Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies (late 1962-1964)

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Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies (late 1962-1964)

The swan song of the classic era of Looney Tunes winds up falling flat ever since William "Bill" Lava took over as composer after Milt Franklyn's death.
Genre: Comedy

Slapstick

Running Time: 5-8 Minutes
Country: United States
Release Date: September 22, 1962 – August 1, 1964
Distributed by: Warner Bros. Cartoons
Starring: Mel Blanc
June Foray
Stan Freberg
Julie Bennett
Nancy Wible
Ben Frommer
Leslie Barringer
Nancy Wible
Tom Holland
Ed Prentiss
Roger Green
Episodes: 31 Shorts
(16 Looney Tunes shorts)
(15 Merrie Melodies shorts)
Previous show: 1954-mid-1962 era
Next show: 1964-1969 era


"So, with the ever-shrinking budgets, the directors struggling for inspiration, the new soundtracks not gelling, and having their star voice actor in traction, It's no wonder that the quality of the "Looney Tunes" shorts were tumbling off a cliff."

— KaiserBeamz, The Merrie History of Looney Tunes episode "The Decline and Fall of Warner Bros. Cartoons"

Looney Tunes and (its spin-off Merrie Melodies) are a series of comedy cartoon shorts produced by Warner Bros. from 1930 to 1969. Originally made to cash in on the success of Disney's own cartoons and showcase music that Warner Bros. had owned at the time, the series would soon develop into it's own style around the late-1930s with the help of some new directors. While the original theatrical series is no longer in production, some new cartoons have been produced from the late-1970s to the mid-2010s.

While most of the Looney Tunes shorts from the classic era have been well received, the shorts of late 1962-1964, while not entirely horrible, received weaker reception compared to the earlier cartoons once William Lava took over as composer following Milt Franklyn's death in 1962, mainly due to weaker plots, lower quality animation, and William Lava's tired and stale music scores, brought in as the result of the budget-cutting problems at the time.

This article will be talking about the shorts from "The Jet Cage" up to "Señorella and the Glass Huarache", with the sole exception of "Mother Was a Rooster", which was produced prior to the release of "The Jet Cage".

Shorts

1962

  • "The Jet Cage" (Freleng; September 22; with Sylvester and Tweety; partially scored by Milt Franklyn; first Looney Tunes short in this era)
  • "Good Noose" (McKimson; November 10; with Daffy Duck; first short that was fully scored by William "Bill" Lava)
  • "Shishkabugs" (Freleng; December 8; with Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam)
  • "Martian Through Georgia" (Jones/Levitow/Noble; December 29; one-off; last short directed by Abe Levitow)

1963

  • "I Was a Teenage Thumb" (Jones/Noble; January 19; one-off; first Merrie Melodies short in this era)
  • "Devil's Feud Cake" (Freleng; February 9; with Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam; clip show short)
  • "Fast Buck Duck" (McKimson/Bonnicksen; March 9; with Daffy Duck and Hector the Bulldog)
  • "The Million Hare" (McKimson; April 6; with Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck)
  • "Mexican Cat Dance" (Freleng; April 20; with Speedy Gonzales and Sylvester)
  • "Now Hear This" (Jones/Noble; April 27; one-off; first short to use the "Abstract WB" intro as well as William "Bill" Lava's version of "Merry-Go-Round Broke Down")
  • "Woolen Under Where" (Monroe/Thompson; May 11; with Sam Sheepdog and Ralph Wolf; last appearances of Sam Sheepdog and Ralph Wolf in Golden Age of Animation)
  • "Hare-Breadth Hurry" (Jones/Noble; June 8; with Bugs Bunny and Wile E. Coyote, final pairing of the two)
  • "Banty Raids" (McKimson; June 29; with Foghorn Leghorn and Barnyard Dawg; last appearance of Barnyard Dawg in Golden Age of Animation)
  • "Chili Weather" (Freleng; August 17; with Speedy Gonzales and Sylvester)
  • "The Unmentionables" (Freleng; September 7; with Bugs Bunny and Rocky and Mugsy; last appearance of Rocky and Mugsy in Golden Age of Animation)
  • "Aqua Duck" (McKimson; September 28; with Daffy Duck)
  • "Mad as a Mars Hare" (Jones/Noble; October 19; with Bugs Bunny and Marvin the Martian; last appearance of Marvin the Martian in Golden Age of Animation)
  • "Claws in the Lease" (McKimson; November 9; with Sylvester and Sylvester Jr.; the final appearance of the two without Hippety Hopper)
  • "Transylvania 6-5000" (Jones/Noble; November 30; with Bugs Bunny and Agatha and Emily Vulture; also their first appearance)
  • "To Beep or Not to Beep" (Jones/Noble/Ray; December 28; with Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote; reuses footage from Adventures of the Roadrunner)

