The Best Looney Tunes Shorts and That’s All, Folks!
Even today, kids know about Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and Porky Pig.
But here’s the thing: most modern children think of the Looney Tunes characters as nothing more than commercial mascots, designed to sell t-shirts and sneakers. They have no idea that the Looney Tunes characters once starred in some of the most exciting, and often subversive, American cartoons of all time.
Thanks to names such as Chuck Jones, Friz Freleng, and Tex Avery, Looney Tunes enjoyed a twenty-year run as the best in American animation. These shorts, most produced between 1944 and 1964, represent the funniest, most dynamic, most timeless cartoons in history, sometimes under the title Looney Tunes and other times under Merrie Melodies.
1. “Duck Amuck” (1953)
These days, most kids know about postmodernism through Deadpool, the Marvel anti-hero who loves the break the fourth wall and say something offensive. Way back in 1953, director Chuck Jones and writer Michael Maltese taught the world about fourth modernism with the brilliant “Duck Amuck.”
“Duck Amuck” stars Daffy Duck as himself, an entertainer who wants nothing more than to put on a show. Yet, every time that he settles into a scenario, downhill skiing through the snow or drawing his sword as one of the Three Musketeers, a paintbrush appears and recreates the situation. As this goes on, Daffy grows more indignant with the animator, leading to comedy through existentialism, as the beleaguered hero loses his identity. At once slapstick and high-brow, “Duck Amuck” is the height of Jones’s intellectual cartooning.
2. “Rabbit Fire” (1951)
“Duck Amuck” may be the best Looney Tunes short that Jones ever made, but he’s most famous for his trilogy of cartoons that pit Daffy and Bugs against one another, via hapless hunter Elmer Fudd. In truth, fans can never go wrong with any of the three, which also include “Rabbit Seasoning” from 1952 and “Duck! Rabbit! Duck” from 1953. However, 1951’s “Rabbit Fire,” by Jones and Maltese, sets the standard.
The best work of Chuck Jones garnered sympathy for the loser, allowing us to laugh at Wile E. Coyote or Daffy Duck because we laugh at ourselves for our failures. “Rabbit Fire” works so well because it introduces another loser but, as a hunter, mitigates the audience’s sympathy for him. Bugs and Daffy’s shenanigans play as matters of survival, and increasing contest of wits that make Elmer an everyman buffoon.
3. “A Wild Hare” (1940)
Where Jones found notes of sympathy and humanity in the battles between Bugs and Elmer, Tex Avery tapped into pure primal anarchy. Elmer’s status as a hunter did not matter in Avery’s work. His shotgun was just a ploy to bring him into Bugs’s orbit, allowing the latter to unleash all manner of comic chaos on the hunter.
Written by Rich Hogan, “A Wild Hare” establishes the dynamic between the two characters. It begins with Elmer’s signature line, “Be vewy vewy quiet, I’m hunting wabbits,” delivered by Arthur Q. Bryan, one of the few to join Mel Blanc in voice acting on the show. From there, Bugs becomes a full-on trickster god, messing with Elmer by twisting up his gun, transforming carrots, and rewriting the rules of engagement.
4. “What’s Opera, Doc?” (1957)
When not using the Looney Tunes to plumb the depths of human emotion, Jones used them to explore high culture. He first inserted Bugs into opera with 1950’s “The Rabbit of Seville,” Seven years later, he delivered his magnum opus with “What’s Opera, Doc?” a Richard Wagner parody starring Bugs and Elmer Fudd.
Thanks to amazing layouts by regular artist Maurice Noble and an impressionistic background from Phillip DeGuard, “What’s Opera, Doc?” retains the epic nature of Wagner’s work, despite its unusual stars. Composer Milt Franklyn mixes the standard Looney Tunes musical beats into Wagner’s work, elevating the material. And yet, Jones ensures that “What’s Opera, Doc?” remains a story about Bugs and Elmer, complete with the latter singing, “Kill the wabbit!”
