Lt/mm

[Cartman]

I'm just curious, but what is the difference between a Loony Tune and a Merrie Melody?:confused: :confused: :confused:




Cartman:p

[alstin]

I've been wonedring too. Didn't it have to do something with Harman and Ising wanting to direct their own cartoons?

[Joe Tully]

Both started out as being song themed. Merrie Melodies revolved strongly around one song, or sometimes a few, which were present for pretty much the whole thing. Looney Tunes had a song in them, but had parts without that song too. Also, Looney Tunes had recurring characters Bosko and Buddy, Merrie Melodies started out with one-shot characters, or sometimes the characters Foxy, Piggy or Goopy Geer. Once the MMs started to be made, Harman worked on LT, Ising did MM, though both were credited on both series.

[Jack]

Here's everything I can think of:

what Joe Tully said

Theme music

Concentric circle (those rings at the beginning of every cartoon) thickness. Looney Tunes had thicker rings than Merrie Melodies. Click here to find out more about the rings (http://www.davemackey.com/animation/wb/fieldguide.html)

Starting around 1934 or so, Merrie Melodies were made in color, but Looney Tunes weren't made in color until 1943.

Some characters were srictly Looney Tunes, like Porky, while others were strictly Merrie Melodies, like Bugs Bunny. (until Looney Tunes went to color, that is)

They were sold to theaters as different packages. Also, I don't know if this is true, but I also heard there were two other packages, "Bugs Bunny Specials"(a mix of LT and MM), and "Blue Ribbon Classics."

Title artwork, even after Looney Tunes went to color, you could only see the big smiling Porky, Daffy, or Porky and Daffy heads at the beginning of Looney Tunes cartoons. Looney Tunes also continued ending with Porky in the Drum (for a while), Merrie Melodies had the written out "That's All Folks!"

Bugs was considered special, so his head was seen at the beginning of every cartoon he appeared in, whether or not it was an LT or MM.


Jack:D

[Matthew Hunter]

Originally, Leon Schlesinger started off doing "Looney Tunes" (featuring Bosko) and "Spooney Melodies" (basically music videos with some animation). "Spooney" did not do well, so another cartoon series was added, to further promote the music the Looney Tunes were designed to, and after a few character experiments they just became one-shots. After 1935, Merrie Melodies became color, while Looney Tunes, by then featuring Porky Pig, remained black and white until 1941. After 1941's "The Hep Cat", (the first color LT) a few more were done in the B/W medium, but soon the differences ceased to exist, save for the theme songs. Until the 1950's, though, The Looney Tunes' main stars were Porky and Daffy, and Merrie Melodies were Bugs Bunny, but it was still pretty arbitrary, as Daffy and Porky did some Merrie Melodies as well. Anyway, there originally was a difference, but to the modern viewer there's not much. Oh, and "Blue Ribbons" were done later to re-release Merrie Melodies, but a couple Looney Tunes got mistitled as Merrie Melodies and got butchered anyway, "Book Revue" (retitled "Book ReVIEW) and "The Hep Cat".
-Matthew

[J Lee]

Looney Tunes were musical cartoons with a continuing character when they started; as the 1930s went along, the musical focus declined but it remained the home of Warner's continuing characters -- first Bosko, then Buddy and then the Beans Gang, with Porky the lone survivor of that group.

Merrie Melodies were created to plug one specific song per cartoon, since Warner's was (and is) big in the music publishing and record businesses. That's what they did from 1931 until late 1937, when Avery began sneaking a few non-musical MMs into his releases. The Melodies with specific new WB songs pretty much disappeared completely by the end of 1940, and as was mentioned above, the only real difference between 1941 and the end of 1943 was that all or part of the LT series was still in black and white.

Both the "Bugs Bunny Specials" and the "Blue Ribbon" Merrie Melodie re-releases began around February or March of 1944, right after the final black & white Looney Tune ("Puss `N Booty") was released. Theaters paid more for the Bugs Bunny cartoons than for the others, which is why after "A Wild Hare" and "Hiawatha's Rabbit Hunt" were among the first of the Blue Ribbon re-releases that was stopped, until Warner's sold its pre-1948 color cartoons to AAP in 1957 -- the theater owners weren't going to pay more for new Bugses if the old ones were being sent out to other theaters.

For the directors, writers and animators, this was a blessing, since none of their Bugs credits were ever stripped off the cartoons, the way so many of the Daffy, Porky and Sylvester shorts (and others) of the 1940s were. By the time Warners resumed re-releasing Bugs cartoons as part of the Blue Ribbon series in late 1957, it had been a year since WB had ended the practice of removing all the credits from its re-releases.

[Jack]

I've been sort of curious about this particular "package" for a while. When a theater bought a Bugs Bunny Special, did that mean they got all the Bugs cartoons and nothing else, or all the Bugs cartoons as well as other cartoons to fill out the package since they never made a uniform amount of Bugs cartoons every year. How many cartoons did the theater get?


Jack:confused: