Summary of The Decline and Fall of Warner Bros. Cartoons | THE MERRIE HISTORY OF LOONEY TUNES

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This video discusses the decline of Warner Bros. cartoons, starting with the retirement of key personnel in the late 1950s. This led to a decrease in the quality of the shorts, and eventually the studio closed in 1963.

• 00:00:00 This video tells the history of Warner Bros. cartoons and their Oscar wins and losses. 99 Bugs won the Oscar in 1959, beating Walt Disney Studios' Paul Bunyan and Terrytoon Sydney's Family Tree. This was the last time Warner Bros. would win an Oscar in their classical era.
• 00:05:00 The Warner brothers Cartoons studio was forced to merge with Paramount Pictures in 1955 due to financial struggles. The move signaled the beginning of the end for the studio, as they would eventually enter the film industry with television production albeit very grudgingly. The Looney Tunes shorts were first licensed to Guild Films in 1955, and then sold to AAP (Associated Artist Productions) in 1956 for a modest three thousand dollars. Bob Clampett, the creator of Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, attempted to keep a career in animated cartoon shorts but was unsuccessful. In 1949, Warner Brothers sold AAP the rights to all their pre-1950 cartoons, including the black and white Looney Tunes shorts. These shorts were silent and in black and white, but they were still a way to bring Looney Tunes to the masses. With television becoming more popular in the late 50s, the Looney Tunes shorts became more well known. However, while the shorts were available outside of theaters, it wasn't always good for the people still making them.
• 00:10:00 The Decline and Fall of Warner Bros. Cartoons covers the period from the late 1950s to the early 1970s, when the quality of Warner Bros. cartoons began to decline. This decline was due in part to budget cuts and the increasing control of the cartoons by the main studio, which sealed the deal that the free-wheeling days of the termite terrorists were over. The shorts of Robert McKimson, widely regarded as the weakest writer of the cartoon studios, were often stuck with writer Ted Pierce for his shorts, and Pierce widely regarded as the weakest writer of the cartoon studios, often felt the desperate need to keep the warner cartoons relevant. This resulted in a lot of mckimson shorts involving television or parodies of popular TV shows. One of these days Alice one of these days, Pow, writing a kisser, the looney tunes were no stranger for certain time parodies and these shorts were no exception, but it was also a bad sign for both McKimson and Pierce that they were using pop cultural references as a crutch rather than a springboard for jokes. While McKimson still could occasionally spin gold in this era like High and the Flighty Foghorn Leghorn Cartoon, a Foghorn Le
• 00:15:00 The "Decline and Fall of Warner Bros. Cartoons" video takes a look at the history of Warner Bros. cartoons, starting with the retirement of longtime producers Eddie Seltzer and John Burton in 1958. Another major shake-up came when composer Carl Stalling retired. This caused a loss of key story men warren foster and Michael Maltese, who left the studio to join Hanna-Barbera Productions. The Bugs Bunny show debuted on ABC in October of 1966 and ran for three seasons. It was produced in color and featured animated wraparounds featuring Bugs Bunny and the rest of the Looney Tunes crew.
• 00:20:00 In the 1960s, Warner Bros. began to experience financial difficulties, which led to a decrease in the production of theatrical shorts. This led to the shift in style of the shorts from being lively and character-based to more abstract and stylized. Chuck Jones's short "High Note" was released in December 1960 and is a musical short focused on a group of musical notes. One note, Onenote, has chosen to disappear and go get a drink, which disrupts the performance of the others.
• 00:25:00 Chuck Jones's last few shorts were less consistent in their quality, and he eventually lost his Oscar nomination for "Nelly's Folly." This video covers the history of Warner Bros. cartoons, from high-quality shorts like " marching through Georgia" to less-than-successful experimental shorts like "I was a Teenage Thumb."
• 00:30:00 This video discusses the decline and fall of Warner Bros. cartoons, focusing on the work of one of their main animators, Abe Levito. Levito helped give the characters more angular designs in order to have them animate better, and he began to get director's credit for solo efforts beginning with the Pepe le Pew shorts in 1956. He was known for his work on the television show and various commercial projects, and he left Warner Bros. in 1962 to work at another studio. Gay Paris, his first feature-length animated film, was released on December 17, 1962. It was a critical and financial success, and it established Levito as a major animator. However, Joe Jones was found out and fired from Warner Bros. for writing and directing Gay Paris, which violated his exclusivity contract. This ended his career at the studio.
• 00:35:00 In the mid-1960s, Warner Bros. Cartoons was in decline, with shorter and poorer-quality shorts being produced. In 1962, Bugs Bunny show ended its prime time run, and from then on aired in reruns every Saturday morning. Mel Blank (who replaced Milt Franklin in the music department) was not a good fit for Looney Tunes, and his scores sounded mechanical and dissonant compared to those of Stalling. Budget cuts, the dismantling of Stalling's full orchestra, and Mel Blank's injuries all contributed to the decline. The last Looney Tunes shorts were produced in 1964.
• 00:40:00 This video tells the story of how the Warner Bros. cartoons went from being popular to becoming less and less popular over the course of several years. It ends with the studio's closure in 1963, which marked the end of the Looney Tunes series.