5. “Bugs and Thugs” (1954)
Timeless as they are, Looney Tunes engaged with modern pop culture, working references to film stars of the day, especially those from the noir movies produced by parent company Warner Bros. The 1946 gangster spoof “Racketeer Rabbit” illustrates this approach, letting Bugs hobnob with variations on Edward G. Robinson and Peter Lorre. However, director Friz Freleng achieved greater success when he and writer Warren Foster revisited the subject for 1954’s “Bugs and Thugs,” stripping away specific caricatures for mobster archetypes.
“Bugs and Thugs” features the barest of premises, in which Bugs becomes the unwitting hostage of diminutive boss Rocky and hulking buffoon Mugsy. Pretending to help them out, Bugs puts the duo through a variety of pranks, including a hilarious sequence in which he locks Rocky in a running oven. By the end of the short, the baddies go running to jail and Bugs walks away clean.
6. “Often an Orphan” (1949)
Before Daffy and Bugs took the limelight, Porky Pig was the Looney Tunes star. Well-meaning and diminutive, stymied by a stutter, Porky made for a likable hero in the more surreal cartoons of the 1930s. As Daffy and Bugs took center stage, Porky shuffled through a variety of antagonists, none better than the oft-overlooked Charlie Dog.
Charlie begs Porky to adopt him in “Often an Orphan,” directed by Jones and written by Maltese. A gentle soul, Porky at first considers the idea, but the over-eager and pushy Charlie soon makes things worse. In an amazing exchange, Porky insists that Charlie is not a Labrador Retriever. “Do you have a Labrador? Do you know where you can get a Labrador?” asks the dog. When a sheepish Porky answers in the negative, Charlie sneers, “Then shuddup.”
7. “One Froggy Evening” (1955)
Many animation aficionados name “One Froggy Evening” as Chuck Jones’ masterpiece. Written by Michael Maltese, “One Froggy Evening” has a simple, tragic plot line. While demolishing a building, a construction worker finds a box containing a frog. When the frog sees that the box has opened, he grabs a top hat and a cane and performs a musical number. Thinking he’s struck it rich, the worker quits his job and takes his show on the road, only to discover that the frog performs for no one but him.
Dubbed Michigan J. Frog, the singing star of “One Froggy Evening” has gone on to appear in several other bits of Warner media, including singing the jingle for the now-defunct WB Network. However, “One Froggy Evening” imagines Michigan J. Frog as something like a monkey’s paw, something that delivers so much worse than it promises.
8. “Show Biz Bugs” (1957)
The Friz Freleng-directed short “Show Biz Bugs” features perhaps the purest distillation of the dynamic between Bugs and Daffy. “Show Biz Bugs,” written by Warren Foster, finds the two frenemies performing on stage together. From the moment that he spies Bugs’ name more prominent on the marquee to the rabbit’s many escapes from lethal traps, Daffy grows more and more frustrated.
The stage conceit highlights the key to their rivalry. The audience loves Bugs, heaping praise upon him despite his apparent lack of effort. Daffy twists himself in literal knots to get even a modicum of applause. Daffy’s understandable anger builds to one of Looney Tunes’ darkest jokes.
9. “Little Red Riding Rabbit” (1944)
“Dear Red: Working the night swing at Lockheed,” reads the note Granny leaves Little Red Riding Hood at the start of “Little Red Riding Rabbit,” written by Maltese and directed by Freleng. Such irreverent modern interruptions to a fairy tale earn easy laughs, as demonstrated by Shrek and its many imitators. But “Little Red Riding Rabbit” goes even further by applying the time-tested Looney Tunes formula.
“Little Red Riding Rabbit” is stuffed with gags, even away from Bugs. Freeling and voice actor Bea Benaderet make Red an obnoxious teen, far from the traditional goodhearted girl. When the Big Bad Wolf makes his way to Granny’s house, he must first throw out several other Big Bad Wolves with the same plan. Where so many fairy tale spoofs try to add edge with pop culture references, “Little Red Riding Rabbit” uses actual irreverent gags.
10. “Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century” (1952)
Daffy had a very different dynamic with Porky than he did with Bugs. Instead of feeling the need to one-up his more popular counterpart, Daffy could make a fool of himself while the earnest Porky tries to keep up. The duo worked best in Jones’ genre spoofs, such as the Maltese-scripted Buck Rogers parody “Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century.”
The cartoon brings back one of the best baddies of the franchise, the diminutive conquerer Marvin the Martian. He makes a great foil for the braggart Daffy, as does Porky, who plays an eager space cadet. The galactic setting seems like an odd fit for the characters, but Jones and Maltese take advantage of every sight gag the premise presents.
11. “Fast and Furry-ous” (1952)
Written by Maltese and directed by Jones, the first Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote cartoon “Fast and Furry-ous” begins with freeze frames on the two main characters, with faux-Latin scientific names listed below. The pseudo-academic language establishes the conflict between the two as something natural and dispassionate, a point underscored by their first encounter. The Coyote spies the Road Runner and tries to chase him down for dinner.
That natural framing transforms the struggle between the two creatures as something primal and unchanging, even as the Coyote’s plots grow more ridiculous. When, halfway through the short, the Road Runner speeds down a tunnel that the Coyote painted on rock, we viewers understand the true nature of their relationship: the Coyote will always lose and the Road Runner always wins, a cosmic constant that cannot change.
12. “Porky in Wackyland” (1938)
The best of the Porky-focused shorts came from director Robert Clampett, who saw the pig as an innocent person in a world that made no sense. That principle drives the best of the Porky shorts, “Porky in Wackyland,” written by Warren Foster. On the hunt for the last surviving Dodo, Porky experiences all sorts of indignities at the hands of the bird, who changes reality at will. Throughout the absurdity, Porky plays the guide and the victim.
That said, like so many pieces of 20th-century American entertainment, “Porky in Wackyland” does feature moments of casual racism that make viewers wince today. Porky goes on an African safari that treats the continent as a primitive and exotic place. Worse, one of the Dodo’s transformations mimics minstrel performer Al Jolson.
13. “Birds Anonymous” (1957)
With “Birds Anonymous,” Freleng and Foster return to one of the tried-and-true Looney Tunes conceits, predator and prey. The former appears in the form of Sylvester the Cat, the long-suffering house cat who cannot suppress his urge to hunt. The latter is Tweety Bird, a canary convinced of its own cuteness.
Sylvester and Tweety shorts echo the Road Runner and Coyote cartoons, with a more sinister air. The Road Runner always gets the best of Wile E. Coyote, but he often does so as a force of nature, acting from instinct instead of will. In “Birds Anonymous,” Sylvester tries to swear off his hunting via the titular support group, but Tweety does everything he can to tempt and mock the cat.
14. “Bully for Bugs” (1953)
“Of course, you realize, this means war.” Those words, delivered right at the camera with a wry expression, allowed Bugs to remain the hero, even when he had a clear upper hand against his enemies. Always smarter and better equipped than those who messed with him, Bugs’ onslaughts felt more like justice raining on the deserving than the acts of a ruffian.
“Bully for Bugs,” by Jones and Maltese, illustrates this point. After failing to take the proper turn at “Albuqoicky,” Bugs finds himself lost in a bullfighting ring. Instead of letting the bunny be, the bull attacks, permitting Bugs to let loose his fury. What follows is a series of unexpected and well-timed gags, including an anvil hidden under his red matador’s cape, which audiences enjoy guilt-free.
15. “Speedy Gonzales” (1955)
With 1955’s “Speedy Gonzales,” Freleng and Foster introduce one of the most popular, and controversial characters in the Looney Tunes line-up. Speedy Gonzales is a tiny Mexican mouse with unmatched speed, which he uses to escape Sylvester the Cat and feed his friends. However, Speedy is also voiced with a broad, stereotypical accent, provided by the not-Latino actor Mel Blanc.
“Speedy Gonzales” highlights the appeal and problems of the character. Throughout the short, Speedy dashes over and around Sylvester, leaving the cat either in the dust or in the traps set out for him. At the same time, Speedy and his country-people are presented as vermin who race across the international to steal from Americans.
16. “Knighty Knight Bugs” (1958)
Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts took home plenty of Academy Awards during their heyday. With “Knighty Knight Bugs,” Freleng and Foster get Bugs an Oscar, the sole win for a Bugs-centric episode.
At first glance, “Knighty Knight Bugs” doesn’t offer much that viewers can find elsewhere. The short involves Bugs forced to deal with an aggressive opponent, against his will. However, Freleng and Foster elevate the material by placing it in a medieval setting and making that opponent the hot-headed cowboy Yosemite Sam, here in the form of the Black Knight. Shenanigans ensue, making for some of the best sight gags in the franchise.
17. “Baseball Bugs” (1946)
Where most of Jones’s Bugs Bunny shorts draw from nature, Freleng puts Bugs against big meanies who deserve everything they get. In “Baseball Bugs,” Freleng and Maltese feature a whole team of meanies, a group of brutes called the Gas-House Gorillas. Bugs arrives just as the Gorillas have bullied the opponents and the umps to another undeserved win, forcing the rabbit to even the score.
Even before reality-warping jokes, such as Bugs running all over the field to play each position, “Baseball Bugs” earns laughs with nothing more than character designs. The craggy, awkward brutes on the Gorillas tower over Bugs, who takes no notice of the size difference. From that odd pairing, “Baseball Bugs” the audience accepts any length to which Bugs goes to defeat the Gorillas, even climbing the Empire State Building to catch a mighty home run.
18. “Devil May Hare” (1954)
Popular as he certainly is, the Tasmanian Devil is one of the more limited Looney Tunes antagonists. In fact, his introductory cartoon “Devil May Hare,” by Robert McKimson and Sid Marcus, captures everything funny about the character. That said, it is hilarious, even if effective just once.
Taz rolls into the short as a force of nature, ripping to shreds anything that dares to get in his way. The chaotic energy that Taz brings lets Bugs show off another side to his wit. Instead of overwhelming his opponent with wackiness, Bugs goes the high route, throwing off the beast by inviting him to “luncheon” and, in the end, a wedding ceremony to tame the beast.
19. “Back Alley Oproar” (1948)
In most of his cartoons, Sylvester the Cat has to play the victim to his instincts and/or Tweety’s taunts. With “Back Alley Oproar,” writers Maltese and Tedd Pierce and director Freleng let Sylvester play the hero while keeping Elmer Fudd as the victim.
“Back Alley Oproar” has a simple premise, as Elmer wants to go to sleep and Sylvester wants to host a feline symphony. The audience pulls for Elmer, even when he draws his shotgun to silence Sylvester and the singing cats. Yet, viewers cannot help but cheer for Sylvester’s sole win, at least until the short’s shocking and dark ending.
20. “Don’t Give Up the Sheep” (1953)
Casual viewers would be forgiven for mistaking Ralph Wolf, co-star of “Don’t Give Up the Sheep,” for Wile E. Coyote. After all, both of the canine creatures concoct outrageous plans to hunt animals, and both come from the pencil of Chuck Jones, who directs the short from a Maltese script. However, Ralph Wolf has a voice and a more intentional antagonist in co-star Sam the Sheepdog.
Where Coyote and Roadrunner cartoons treat the clash of characters as a primal force of nature, Ralph and Sam just do their jobs. The short features the standard Looney Tunes chaos, as when Sam dons a tree disguise to follow Ralph in a tree disguise and pound the predator before he can take a sheep. But Jones and Maltese bookend these moments with Ralph and Sam clocking in and out of work, making their struggle just the ordinary on-the-job activity.