1964

  • "Dumb Patrol" (Chiniquy; January 18; with Bugs Bunny, Yosemite Sam, and Porky Pig; last appearance of Yosemite Sam in Golden Age of Animation, final pairing of Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam in the classic era)
  • "A Message to Gracias" (McKimson; February 8; with Speedy Gonzales and Sylvester)
  • "Bartholomew Versus the Wheel" (McKimson; February 29; one-off)
  • "Freudy Cat" (McKimson; March 14; with Hippety Hopper, Sylvester, and Sylvester Jr.; last appearances of Sylvester Jr. and Hippety Hopper in Golden Age of Animation; clip show short)
  • "Dr. Devil and Mr. Hare" (McKimson; March 28; with Bugs Bunny and Tasmanian Devil; last appearance of Tasmanian Devil in Golden Age of Animation)
  • "Nuts and Volts" (Freleng; April 25; with Speedy Gonzales and Sylvester)
  • "The Iceman Ducketh" (Monroe/Noble; May 16; with Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, final pairing of the two)
  • "War and Pieces" (Jones/Noble; June 6; with Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote; last short directed by Chuck Jones and Maurice Noble)
  • "Hawaiian Aye Aye" (Chiniquy; June 27; with Sylvester and Tweety; last appearance of Tweety in Golden Age of Animation, final pairing of Tweety and Sylvester in the classic era; final Merrie Melodies short in this era)
  • "False Hare" (McKimson; July 18; with Bugs Bunny; last appearances of Bugs Bunny, Foghorn Leghorn, and The Bad Big Wolf in Golden Age of Animation; last production completed by the original Warner Bros. Cartoons studio as well as the final short that used "bullseye" rings intro)
  • "Señorella and the Glass Huarache" (Pratt; August 1; one-off; last Looney Tunes short in this era and the Warner Bros. Cartoons era as well as the last cartoon to be made by the original Warner Bros. Cartoons studio.)

