Silly Symphonies, rarities, whatever Oswald shorts survive) or will be available on DVD by the end of the year (Donald) thanks to the Disney Treasure sets.

The Looney Tunes Golden Collections are nice, but it's unlikely we'll ever get all the cartoons on DVD. So it would be nice to at least be able to see them on TV.

[Antiyonder]

I have to ask if there's a reason for keeping these shows off basic cable other than DVD releases. I mean other shows get a DVD release and still air at reasonable times on an available network.

I hear that the current demographs don't care for classics, but I have to wonder how true that it. In the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s old cartoons seem to still do well with the kid audience of the respective decades, yet now all of a sudden they're deemed as trash.

[Space Cadet]

I understand why they don't have the post 48 LTs, but CN owns the pre-48s and there's no valid reason why they shouldn't at least show the ones with Bugs, Daffy, and other classic characters.

I kinda wonder if one of the reasons they don't air on Boomerang is because CN wants the whole shorts package, not just the pre-48 shorts. I think CN tended to air the post-48 shorts more often than the pre-48 shorts, but that's just a guess on my part.

If Nick were to get the rights to it, I could see them airing on Nicktoons Network. I don't think the main channel would air them anymore.

[Eric B]

I think CN tended to air the post-48 shorts more often than the pre-48 shorts, but that's just a guess on my part.
I noticed that too. It seems you eventually stopped seeing all those old mainstays they used to play to death before the merger. It was like a total about face, and it was unusual seeing them again when they finally went back to playing pre-48's only (on the rare and few airings of LT's in recent years).

When they were playing all of them is when they should have brought back the 2 hour Bugs & Daffy. Between that, and TBS and TNT's airings still going on, you could see any pre-48 short a few times a week and they needed a bigger rotation.

[jcorey3]

it all comes down to lame corporate politics. at least the folks in the home video department keep using them on the older DVD titles along with the Golden Collections.

[ap75021]

Teletoon and Teletoon Retro (especially the latter) are running plenty of WB cartoons...The Bugs Bunny & Tweety Show (unfortunately these air as they did on ABC in 1990 with a lot of edits to some classic cartoons but at least they're on the air), plus the Road Runner Show from 1966, Merrie Melodies from much later...which shows some of the latter day toons but to their credit they do show classics like Dog Gone South ("Oh Belvedere...come here boy!") and the classic Bugs Bunny/Yosemite Sam short with the unseen high diving act from Fearless Freep...they also have a half hour of uncut shorts leballed The Porky Pig Show (as opposed to "The Porky Pig Show" that ABC aired in the late 60s & early 70s). A healthy dose of Warner cartoons on this channel plus something else you don't currently see anywhere in the States to my knowledge: "Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends". My only gripe with these shows: they were evidently assembled at about the same time the first three seasons of the show were being prepared for DVD release: they have the substituted theme music for all the features that Jay Ward preferred over the original msuical intros...you have to go to YouTube to hear the original music, and it's worth the trip. Teletoon Retro is not without its flaws: they run the late 70s Hanna Barbera version of Tom & Jerry instead of the classic 40s & 50s shorts along with The raccoons (I never saw this before Teletoon Retro made its debut) and Rocket Robin Hood, which appears to have had about the same operating budget as Speed Racer and Astro Boy and was apparently a mid-60s Canadian creation. Rounding out the schedule are Fat Albert & the Cosby Kids, Woody Woodpecker, The Pink Panther, Scooby Doo, The Flintstones and the Jetsons. Not a horrible start but I'd like to see about twice as many programs in the lineup...at least Canadians (and Americans who've gone through the proper channels for Star Choice or ExpressVu) can get their daily dose of classic Looney Tunes despite Boomerang's programming choices of late (Boomerang would also make me happy if they brought back Where's Huddles and Wait Till your Father Gets Home).

[Racattack!Force]

I kinda wonder if one of the reasons they don't air on Boomerang is because CN wants the whole shorts package, not just the pre-48 shorts. I think CN tended to air the post-48 shorts more often than the pre-48 shorts, but that's just a guess on my part.

I think you might be right. They have part of it, but maybe they want to show all of it. I can actually see that. :sweat: