Looney Tunes: Difference between revisions

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* '''[[Porky Pig]]''' -- "I Haven't Got a Hat", 1935, Freleng. [[The Everyman]] and [[Straight Man]] to the rest of the cast, known for his [[Porky Pig Pronunciation|ridiculously thick stutter]]. Also a [[Deadpan Snarker]], usually when paired with Chuck Jones' pompous Daffy or a [[Butt Monkey]] when paired with the crazy, hyperactive screwball Daffy. Either way, he does not like being paired up with Daffy.

 

* '''[[Sylvester Cat and Tweety Bird|Granny]]''' -- "Little Red Walking Hood" 1937, Avery. A kind, elderly woman most remembered as Tweety's owner, and [[Cool Old Lady|who packed a hidden amount of badass-ery]] when inflicting pain on Sylvester when he tried to catch Tweety.

 

** Note that there is some controversy over when exactly Elmer debuted, depending on whether or not you count Egghead, who was called "Elmer" in some of his later cartoons.

 

** As with Elmer, there is some controversy over whether Bugs debuted earlier, with the prime suspects being four cartoons by Ben "Bugs" Hardaway and Jones, including "Elmer's Candid Camera". However, the rabbit in those cartoons is basically Daffy with rabbit ears, and "A Wild Hare" is the first cartoon featuring a rabbit that is recognizably Bugs.

*** In the third and fourth of the pre-"Wild Hare" cartoons, the formative rabbit was in fact advertised as Bugs Bunny by the studio; take that for what you will. (As for where the name came from, [[Multiple Choice Past|take your pick:]] the initial model sheet for the character, by Charles Thornson, was supposedly labeled "Bugs' bunny," ie. director Ben 'Bugs' Hardaway. [[Mel Blanc]] would later claim he came up with the name at the same time as the voice -- 'bugs' being Brooklyn slang for 'crazy'. Still another version has the name drawn from a hat by Leon Schlesinger's secretary. Tex Avery, meanwhile, just wanted to call him "Jack E. Rabbit".)

* '''[[Sylvester Cat and Tweety Bird|Sylvester the Cat]]''' -- "Life With Feathers", 1945, Freleng. A cat with a speech impediment who usually tries to eat Tweety or Speedy Gonzales, with little success, making him a mild version of the [[Villain Protagonist]]. One of the most versatile of the ensemble, prone to neuroses and usually the star of the comic melodramas. In Robert McKimson's hands, slobby Sylvester has a hyper-articulate son named Sylvester, Jr., whom Dad tries to impress by chasing what turns out to be a baby kangaroo; when he retreats gibbering at the "giant mouse!" Junior is mortified.

 

 

 

* '''Marvin The Martian''' -- "Haredevil Hare", 1948, Jones. An [[Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain]] who wants to see an [[Earthshattering Kaboom]], and is the [[Trope Namer]] thereof. Invariably foiled by Bugs. Like the Tasmanian Devil, he only appeared in a handful of shorts from the original shorts, but became popular enough to be featured in nearly every adaptation thereafter. His universe was expanded in the 2000s animated show ''[[Duck Dodgers]]''. Will get his own CG movie in a few years!

* '''[[Wile E. Coyote and The Road Runner|Wile E Coyote and The Road Runner]]''' -- "Fast and Furry-ous", 1949, Jones. A speedy bird and the coyote who uses a variety of backfiring Acme Company traps and mail-order gadgets to try to catch him -- 'try' being the operative word. The coyote was named in his first face-off against Bugs (''Operation: Rabbit''), where he became "Wile E. Coyote, [[Mad Scientist|Super Genius]]". The Roadrunner remains mute to this day. Incidentaly, Time Warner Cable for a long time used them as the mascot for their "Roadrunner" internet service; no longer the case since the company was spun off as independent from Time Warner in 2009.

 

 

* '''The Tasmanian Devil''' -- "Devil May Hare", 1954, McKimson. The destructive, hurricane-spinning, [[Extreme Omnivore]] who talks in [[Hulk Speak]] when he talks at all. Though he only appeared in five Golden Age-era cartoons, he is nowadays considered as popular as Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, having been nicknamed Taz and often appearing in merchandise, comic book stories, and even his own TV spinoff (''[[Taz-Mania]]'').

For more detailed information on the recurring cast, refer to the franchise's [[Looney Tunes/Characters|character sheet]].

 

 

The freewheeling house style was also heavily influenced by, well, the house movies. Answering [[What Do You Mean It's Not for Kids?|accusations of excessive violence from parental action groups in later years]], Jones noted that these shorts were originally intended to ride with such sweet, wholesome family fare as ''[[Little Caesar]]'' and ''[[The Public Enemy]]''. "We didn't make them for kids," he explained. "We made them for ourselves."

Helping the anarchistic spirit along were a succession of humourless bosses that more or less invited open rebellion. Founder Schlesinger won unwitting immortality as the inspiration for Daffy Duck's trademark lisp: "You're dethpicable!". The Warner Bros. themselves really didn't know or care what was going on in their animation unit, leaving hands-on oversight to bean counter Eddie Selzer. Recounting the genesis of the classic "Bully For Bugs", Jones recalled the day Selzer showed up at his door as he and writer Mike Maltese were hashing out story ideas, and bellowed: "I don't want any pictures about bullfights! Bullfights aren't funny!" Then Selzer marched off, leaving his dumbfounded staff staring at each other. "Well," Maltese said, "Eddie's never been right yet..."

 

 

 

The merchandising for Looney Tunes products ceased production when AOL ended its merger with Time Warner in order to save money (it did the complete opposite), and Cartoon Network hasn't been kind to the Tunes until November 2009, when they began running the classic shorts again. [[Cartoon Network]] is even producing [[The Looney Tunes Show|a third new set of animated shorts featuring the original characters!]]

 

 

For a complete filmography of the original cartoons, [[Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies Filmography|visit this page.]] For a taste of the best shorts the series has to offer, refer to ''[[The 50 Greatest Cartoons]]'' list, as well as ''[[The 100 Greatest Looney Tunes]]'' list. For the 2011 animated sitcom that premiered on Cartoon Network, go [[The Looney Tunes Show|here]].

 

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* [[Acme Products]] (indirectly) - the Coyote's quest to catch the Roadrunner with gadgets inevitably purchased from the Acme Corporation

* [[And Call Him George]] - the Abominable Snowman

* [[Duck Season! Rabbit Season!]]

* [[One Buwwet Weft]] (formerly)

* [[Pronoun Trouble]] (possibly; the phrase turns up in "Rabbit Seasoning", but refers to a series of variations on [[Duck Season! Rabbit Season!]] and has nothing to do with gender)

* [[Road Runner vs. Coyote]]

* [[Wrong Turn At Albuquerque]]

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* [[Abhorrent Admirer]]: Pepé Le Pew in most (if not all) of the cartoons he was in (though there were times when the roles were reversed and Pepe became the hunted; and the only cartoon where he wasn't an [[Abhorrent Admirer]] was Arthur Davis's "Odor of the Day"); Daffy Duck in Frank Tashlin's "The Stupid Cupid"; the Mama Bear in "Bugs Bunny and the Three Bears"; and the [[Brawn Hilda|portly Slavic-accented female]] bunny Millicent from "Rabbit Romeo."

** Pepe and the cat are special cases; the cat freaks out at his interest mainly because he's a skunk, with all the attendant odor problems. When the tables are turned (often from Pepe either having his stench covered or removed), her attitude flips around as well and she becomes even more aggressive than Pepe was, [[Irony|intimidating the hell out of him]].

* [[Accordion Man]]: Some characters are subject to this.

* [[Accidental Athlete]]: Happens to Cool Cat in ''Bugged by a Bee''. Subverted in that the bee gets all the credit in the end and not Cool Cat.

* [[Affably Evil]]: Marvin the Martian most notably, who was intentionally created to be incredibly dangerous but very softspoken and polite.

** Also Elmer Fudd, on occasion.

** Don't forget Sylvester the Cat (particularly in the cartoons where he has a son who's constantly ashamed of him)

** Wile E. Coyote, in the [[Suddenly Voiced]] cartoons where [[Wicked Cultured|he plays a genius trying to catch Bugs.]]

* [[Alan Smithee]]: There were a few shorts where the director was left uncredited, but not because the work was so bad that the director wanted nothing to do with the project (even Norm McCabe put his name on his cartoons, [[Old Shame|despite revealing that they were awful years later]]). The uncredited Looney Tunes cartoons were mostly due to the director having been fired or quit and WB Studios at the time had a rule stating that only those who were employed were allowed to have their names in the opening credits of the shorts.

** There are at least two cartoons that have a true [[Alan Smithee]] credit. Both directed by Friz Freleng. "Hollywood Daffy", Freleng refused credit on after Mike Maltese presented the story and gags. Freleng felt the cartoon was too wild and crazy to suit his own style (something Bob Clampett would have directed), but was obligated to direct it anyway. This is why the cartoon has no director's credit. Freleng also isn't credited on "Dough for the Do-Do", a color remake of Bob Clampett's "Porky in Wackyland". Freleng felt it was based on Clampett's idea, and he felt it would be plagiarism if he credited the cartoon as his own.

* [[Alcohol Hic]]: Used in numerous shorts when a character is drunk. Most notably, "High Note", where the drunk note hiccups throughout most of the short as he stumbles around.

* [[Alien Invasion]]: Bugs accidentally causes an alien apocalypse on Earth at the end of "Hare-way to the Stars".

* [[Alliterative Name]]: Most, if not all of the Looney Tunes characters (Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Road Runner, Porky Pig, Cool Cat, etc).

* [[All Just a Dream]]: The ending of "Smile, Darn Ya, Smile!", parodied in "The Mouse That Jack Built", plus "Water, Water, Every Hare", "Scrap Happy Daffy" and "The Wearing of the Grin".

** "Scrap Happy Daffy" was more of an "[[Or Was It a Dream?]]", considering Daffy wakes to find {{spoiler|the goat and a group of nazis stranded at the top of his scrap heap}}.

* [[All Psychology Is Freudian]]

* [[Amusing Injuries]]

** ''Boulevardier From The Bronx'' (Freleng, 1937) is a baseball film, but the only athletes present are two roosters (Claude and Dizzy Dan) and a turtle as catcher who uses his shell as a chest protector.

*** The backs of Dan's outfield can be seen prior to the start of the game, a pig is Dan's first strikeout victim, and a dachshund scores an inside-the-park home run.

*** Somewhere a statistician should be fired: It was already 2-0 Giants when Claude gave up an inside-the-park homer to a dachshund on the Giants' team and a four-base error to Dizzy Dan. It should be 4-0 Giants, rendering the game tied with Claude's grand slam, but the score at the bottom of the ninth [[Writers Cannot Do Math|showed 3-0]]. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZR1ok02hd4&feature=related See it here.]

** Somebody on the Freleng staff must have sucked at addition. In "Baseball Bugs", the Gas House Gorillas scored 10 runs in the first, 28 in the second, 16 in the third and 42 in the fourth before Bugs stepped in for the Tea Totallers. That gave the Gorillas 96 runs. But in the top of the ninth, the score reads [[Writers Cannot Do Math|Bugs Bunny 96, the Gorillas 95.]]

* [[Animated Anthology]]: The [[Cartoon Network]] show, titled ''[[The Looney Tunes Show]]''. In addition to a [[Framing Device]], there will be a revival of the original ''Merrie Melodies'' concept in the form of two-minute music videos featuring the Looney Tunes themselves, as well as 2½-minute CG Road Runner shorts.

* [[Anticlimax]]: "The Wild Chase" is about Speedy Gonzales and Road Runner racing each other. {{spoiler|The cartoon ends with Sylvester and Wile E. Coyote crossing the finish line instead.}}

* [[Anti-Villain]]: Elmer Fudd, Sylvester and Wile E. Coyote.

* [[Arch Enemy]]: Bugs and Elmer, Sylvester and Tweety, Coyote and [[Wile E. Coyote and The Road Runner|Road Runner]].

** Character-specific example: Speedy Gonzales, in his 1953 debut, looked much different than the version by Friz Freleng's unit in 1955. The latter design (which downplayed the visual stereotypes like buck teeth and greasy black hair) stuck, and is the one most people remember today.

** [[Robert McKimson]]'s unit went through a significant art evolution; when he started directing in 1946, his characters had a lot of girth. Around 1950 or 1951, his unit began to slim the characters down; Bugs, for example, actually began to look like the model sheet McKimson himself had created.

* [[Artifact Title]]: The ''Merrie Melodies'' series used to be reserved for the cartoons that were just animated musicals with thin, simplistic plots (in an attempt at copying the "Silly Symphonies" series from Disney). By the late '30s, Merrie Melodies began to feature cartoons that weren't centered around advertising a song from the WB music library. The name difference became even more meaningless in 1944, when Looney Tunes (originally a black and white series) fully switched to color, and recurring characters also began to be used in Merrie Melodies as well. By then, the only difference in the two series was the title and theme music. In fact, Friz Freleng outright commented on the fact that he never initially knew whether the short they'd be creating was a Merrie Melody or a Looney Tune, and it didn't matter anyway.

** Actually, a lot of historical-themed Looney Tunes shorts have this, but get away with it because of the [[Rule of Funny]].

** Many shorts relied on [[Hollywood History]], or the overly-patriotic American history taught widely in schools at the time (''i.e''. giving Christopher Columbus a [[Historical Hero Upgrade]], Native Americans a [[Historical Villain Upgrade]], ''etc''.)

* [[Art Shift]]: "Bartholomew versus the Wheel" isn't drawn in the typical style (looking more like something from ''Harold and the Purple Crayon'').

** Neither is "Senorella and the Glass Huarache," which seems to resemble a mid-60s or '70s [[De Patie]]-Freleng cartoons. (Not much of a surprise, as many [[De Patie]]-Freleng staff members worked on this short.)

* [[Ash Face]]: A regular gag whenever firearms or explosions are involved. Sometimes the basis for a blackface gag.

* [[Aside Glance]]

* [[Assumed Win]]:

** Also seen in the 1955 short "This is a Life?". Daffy assumes the program will be a retrospective about himself, when instead it's about Bugs.

* [[Bad Guy Bar]]: The bar from "Lady Play Your Mandolin". Keep in mind, this short was made and is obviously set during Prohibition, and the patrons of the bar proudly proclaim themselves as sinners.

** ''Bushy Hare''

** ''Hypo-Chondri-Cat''

* [[Big Little Man]]: One short inverts this. Beaky Buzzard finds a small reptile peeking through some rocks. Noting that the creature seems shorter than him, Beaky tries to grab it and take it home for dinner. Turns out "Shorty" is just the small head of a '''huge''' dragon.

* [[Big No]]: A few shorts have this:

'''Daffy''': Nooooo! Nooooo! }}

** The Friz Freleng cartoon "Bucaneer Bunny" has Yosemite Sam (a.k.a. Pirate Sam) say a couple of Big No's when Bugs attempts to throw a matchstick inside his pirate ship which is filled with gunpowder.

* [[Black Comedy]]: "Fresh Airedale" and "Chow Hound", two dog and cat themed cartoons from Chuck Jones.

* [[Bloodless Carnage]]: Despite the high levels of violence in several cartoons, there was never any blood, although Bugs Bunny or Daffy Duck would sometimes cover himself in ketchup pretending that he's bleeding in order to throw off his enemies, squeeze a tomato, or pour red ink (as seen in "Hare Trigger").

** One particular example is in "The Whizzard of Ow", wherein during the climax, Wile E. Coyote's mode of transportation turns into a crocodile, which proceeds to bite the Coyote's nose off.

* [[Breaking the Fourth Wall]]: The damage done to it ranges from large cracks to pulverizing it to a fine powder. On more than one occasion, near the end of a cartoon, the film suddenly breaks, leaving the screen white. A character from the cartoon then steps out onto the white screen and says, "Ladies and gentlemen, due to circumstances beyond our control, we are unable to continue with this picture."

* [[Breakout Character]]: THE WHOLE SERIES has lived and breathed this trope. It all started with Friz's [[Batman Gambit]] in 1935 to jump start Leon's ailing cartoon studio with several new cartoon characters in the short "I Haven't Got A Hat"-two pups named Ham and Ex, Kitty, Oliver Owl, Beans the Cat and Porky Pig. Porky was an instant hit with audiences, even though the studio thought for some reason that [[Flat Character|Beans]] would be the studio's next bankable star-but he too quickly faded into obscurity while Porky became the studio's star--'''THEN''', two more stars broke out from Porky's cartoons-a little [[Daffy Duck]] from "Porky's Duck Hunt" and the [[Bugs Bunny]] prototype "Happy Hare/Bugs' Bunny" from "Porky's Hare Hunt", "Hare-Um Scare-Um" and "Presto-Change-O." Oh, and Bugs Bunny himself obviously.

** The Tasmanian Devil, despite only appearing in five of the original shorts, became immensely popular due to later spin-offs and merchandising. Essentially nearly every mainstream character was decided this way, having usually been cast as a one-timer or side role alongside a an intended star before becoming popular with the audience.

* [[Brick Joke]]: Lots of Looney Tunes cartoons will have gags/characters that don't really add to the story until the big punchline later in the film. A lot of Road Runner cartoons run on this (a perfect example is a retractable wall from "Stop, Look and Hasten" (1954, Jones)). An example from "Little Red Walking Hood" (1938, Avery), which had Egghead walking past the action randomly:

'''Egghead:''' Who, me? I'm the hero of this picture! (''clobbers wolf with a mallet'') }}

* [[Broken Record]]: Two instances: In 1933's "Bosko's Mechanical Man", when a record keeps skipping at "white as..." in "Mary Had a Little Lamb"; and 1961's "Daffy's Inn Trouble" when Daffy's record keeps skipping during "The Latin Quarter", [[Produce Pelting|which prompted the audience to throw fruits and vegetables at him in disgust.]]

* [[Brother Chuck]]: Except for Daffy Duck, a ''lot'' of Porky's old sidekicks seem to have disappeared. Anyone remember Gabby the Goat? How about Beans the Cat, Ham and Ex, and/or Oliver Owl? Oh, and what the heck happened to Porky's love interest, Petunia Pig?

* [[Catapult to Glory]]: Coyote tried this a lot, most notably in the [[Overly Long Gag|overly long ending gag]] in "To Beep or Not to Beep. [[Epic Fail|Guess what happens]].

* [[The Cat Came Back]]

** "Ain't I a stinka'?"

** "Be vewwy, vewwy quiet. I'm huntin' wabbits."

** "That's All Folks"

** "I tawt I taw a puddy tat!"

** "That's a joke - ah say - that's a joke, son!"

** "I'm only three-and-a-half years old."

** There was also a modernized speical called "Bah, Humduck! A Looney Tunes Christmas" which is basically ''A Christmas Carol'' but with Daffy as Scrooge.

* [[Cigar Fuse-Lighting]]: In "Catty Cornered", Sylvester the Cat hides Tweety under an empty can. When the mobster Rocky finds Tweety under the can, he lights a firecracker with his cigarette and places under the can for Sylvester to find.

* [[Cliff Stack]]: Pretty much created the trope.

* [[Clip Show]]: "His Hare-Raising Tale", "This is a Life?", "Feather Bluster", "Tweet Dreams", "Hare-Abian Nights", and "Freudy Cat".

* [[Clothes Make the Superman]]: Subverted hard in "Fast and Furry-ous" (Wile E. Coyote wears a superhero outfit, only to learn the hard way that just because you wear it doesn't mean it grants you the ability to fly). Lampshaded in "Goofy Groceries," "Super Rabbit" and "Stupor Duck."

* [[Cloudcuckoolander]]: Daffy, especially in the earlier shorts. Even later he isn't the most stable of beings at times.

** The demented flying fish in the Porky Pig film "The Sour Puss" certainly qualifies.

** Some non-Tweety cartoons had Sylvester showing signs of mischievous irrationality (''Back Alley Oproar, Doggone Cats, Kitty Kornered'').

* [[Clown Car Base]]: Sam's wood-burning stove holds a 1950s New Years' Eve party (and, in a later clip show, a late 1970s disco party), in "Rabbit Every Monday".

* [[Cold Opening]]: While not a cold opening in the strictest sense, many Road Runner shorts from the late '50s and early '60s (particularly "Beep Prepared" and "Hopalong Casualty") featured a bit of action before the title of the cartoon was displayed.

** There's also "Porky's Romance", in which an introduction to Petunia Pig is made before the title card is shown. She keeps tripping over her lines and becomes increasingly desperate.

'''Petunia:''' '''''<big>[[Cute but Cacophonic|EXCITED?!? WHO'S EXCITED?!? I'M NOT EXCITED--!!!]]</big>''''' }}

* [[Comic Trio]]: Chuck Jones' Three Bears shorts.

* [[Couldn't Find a Lighter]]: "Bacall to Arms" features a parody of ''[[To Have And Have Not]]'', in which [[Humphrey Bogart]] lights [[Lauren Bacall]]'s cigarette with a welding torch.

* [[Covered in Kisses]]: Happens in a few WB cartoons:

** In ''The Super Snooper'', the Femme Fatale turns out the lights and we hear kissing noises. When Daffy Duck turns them back on he has lipstick marks all over his face which she gently wipes off.

** In ''A Gander at Mother Goose'', a cartoon based on various children's rhymes, features a segment with Jack and Jill. When the narrator gets to the part about Jack falling down the hill, nothing happens. He repeats the line a few more times before Jack rushes back down, his face smeared with lipstick, tells the narrator to forget about going up the hill to fetch a pail of water, and rushes ''eagerly'' back up the hill.

* [[Crossover]]: Sylvester, Elmer Fudd, Mama Bear, Henery Hawk and Porky Pig all appear in Daffy's ''The Scarlet Pumpernickel.'' Daffy appears in Foghorn Leghorn's ''The High And The Flighty.''

** Daffy and Taz are paired together in ''Ducking the Devil'', their only classic cartoon together.

* [[Cut a Slice, Take the Rest]]: frequently, with various characters, and often with cake.

 

* [[Deadpan Snarker]]: Porky was often very verbal about the wacky cast around him, especially when paired with Daffy (particularly the pompous Daffy who was trying to be a star, not the wacky one who always got Porky in trouble); Bugs Bunny…pretty much all the time.

* [[Death by Materialism]]: Daffy, often.

* [[Delivery Stork]]: One of Freleng's recurring characters is a stork that's so drunk that he delivers babies to the wrong expectant couples. Seen in the shorts, "Apes of Wrath," "Stork Naked," "Goo-Goo Goliath," and "A Mouse Divided".

* [[Department of Redundancy Department]]: In "Bill of Hare":

* [[Desert Skull]]: Bugs Bunny wears one in "The Wacky Wabbit".

* [[Digging to China]]: "Tweety and the Beanstalk" and "War and Pieces"

* [[Edited for Syndication]]: Looney Tunes became notorious for being chopped up when shown on many networks, either edited to remove overly violent gags or "insensitive" racial stereotypes. Some shorts were merely edited for time to make room for more commercial breaks. As a result, there was much rejoicing when the Golden Collections presented the cartoons as they were originally seen in theaters. In many instances, it was like watching them for the first time.

** The 1961 Bugs Bunny cartoon "Prince Violent" had its title changed to "Prince Varmint" for television in the 1980s.

** Surprisingly, a recent showing of part of "Bugs Bunny Bustin' Out All Over" let a butterfly calling Bugs a jackass slip by!

*** The epithet "jackass" has been used on W-B cartoons before. In 1945's ''A Tale Of Two Mice,'' Babbitt tells Catstello (both as mice) that if his plan to get the cheese doesn't work, "I'll...I'll be a jackass!" It doesn't, and Catstello hammers it in ("Jackass! Jackass!! Yer a jackass!! Hee-haw!"). 1950's ''Mississippi Hare'' has Col. Cornpone asking Bugs "If'n I had four legs and went 'hee-haw,' what would I be?" Bugs: "Why, you'd be a jackass." (Resulting in one of Bugs' perfectly timed duels.)

* [[Edutainment Show]]: The three shorts, "By Word of Mouse," "Heir Conditioned," and "Yankee Dood It," commissioned by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation which educated the viewer on how the capitalist economy works and why it's a superior one. These shorts of course came about in the mid-fifties at the height of [[Red Scare]], and [[Anvilicious|it's easy to tell]]. In fairness, they did at least attempt to make these shorts interesting by throwing gags in between the edutainment, but in all, they pale in comparison to their regular output.

** 1939's "[[Old Glory]]" is educational as well, though unlike the aforementioned Sloan shorts, it doesn't contain comedy at all. Rather, it's a history lesson on the Revolutionary War and the formation of the U.S., with Porky learning about it from Uncle Sam in the wraparounds.

* [[Epic Fail]]: Wile E. Coyote's specialty.

* [[Era Specific Personality]]

* [[Evil Sounds Deep]]: The construction worker from "Homeless Hare" and the bulldog from "Chow Hound", both voiced by John T. Smith.

* [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin]]: "He can't outsmart me, 'cause I'm a moron!" (The giant from "Jack Wabbit And The Beanstalk")

* [[Expanded Universe]]: The old [[Gold Key Comics]], which spilled over into children's books and merchandise of the period, and the [[Bugs Bunny]] [[Newspaper Comics|newspaper strip.]] Largely forgotten today.

* [[Exploding Closet]]: Daffy opens a closet door in "Daffy's Inn Trouble" and is buried in brooms.

** Friz Freleng's cartoons in general have this a lot (along with characters going to [[Fluffy Cloud Heaven]]), particularly the Censored 11 short, "Sunday Go To Meetin' Time," in which a lazy, black man named Nicodemus skips church and hits himself in the head while chasing a chicken, and finds himself in Hell for all of the sins he committed when he was alive (such as skipping church in favor of gambling, stealing chickens, stealing watermelon, and just raising hell [or "dickens", as the cartoon put it]).

** "The Three Little Bops" uses it to turn the Big Bad Wolf from an anti-heroic wannabe to a smooth player:

You gotta get hot to play real cool! }}

* [[Flanderization]]: Different directors often focussed on different aspects of a character, most notably with Daffy, Bugs, Elmer Fudd, and Porky.

** This even got a [[Lampshade]] during an [[Affectionate Parody]] of ''[[Invasion of the Body Snatchers]]''.

* [[Fluffy Cloud Heaven]]: "Sunday Go To Meetin' Time," "Clean Pastures," "Daffy Duck And The Dinosaur," "Back Alley Oproar."

* [[Force Feeding]]: "Pigs Is Pigs", "A Tale of Two Mice" and "Chow Hound"

* [[Forgot I Could Fly]]: This became a running gag for Daffy in the Duck Dodgers spin-off and recent webtoons on the Looney Tunes website.

** The short "The Million Hare" predates those:

* [[The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You]]: Inverted in ''A hair raising hare'';

'''Gossamer''': People?! *screams and runs away [[Efficient Displacement|through several sets of walls]]*. }}

* [[Friendly Enemy]]: Ralph E. Wolf and Sam Sheepdog.

* [[Funny Animal]]: Duh. All of them (including the human characters, like Elmer Fudd and Yosemite Sam)

* [[Funny Foreigner]]: Pepé Le Pew, Speedy Gonzales, and, to a lesser extent, Foghorn Leghorn (with his Southern accent) and Bugs Bunny (with his New York accent), for those who aren't originally from America.

 

* [[Genre Killer]]: For a time, there were many Looney Tunes cartoons which consisted of inanimate objects coming to life when a store (usually a bookstore or a 1930s-style grocery store/pharmacy) closed up shop for the night ("Goofy Groceries", "Have You Got Any Castles", "Speaking of the Weather", etc.) The subgenre of cartoons, at least when it came to Looney Tunes, officially came to an end with 1946's "Book Revue" which, coincidentally, was also the last cartoon Bob Clampett got credit for. Though in a subversion, "Book Revue" is actually the best of this subgenre.

* [[Girlish Pigtails]]: Petunia Pig in her later appearences.

* [[Glove Slap]]: Seen in numerous cartoons when a character challenges another to a duel, but perhaps the most widely remembered one comes from "Hare Trimmed".

* [[The Golden Age of Animation]]: The original shorts were a product of this. Since then the characters have been successively (if not always successfully) deployed in the medium's [[The Dark Age of Animation|Dark]], [[The Renaissance Age of Animation|Renaissance]], and [[The Millennium Age of Animation|Millennium]] ages.

* [[Gravity Is a Harsh Mistress]]: And it's ''always'' a looooong way down, especially in Wile E. Coyote's case. [[Gravity Is a Harsh Seamstress]], too.

* [[Hair-Trigger Avalanche]]: Demonstrated in "The Iceman Ducketh" when Daffy accidentally sets off an avalanche by shouting.

* [[Hair-Trigger Temper]]: Yosemite Sam's shtick. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXCJC9e4dB0 He even rapped about it on] [[The Looney Tunes Show]].

* [[Hammerspace]]

* [[Handcar Pursuit]]

* [[Handsome Lech]]: Pepé LePew (Oh hell, any Charles Boyer-esque French stereotype applies here)

* [[Hangover Sensitivity]]: Bugs is assumed to have a hangover at the beginning of "Hare-way to the Stars":

* [[Hard Head]]

* [[Hat Damage]]: Done to Foxy in "One More Time" and Daffy in "Ali Baba Bunny".

* [[The Hat Makes the Man]]: In "Bugs' Bonnets", random hats fly by and land on Bugs' and Elmer Fudd's heads, altering their behavior to match each time.

* [[Have a Gay Old Time]]: In "Half-Fare Hare", Bugs says:

* [[Hellevator]]: Not an elevator, but in "Satan's Waitin'", an escalator transports Sylvester to Hell. The escalator makes a return appearance in "Devil's Feud Cake" when Sam first appears in Hell.

* [[Hello, Nurse!]]

* [[Henpecked Husband]]: Daffy in the appropriately titled "The Henpecked Duck". Daffy again in "His Bitter Half" and Yosemite Sam in "Honey's Money".

* [[Here We Go Again]]: In "Greedy For Tweety", immediately after Sylvester, Tweety, and the bulldog are released from the hospital, they start chasing each other again. Nurse Granny notices this while looking out the window and places the patient cards back in the "in" slots in anticipation of the three being injured again.

* [[Heroic Wannabe]] / [[Hero with an F In Good]]: Daffy Duck as Western Type Hero, Stupor Duck, China Jones, Boston Quackie, Robin Hood, Duck Dodgers, etc.

* [[Hollywood Healing]]

* [[Huge Rider, Tiny Mount]]: Subverted with Red Hot Ryder from "Buckaroo Bugs" (Clampett, 1945).

* [[Human Mail]]: Porky Pig twice tries to get rid of Charlie Dog this way. [[The Cat Came Back|Charlie always gets sent back.]]

* [[Hyde and Seek]]: "Hyde and Go Tweet", "Hyde and Hare", "Dr. Jerkyl's Hyde", "The Impatient Patient" and "The Case of the Stuttering Pig"

* [[Hyperspace Arsenal]]

* [[Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain]]: Arguably a [[Trope Codifier]], as almost every villain in the series was a moronic [[Butt Monkey]] as likely to fall by their own idiocy as by the actions of the protaganists themselves. Even the rare subversions of this trope (eg. Nasty Canasta, Rocky and Muggsy) ultimately suffered [[Villain Decay]] and fell victim to it.

** The Coyote was, in fact, ''so'' sympathetically ineffectual that in many viewers' minds the Road Runner became the real villain of the pieces. Hilariously referenced by [[Weird Al]] in ''UHF'':

* [[Ink Suit Actor]]: [[The Jack Benny Program|Jack Benny, Mary Livingstone, Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, and Don Wilson]] appear (as mice!) in the 1959 short, "The Mouse That Jack Built."

** Victor Moore voiced his cartoon likeness in 1945's "Ain't That Ducky".

* [[Instrumental Theme Tune]]: Sort of. The iconic theme songs, "Merrily We Roll Along" (for Merrie Melodies) and "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down" (for Looney Tunes) do indeed have lyrics, but they're never used when introducing the shorts. All we hear are the instrumental versions of them.

** "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down" used lyrical variants in ''Daffy Duck And Egghead'' and ''Boobs In The Woods'' while "Merrily We Roll Along" was performed by an animated Eddie Cantor in ''Billboard Frolics'' and ''Toy Town Hall.'' And even before becoming its theme, "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down" was used as background music in a segment of "Porky's Garden" (Avery, 1937).

** A Fractured Leghorn: The short does an "iris out" during Foghorn's rant. He grabs the iris so he can finish.

** ''Porky The Rainmaker'' (1936) has the iris closing and a farm duck is inside the black area. He bangs on the darkness, then Porky's arm reaches in and pulls the duck back to the outside.

** ''Porky's Garden'' (1937): Two irises re-open as Porky takes the prize money from the Italian chicken farmer.

* [[Iron Butt Monkey]]: Where to start? Wile E. Coyote, Sylvester, Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam, [[Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick|Adolf]] [[Adolf Hitler|Hitler]]... and that's just the villains! [[Trope Codifier]].

 

* [[Jaw Drop]]

* [[Jerkass]]: Michigan J. Frog, Daffy Duck (post-[[Flanderization]]), Foghorn Leghorn ([[Depending on the Writer]]), Yosemite Sam, Tweety (pre-[[Badass Decay]]), Bugs Bunny's prototype Happy Rabbit, Hubie and Bertie.

* [[Karmic Trickster]]: Bugs is the poster child for this trope. Delivering poetic justice after being wronged is the classic Bugs Bunny storyline.

* [[Knight of Cerebus]]: Some villains from the mid-30s were pretty threatening and scary, such as the captain from "Shanghaied Shipmates", the trapper from "Porky In The North Woods", and the lawyer from "The Case Of The Stuttering Pig".

* [[Koosh Bomb]]: Where it became famous. Especially the Roadrunner cartoons.

* [[Large Ham]]: Every character in the main cast (and maybe a few from the minor cast)

* [[Lazy Artist]]: It's extremely rare, but it's quite noticeable when it happens. Two occur in 1943's "Porky Pig's Feat": As Daffy issues a challenge to the hotel manager, a cel of Daffy is photographed painted side up in a frame (The redrawn version even renders that errant cel drawing!). At the end when Porky and Daffy discover Bugs Bunny in the adjacent room, Daffy's left arm is shown unpainted.

** Lampshaded in "Invasion Of The Bunny Snatchers" (1992). Pod carrots from space replace Daffy, Yosemite Sam and Elmer with poorly drawn and animated duplicates.

** Carl Stalling had a tendency to associate tunes with specific characters. Foghorn Leghorn sings or hums "The Camptown Races" in numerous shorts.

** "I Cover the Waterfront" was often used during establishing shots of docks and harbors.

* [[Limited Animation]]: Some of the best uses of this format in cartoon history.

** Just to clarify: Most cartoons in the '30s and '40s utilized full animation just like Disney and other contemporaries. However, Chuck Jones experimented with limited animation in "The Dover Boys", liberally using quick smears and held poses. But limited animation (that is, less actual character movement) was never widespread until the mid '50s, when budgets got slimmer. Nevertheless, the various units worked around the limitations quite well, even if the animation wasn't as full as the previous two decades.

* [[Long Runner]]: The series ran from 1930 to 1969, just one year shy of 40 years. Of course, various characters came and went during that time.

* [[Lord Error-Prone]]: Daffy, in several [[Chuck Jones]] parody shorts (most notably [[Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century|those starring Duck Dodgers]]). Usually featuring Porky as his [[Hypercompetent Sidekick]].

* [[Loser Gets the Girl]]: In "Muscle Tussle", Daffy loses his girlfriend to a big, white muscular duck at the beach.

 

* [[Made of Iron]]: Everyone.

* [[Mad Love]]: Pepé Le Pew, though there are some examples of this from the Bugs Bunny cartoons.

** In "Daffy Doodles", he tells Porky to wait till J. Edgar Who's-Its hears about this.

** Bugs Bunny in "Roman Legion Hare" (which for some unknown reason has been left out of Cartoon Network's screenings of the cartoon):

* [[Meat-O-Vision]]

* [[Mechanical Horse]]: Or something along those lines is used briefly in "One More Time".

* [[Mickey Mousing]]: So much so that there are musical accents to something as simple as characters blinking. Arguably, though, this is part of the charm of the music.

* [[Mime-and-Music-Only Cartoon]]: Many of their cartoons are dialogue free, or fairly close to it. Some examples:

** Cat Feud (1958)

** Curious Puppy (1939), Dog Gone Modern (1939), Snow Time For Comedy (1940), Stage Fright (1940) (all starring two dogs. Only vocals in "Dog Gone Modern" are the house welcoming the two dogs.)

* [[Mister Muffykins]]: Petunia's dog in "Porky's Romance". The mean-spirited little beasty annoys Porky so much that {{spoiler|he ends the short by kicking it through the closing iris}}.

* [[Mix and Match Critter]]: The chicken/turtle hybrid from "The Good Egg".

* [[Moody Mount]]: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBhlQgvHmQ0 Yosemite Sam's camel in "Sahara Hare"] and his dragon in "Knighty Knight Bugs".

* [[Morally-Ambiguous Ducktorate]]: Daffy, of course.

* [[Motion Blur]]: Speedy, Road Runner, anyone who needed to leave/arrive in a hurry.

** Not to mention long (and deservedly) forgotten Little Blabbermouse (cartoon of the same name and "Shop, Look, And Listen").

** Shorty from "Rabbit's Kin". His voice is actually Mel Blanc's normal speaking voice, sped up to a high pitch and really fast speed.

** ''Bugs Bunny Superstar'' (1975), a [[Documentary]] narrated by [[Orson Welles]] and featuring nine '40s cartoons in their entirety along with interviews of Freleng, Avery, and (espeically) Clampett.

** ''The Looney Looney Looney Bugs Bunny Movie'' (1981), directed by Friz Freleng and only featuring his work. It was broken into three separate stories (one was a remake of "Devil's Feud Cake", one was a crime drama parody, and the final was an awards ceremony), and was the first compilation to build a (more-or-less) coherent storyline by weaving old and new material together.

** ''Bugs Bunny's Third Movie: 1001 Rabbit Tales'' (1982), directed by Freleng and mostly made of his work, but also featuring material from some Jones shorts. Unlike the previous entry, it consisted of one long story: Daffy and Bugs competing to be the best salesman but constantly getting sidetracked on the way to their selling locations. It was the first of the compilation films to feature Robert McKimson's work (a brief clip of "Aqua Duck" is seen towards the end).

* [[Musical Episode]]: "Swooner Crooner".

** "Katnip Kollege".

** Owl Jolson's, too, in "I Love to Singa".

** The dog in ''Hare Ribbin''' (1944) goes through similar contrition after taking a bite out of the rigged Rabbit Sandwich. When he wails "I wish I were dead!", Bugs hands him a gun and he blows his brains out, only to rise, stop the iris out and say "This shouldn't happen to a dog!" (Clampett's director's cut of the cartoon has Bugs shoving the gun in the dog's mouth and pulling the trigger.)

* [[My Name Is Not Durwood]]: From ''Hoppy Go Lucky'':

'''Sylvester''': Okay, so I'm George. }}

* [[Mythology Gag]]: The name of the high-rise building in which Porky lives in ''Porky's Pooch'' (1941): Termite Terrace. (Of note, all the backgrounds in the cartoon are live-action photographs.)

* [[Naked People Are Funny]]: The ending of "All This And Rabbit Stew".

* [[Name Drop]]: This exchange from the Bugs Bunny cartoon ''French Rarebit'' (1953):

'''Bugs:''' I don't mean Antoine o' Flatbush! }}

** Antoine's actually exists in New Orleans. It's at 713 St. Louis St. and has been in business since 1840.

* [[Negative Continuity]]: Completely. In many series, characters meet each other for the first time in every cartoon, and any "facts" given about a character in one cartoon (like Elmer being a vegetarian in "Rabbit Fire") are for that cartoon only and aren't intended to carry over into subsequent instalments.

* [[Newspaper Dating]]: Elmer in "The Old, Gray Hare"

** Prior to Abbott & Costello being caricatured as cats (later mice) as "Babbitt & Catstello," Laurel and Hardy were caricatured as crows in pursuit of a grasshopper in ''A Hop, Skip And A Chump.''

** Bing Crosby tried to stop release of "Bingo Crosbyana" (1936, Freleng) because it depicted him as a vainglorious cowardly fly.

** In ''Hare-Um Scare-Um'' (1939), hunter John Sourpuss tells proto-Bugs Bunny that "I can whip you and your whole family!" A bunch of bunnies arrive to take him up on the challenge—then the film cuts off. In the original ending, the looney rabbits beat Sourpuss up on-camera, eventually driving him looney himself. Though no hard evidence has been found, it's often speculated that the scene was deleted for being too similar to the ending of ''Daffy Duck And Egghead'' one year prior.

** "Ride Him, Bosko!" is probably the standout example; [[Breaking the Fourth Wall|the animators]] just [[Screw This, I'm Outta Here|up and leave]] without showing if Bosko rescues Honey or not.

* [[No Guy Wants to Be Chased]]: Is used quite often whenever a female [[Abhorrent Admirer]] goes after one of the male characters. Was also used in three Pepé Le Pew cartoons (1949's "For Scent-imental Reasons," 1952's "Little Beau Pepé ," and 1959's "Really Scent"), proving to modern audiences that, yeah, Pepé may be seen as a "rapist," but he's not a [[Karma Houdini]] (in those instances at least).

* [[No More for Me]]: In "Who's Kitten Who?", Hippety Hopper hops by a man on the sidewalk. The man immediately drops a bottle of alcohol from his pocket and nervously walks away.

* [[Non-Mammal Mammaries]]: Hatta Mari in "Plane Daffy"

'''Daffy''': [[No More for Me|No more for me, thanks!]] I'm drivin'! (Rabbit Fire) }}

** Visual non-sequiturs: The penguin trio of "The Penguin Parade" (1938) stop their song midway to make grotesque faces at us; Bugs making a fruit salad on Elmer's head in "Rabbit Of Seville."

* [[Not Rare Over There]]: In "The Bee-deviled Bruin", Papa Bear nearly gets himself killed trying to get honey from a hive in a tree outside his home. Eventually, he gives up and asks for a bottle of ketchup. Mama Bear goes to get it... from a cupboard filled to the brim with jars of honey.

* [[Off-Model]]: Not uncommon, particularly in [[Bob Clampett]]'s shorts, where he gave the animators leeway in deviating from the model sheets in favor of a specific action or expression. However, there was plenty of unintentional off model, such as one scene from "Hare Lift", where Yosemite Sam briefly turns into a robot when he is wearing his parachute!

* [[Offscreen Teleportation]]: The minah bird is a master of this.

* [[Oh Crap]]: Wile E. Coyote, Private Snafu, Ralph Wolf, and [[Those Wacky Nazis]] do this a lot. Even Bugs Bunny gets a few every now and then.

* [[Overly Polite Pals]]: Mac and Tosh, the Goofy Gophers.

 

* [[Packed Hero]]: In "I Gopher You", featuring the Goofy Gophers, one of the gophers gets canned on a tomato packing line, and the other opens every can, until he finds him in the last can. The first gopher tells his friend that he was in the first can and he started at the wrong end.

* [[Panty Shot]]: Honey and Cookie in some of the black-and-white Looney Tunes shorts, Red Riding Hood in "The Trial Of Mr. Wolf," "Book Revue" and "Little Red Rabbit Hood," Agnes in "Nasty Quacks," the ice skater in "Land Of The Midnight Fun." Plus a rather unsettling one of Elmer in drag in "The Big Snooze" and even more eyesore from Witch Hazel in '"Bewitched Bunny" and "A Witch's Tangled Hare" and the Scotsman in "My Bunny Lies Over The Ocean."

** Another one in "Uncle Tom's Bungalow."

* [[Pink Elephants]]: A drunk is terrorized by a trio of pink elephants in "Calling Dr. Porky".

** Also played with in "Punch Trunk"; a drunk stumbles out of a bar, notices the miniature elephant on the sidewalk, looks at his watch, and tells the elephant, "You're late!"

* [[Pint-Sized Powerhouse]]: Tweety when he was under Bob Clampett's direction. Not so much when he was under Friz Freleng's direction, but he still had his moments. Chester the dog in "Tree for Two" and "Dr. Jerkyl's Hyde."

* [[Plummet Perspective]]: When Wile E. Coyote falls.

* [[Powder Trail]]

* [[Precision F-Strike]]: 1940's ''The Hardships Of Miles Standish'' has a cockeyed Indian plunking a fellow Indian on the head with a bow and arrow. The hurt Indian turns and mouths "Goddamn son of a bitch!" It is rumored that the Indian actually voiced it but was silenced before the cartoon was released.

** Just averted in ''Blooper Bunny.'' Daffy's beak gets impaled by the loose plank Bugs noted earlier.

'''Daffy:''' You smug son of a-- (''Bugs just does make a "cut" motion to camera, and the scene is abruptly cut'') }}

** 1960's ''Rebel Without Claws'': The Confederate general, consigned to using Tweety as a messenger, walks off and mutters "Damn yankees!" As the North turns Sylvester loose as an interceptor, Tweety turns to us and says "I tawt I taw a damn Yankee tat!"

** Averted in ''Tortoise Beats Hare'' (1941) after Bugs discovers that Cecil Turtle won the race:

** The Road Runner's bogus scientific name in 1959's "Wild About Hurry": Batoutahelius.

** 1936's ''Boulevardier From The Bronx'': Claude tries to catch a fly ball but has dozens fall among him. He says "Aw..." followed by a razzing sound effect.

* [[Press-Ganged]]: In "Mutiny on the Bunny", Bugs Bunny is forced into service by sea captain Yosemite Sam (who in this cartoon goes by the appropiate moniker of Shanghai Sam).

* [[Pro Wrestling Episode]]: In "Bunny Hugged", Bugs was the mascot of wrestler Ravishing Ronald, but when he gets pummeled by the Crusher, Bugs steps into the ring as the Masked Terror.

* [[Public Domain Animation]]: Some of the cartoons have slipped into the [[Public Domain]]. Most of them are from the '30s and early '40s, though.

* [[Puff of Logic]]

* [[Real Joke Name]]: Doctor Quack in ''The Daffy Doc''

* [[Rearrange the Song]]: There are different arrangements of each of the Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes opening themes. In particular, "Merrily We Roll Along" and "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down" got a ton of adjustments over the years.

* [[Recitation Handclasp]]: Giovanni Jones (the fat opera singer) assumes this posture in "Long Haired Hare."

* [[Recycled Soundtrack]]: Ten of the eleven Road Runner cartoons directed by Rudy Larriva use the same music cues over and over.

* [[Red Oni, Blue Oni]]: Daffy and Bugs.

* [[Reference Overdosed]]: Although most of the references are lost in time.

** 1937's "Porky's Badtime Story" was remade in color in 1944 as "Tick Tock Tuckered". Most of the differences were merely cosmetic.

** 1938's "Injun Trouble" was remade in color in 1945 as "Wagon Heels".

* [[Rhyming List]]: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4VX8Cjok1w This] short uses a rhyming list each floor for an [[Elevator Floor Announcement]].

* [[Right Behind Me]]: Happens to Bugs in "Devil May Hare" when he insults Taz, who happens to be standing right behind him.

* [[Road Sign Reversal]]

* [[Romantic Comedy]]: The Pepé LePew shorts, of course. Though, in this PC age, some people would put them more in the [[Black Comedy Rape]] category. In fact, for some, it's funnier to think of it this way.

** Cartoon Network screened the cartoon ''in its entirety'' on 9/26/11.

 

* [[Satan]]: Appears in "Sunday Go To Meetin' Time," "Clean Pastures," "The Hole Idea," the Bugs Bunny short "Devil's Feud Cake", (a semi-remake of the Sylvester Cat short "Satan's Waitin'" only with Yosemite Sam) and "Now Hear This."

* [[Saw a Woman In Half|Saw A Duck In Half]]: "It's a good thing I have Blue Cross," from "Showbiz Bugs."

* [[Say Your Prayers]]: Happens frequently when a character is about to be on the receiving end of a huge blow.

* [[Scenery Porn]]: As with many classic cartoons, a lot of work was put into everything, including the background art.

* [[Scooby-Dooby Doors]]: Even before "Scooby Doo" was a show, Friz Freleng did this a lot.

** It's an entirely new series, patterned like a sitcom.

** As of March 2011, the classic shorts are back. Unfortunately, they mostly air cartoons starring Bugs and Tweety.

* [[Second-Person Attack]]: Several examples; see the trope page for details.

** Zigzagged in Tex Avery's "Cross-Country Detours," which shows a realistically drawn and animated frog. The narrator entreats us to an actual scene of a frog croaking, after which the frog pulls out a gun and blows its brains out, followed by a disclaimer card that states that the management of the theater is in no way responsible for the [[Incredibly Lame Pun|lame puns]] in this cartoon short.

* [[Shadow of Impending Doom]]: Usually immediately followed by [[Anvil on Head|an anvil or some other object to the head]]

* [[Shout-Out]]: As early as 1938's "Daffy Duck In Hollywood," in which he skywrites "Warner Bros." with the movie director's cigarette.

** Lampshaded in a number of cartoons, most notably in "Daffy Goes Hollywood" in which he disguises himself as the Academy Award ("J.L. is waiting!") and in "The Big Snooze" which has Elmer tearing up his W-B cartoon contract after being bested by Bugs once too often.

** Tex Avery's 1940 short "Hollywood Steps Out" has Cary Grant referencing three of his movies in a single line of syntax: "If ''my favorite wife'' ever knew ''the awful truth'', I'd make ''the front page''."

** Shoutouts to Popeye in ''Porky's Garden'' (1937), ''The Major Lied Till Dawn'' (1938) and ''Scrap Happy Daffy'' (1943).

* [[Signature Laugh]]: Elmer Fudd's "Hehehehe".

* [[Single-Issue Landlord]]

* [[Snowball Fight]]

** "Old Glory", which has no jokes and is instead a visual retelling of the founding of America.

* [[Something Else Also Rises]]: Usually, it's eyes bugging out, though that's more popular in the cartoons Tex Avery did when he left Warner Brothers and went to MGM; other times, it's ears or tails becoming erect. On one obscure Frank Tashlin cartoon called "I Got Plenty of Mutton," it was a ram's horns, and [[Raging Stiffie|they even glowed red]]. [[Getting Crap Past the Radar|How that got past the Hays Office is anyone's guess]].

* [[Somewhere an Ornithologist Is Crying]]: Roadrunner, Daffy, Tweety, Hatta Mari [the [[Non-Mammal Mammaries|large-chested female pigeon]] spy from 1944's "Plane Daffy"]

** And the Dodo in "[[Porky in Wackyland]]" looks nothing like the real thing did.

* [[Somewhere a Paleontologist Is Crying]]: The short "Daffy Duck and the Dinosaur", with a caveman set along a dinosaur.

* [[Soundtrack Dissonance]]: Carl Stalling's successor as musical director Milt Franklyn died halfway through scoring 1962's ''The Jet Cage''. William "Bill" Lava took over and the difference in music is quite jarring.

** Six cartoons from 1958 had pre-scored background music tracks (called "needle-drop" in the industry) selected by John Seely, employed during a musician's strike. Most of the tracks heard were also used in [[Gumby]] and, soon after, Hanna-Barbera's early TV shows. Those cartoons were ''Prehysterical Hare'' (Bugs Bunny), ''Bird In A Bonnett'' (Sylvester and Tweety), ''Weasel While You Work'' (Foghorn Leghorn), ''Hook, Line And Stinker'' (Road Runner), ''Hip Hip Hurry!'' (also Road Runner) and ''Gopher Broke'' (Goofy Gophers).

* [[Speech Impediment]]: Daffy, Sylvester, Elmer Fudd

** [[Elmuh Fudd Syndwome]]

** [[Porky Pig Pronunciation]]

* [[Spin-Off|Spin Offs]]: ''[[Taz-Mania]]'', ''[[The Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries]]'', and ''[[Duck Dodgers]]''

** [[Private Snafu]] certainly counts, as it is clearly set in the same universe as Looney Tunes.

** [[Chuck Jones]]'s early short "Tom Thumb In Trouble" is played completely straight, and is actually a very good little fairy tale cartoon, just not a ''funny'' one. Years later, after he'd matured in his craft, Jones did "I Was A Teenaged Thumb," which uses wonderfully surreal humor and highly stylized, graphic design-style character designs.

* [[Spit Take]]: In "My Generation G-G-Gap", Porky does a really long one when he sees his daughter on TV at the rock concert.

* [[Split Personality]]: Daffy pretends to have one in "The Prize Pest", in order to repeatedly scare Porky in his "alter ego" state.

* [[The Sponsor]]: In the "Birds Anonymous" short, Sylvester joins the titular group to kick the bird-eating habit, and his sponsor is there to make sure he doesn't try to eat Tweety in a moment of weakness. {{spoiler|However, the sponsor himself falls [[Off the Wagon]] and goes after Tweety, while Sylvester tries to stop him.}}

* [[Stalker with a Crush]]: Though a lot of major and minor Looney Tunes characters have been this on occasion, Pepé Le Pew is possibly (nay, undisputedly) the only character whose schtick is this (along with [[Handsome Lech]], [[Mad Love]], [[Chivalrous Pervert]], [[Abhorrent Admirer]] [for both sexes], [[The Masochism Tango]] [1953's "Wild Over You"], [[Black Comedy Rape]] [if you believe Dave Chappelle and those uptight [[Moral Guardians]]], a pinch of [[No Guy Wants to Be Chased]], some [[The Hunter Becomes the Hunted]] for taste, and a nice helping of [[Double Entendre]])

* [[Stock Audio Clip]]: The Roadrunner's "Meep Meep".

** The first opening to The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show (i.e. the one without the new Darrell Van Citters animation) reuses the Bugs and Daffy song and dance animation from The Bugs Bunny Show's opening.

* [[Stuff Blowing Up]]: To the point where they [[Stock Footage|recycle the same explosion footage]] at almost every opportunity.

* [[Sudden Anatomy]]: During the "Rabbit of Seville" short, Bugs grows an extra finger on each hand when he plays Elmer Fudd's head like a piano, since the music couldn't be played using the four-fingers-per-hand he usually has.

** The stripping lizard from "Cross Country Detours" (even though her "anatomy" was blocked with a [[Censor Box]])

** His first lines of dialogue, to Bugs in "Operation: Rabbit":

** Wile E. does speak in ''The Adventures Of The Road Runner'', a two-reeler intended as the pilot for TV series (which would come about in 1966), in which he answers a child's question on why he wants to catch the Road Runner, and then using film to examine his shortcomings. This feature was edited for TV into two separate shorts, "Zip Zip Hooray" and "Road Runner-A-Go-Go."

** The cat from "A Fractured Leghorn" is a mute until the very end of the short, when he tells Foghorn to "[[Big "Shut Up!"|shaddap]]".

** In "Hobo Bobo", the one shot character Bobo the elephant says his first and only line ending the cartoon:

** In "Joe Glow the Firefly", the firefly shouts "GOOD NIGHT!" after being silent beforehand.

* [[Super Speed]]: Road Runner and Speedy Gonzales

* [[Sweeping Ashes]]

* [[Sympathetic Inspector Antagonist]]: The Sheriff in the "Bunny and Claude" cartoons.

* [[Talking with Signs]]: Seen a lot in the Wile E. Coyote/Road Runner cartoons.

'''Sign #2:''' Anything can happen in a cartoon! }}

** There are numerous viewer-created "Coyote Catches Road Runner" clips on You Tube, but [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zgj-aNxh_zQ this video], culled and composited from ''Fast And Furry-ous,'' is by far the funniest.

** Elmer Fudd gained the odd victory against Bugs (eg."Rabbit Rampage", "Hare Brush" and "What's Opera, Doc?" (although in that last one, he felt remorse for supposedly killing Bugs, who is only faking it)).

** With some assistance from Speedy Gonzales, Sylvester chalks up a win at the end of 1964's ''A Message To Gracias.''

** With some assistance from Bugs Bunny, the Big Bad Wolf (from the "Three Little Pigs" story) chalks up a win at the end of 1949's ''The Windblown Hare.''

** ''The Hardship of Miles Standish'' has a [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsFMKMUvFxo#t=3m40s singing telegram] punctuated by STOPs.

* [[Ten Paces and Turn]]: "Mississippi Hare" and "Hare Trimmed."

* [[Tertiary Sexual Characteristics]]

* [[That's All Folks]]: [[Trope Namer]]

*** ''A Ham In A Role'' (1949, McKimson) starts off with a dog taking a pie in the face and strumming his lips idiotically, followed by a static "That's all, Folks!" title card.

*** ''Guided Muscle'' (Jones, 1955--"That's all, Folks!" is already written out as the humiliated coyote drags the ending card into shot)

*** Several Merrie Melodies films re-edited in the 40s as Blue Ribbon re-releases had "That's all, Folks!" replaced with "The End" in Lydian script over the concentric circles title cards.

*** The 1967 redrawn edition of ''The Village Smithy'' (1937, Avery) has the outline of "That's all folks!" against a red background; a white card is slowly pulled from left to right behind it to cheaply simulate writing itself out (the original print from 1937 has the title writing itself out against a black background). Virtually all other redrawn Looney Tunes either had the Warner-Bros.-Seven Arts closing titles or the spliced-in late 50s That's all Folks! Looney Tunes closing titles.

*** Completely averted in the "Dork Age" cartoons from 1964 to 1969, where the ending was the abstract WB logo then the Warner Bros.-Seven Arts logo followed by a self-printing "A Warner Bros. (-Seven Arts) cartoon, a Vitaphone release."

*** At the end of ''[[Who Framed Roger Rabbit?]]'' Porky is one of two policemen with back to the camera dispersing the crowd saying "There's nothing to see here, that's all folks!" He turns to face the camera saying "Hey, I like that!" then assumes the classic pose as he repeats the line, sharing the iris-out with Walt Disney's Tinkerbell.

*** ''Blooper Bunny'' (1992, Ford, Lennon) has a quick "That's all Folks!" title card after the Bugs Bunny "special", then at the end after Bugs' final line, we see "That's all Folks!" written by hand on the film tail.

*** ''[[Space Jam]]'' (1996) ends with Bugs starting out the phrase but interrupted by Porky, Daffy, the Nerdlucks, and [[Michael Jordan]].

** "Drip-Along Daffy": Nasty Canasta is felled by a tiny wind-up soldier... whose rifle packs a mighty wallop.

* [[This Is Sparta]]: From Friz Freleng's "Hare-less Wolf" (1958):

* [[This Means War]]: Originally used by Groucho Marx, but has come to be associated with Bugs Bunny.

* [[Those Wacky Nazis]]: In such World War II cartoons as "Herr Meets Hare," "Russian Rhapsody," and "Daffy the Commando"

* [[Through a Face Full of Fur]]: Warners was addicted to this trope; an outstanding example is Claude in "The Hypo-Chondri-Cat," who turns green, purple, and ''plaid''.

* [[Throw the Pin]]

** Also seen in "The Pest That Came To Dinner", after Porky calls the exterminator on the phone to come over to rid his house of the termite, after which the exterminator shows up not a few seconds later.

* [[Title Drop]]: In "What's Up, Doc?", Bugs sings, what else, "What's Up, Doc?".

** Also in "Scaredy Cat", Porky title drops the name of the cartoon to Sylvester when trying to convince him nothing's in the kitchen after trying to drag Sylvester in the kitchen once again.

** Oh, and did we mention Wile E. Coyote?

* [[Too Kinky to Torture]]: Daffy Duck at the end of Bob Clampett's "The Wise Quacking Duck". {{spoiler|after getting his feathers shot off and being put in a gas oven, Daffy is somehow alive and quips, "Say, now you're cooking with gas!" while drizzling ''jus'' all over himself}}

* [[Toothy Bird]]: Most of the birds are at least on occasion.

* [[Traveling Pipe Bulge]]: In "Billboard Frolics", a cat traps a dog in a piece of pipe, which bulges where the dog thrashes around inside.

* [[Train Job]]: How Yosemite Sam gets his introduction.

* [[Tree Cover]]: Used frequently.

* [[Unexplained Recovery]]:

** A [[Running Gag]] involves characters like Wile E. Coyote getting seriously injured and then being perfectly fine in the next scene with no explanation as to how they recovered from their injuries.

** Hugo, the [[Of Mice and Men|Lennie]] [[Expy]] [[Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and Yeti|abominable snowman]] Bugs and Daffy met once in ''The Abominable Snow Rabbit'' (1961), ended up ''melting into a puddle'' ("He melted! [[Visual Pun|He really was a snowman!]]") in his first appearance. He ended up inexplicably coming back in all his yeti-like glory in ''Spaced Out Bunny'' (1980) and was last seen on the moon, recruiting Marvin the Martian as his new "George".

'''[[Bugs Bunny]]''': (''straining'') [[Call Back|...Oh no--Not again...]] }}

* [[Unintentional Period Piece]]: Surprisingly frequently.

* [[Unrobotic Reveal]]: In one short, Wile E. Coyote consults a computer to find ways of capturing Bugs Bunny, all of which fail. At the end the computer opens up and out comes...

 

* [[Verbal Tic]]: Fog- ah say, Foghorn Leghorn. Leghorn, that is.

* [[Victory by Endurance]]: In "Gorilla My Dreams", Bugs Bunny is being chased by a gorilla. Just when things seem hopeless for Bugs, he finds that by the time the gorilla has caught him he was too tired to beat him up and falls over exhausted.

** [[Daffy Duck]] is the resident villain protagonist of the Looney Tunes, as he is usually [[Spotlight-Stealing Squad|the focus of the shorts he's in]], and post [[Flanderization]], he is a frequent antagonist.

* [[Villainous Breakdown]]: Daffy suffers one in "Duck! Rabbit, Duck!" after being shot by Elmer one too many times.

** Elmer breaks down in this way in "What's Opera, Doc?" after being duped by Bugs disguised as Brunhilde. He then unleashes [[Disproportionate Retribution|his fury and the elements on Bugs]]:

* [[Visual Pun]]: A staple. Usually in the form of a character turning into a lollipop with the word "Sucker" emblazoned across it, a donkey with the word "Jackass" on it, or a heel with the words "First Class Heel" on it (in those days, a "heel" is what we would call these days a "jerk," "bastard," "asshole," or "douchebag").

* [[Vomit Discretion Shot]]: Despite being seasick many times in "Tweety's S.O.S.", we never actually see Sylvester vomit.

* [[The Worst Seat in the House]]: "Porky's Baseball Broadcast"

** Tex Avery's "Screwball Football" has a doozy. The gunshot everyone thinks means the end of the game turns out to be from a toddler who guns down the man next to him who has been sneaking licks of his ice cream cone.

* [[Xylophone Gag]]: And they ''always'' fall for it.

 

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{{reflist}}

[[Category:Animated Films]]

[[Category:Films of the 1960s]]

[[Category:Kids WB]]

[[Category:The Renaissance Age of Animation]]

[[Category:Short Film]]

[[Category:Trope Overdosed]]

[[Category:Western Animation]]