UnLooney Qualities

  1. Just to get Bugs Bunny out of his rabbit hole, budget problems started affecting the cartoons beginning from this era due to the rise of television, similar to the CinemaScope era of Tom and Jerry. This resulted in the Looney Tunes series to go downhill for the third time since the 1939-mid 1940 era because of the various problems as listed below.
    • The writing in this era (especially those of Friz Freleng and Robert McKimson's cartoons) went from being witty and clever into being stale, repetitive, and predictable. Former Disney storymen John W. Dunn and David Detiege became the story writers for all three units.
      • To make matters worse, by that time all of the best Looney Tunes screenwriters of the classic era like Michael Maltese and Warren Foster (and to some extent, even Tedd Pierce and Sid Marcus) all already left the Warner Bros. Cartoons studio for television animation studios such as Hanna-Barbera for better job opportunities in television, hence forcing the studio to bring in John W. Dunn and David Detiege to replace these absent screenwriters. While both John W. Dunn and David Detiege tried their best at writing cartoons for all three units, their writing is however nowhere near as great. It doesn’t help that the budget cuts during this time often causing story developments of these cartoons to be rushed.
        • On that topic, there are also several occasions as well where directors Chuck Jones and Friz Freleng even wrote their own stories for their respective units like in the cartoons "The Jet Cage" (which was written and directed by Friz Freleng) and "I Was a Teenage Thumb" (which Chuck Jones wrote the story alongside John W. Dunn for the Chuck Jones unit), though despite how Jones and Freleng tried their best their story-writing efforts are often isn't as good as having Michael Maltese, Tedd Pierce and/or Warren Foster write stories for them in their respective units. Robert McKimson on the other hand who wrote his own story of "Banty Raids", did pretty well unlike Freleng.
          • Though writers like John W. Dunn, David Detiege, Chuck Jones and Friz Freleng did produce decent efforts with the writing in the earlier 1960s cartoons after the departures of Michael Maltese and Warren Foster, by this time due to budget cuts (as mentioned before) the writing started taking a nosedive in quality humorwise.
    • While the animation has decent effort, it’s a noticeable downgrade from that of the earlier cartoons. Due to the rise of television there was little demand for theatrical animation. That resulted in Warner Bros. tightening the budgets for the cartoons. This is especially noticeable in the cartoons directed by Freleng since they constantly recycled animation from previous cartoons (with "Devil's Feud Cake" and "Mexican Cat Dance" being the worst out of them). This results in a mish-mash of older and fresh animation to more linear and newer animation.
    • Milt Franklyn tragically died of a heart attack while producing the music for "The Jet Cage". William Lava, whom is best known for his atonal music scores on various television shows in the 1950s like Cheyenne, Gunsmoke, Zorro and the Spin and Marty and Hardy Boys segments of The Mickey Mouse Club, served as his replacement for the later cartoons at this point (note that halfway during "The Jet Cage" there's an obvious change in the music score from Milt Franklyn to William "Bill" Lava in a fade-out between two scenes of the cartoon). While he tries his best (no disrespect to the deceased, however) most of the music he composed is too atonal, intense, scary, bombastic, or even suspenseful. This doesn’t capture the feel of the cartoons that Carl Stalling or Franklyn were able to capture. It gets worse over the fact that Warner Bros. Cartoons started downsizing its studio orchestra following Milt Franklyn's death, leaving William "Bill" Lava in an unfair situation.
      • William Lava's version of "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down" sounds a lot stranger than it’s more earlier, cheerful incarnation. This didn't capture the feel of Milt Franklyn's The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down though it was more well-suited for the infamous "Abstract WB" intro from "Now Hear This" unlike other next 2 one-offs.
        • Speaking of "Now Hear This", this cartoon (along with "Martian Through Georgia") probably has the most alarming score that he made.
      • The "Abstract WB" intro didn't capture the feel and charm of the "bullseye" rings either.
  2. Numerous bad cartoons were scattered throughout this era. "Good Noose", "I Was a Teenage Thumb", "Devil's Feud Cake" (the worst this era has to offer), "Mexican Cat Dance", "Freudy Cat" and "The Iceman Ducketh" are examples of this. Most others range from mediocre to forgettable at best as well. Formerly, there were too many of the bad cartoons that were pages on this wiki. They were permanently deleted later on due to cluttering the wiki and have been relocated to the Horrible TV Show Episodes Wiki before it was merged into this one (It was beforehand called Terrible TV Shows Wiki).
    • While most of the one-shot cartoons (cartoons not focusing on any pre-established characters but on rather one-off characters which are never seen or heard again) of this era are nowhere near as bad as in the Seven-Arts era, they’re noticeably far less funny, interesting, memorable and entertaining than the previous one-shot cartoons produced by the studio. Many of these one-shots often feel less like Looney Tunes cartoons and instead try too hard to appeal to an older adult demographic with mature and "sophisticated" themes as a desperate attempt to lure moviegoing audiences back to watching theatrical cartoons in order to compete against television cartoons of the the time, such cartoons were often more child-oriented than theatrical cartoons. The one-shot cartoons had mixed-to-poor results with "Martian Through Georgia" and "I Was a Teenage Thumb" being the worst out of them. The only one-off shorts that are funny, interesting, memorable and entertaining is "Now Hear This", "Bartholomew Versus the Wheel" and "Señorella and the Glass Huarache".
    • While they’re not as bad as the following era, some cartoons of this era tend to overuse way too much dialogue-based humor that often come off as dry, unfunny, talky and dreary as opposed to relying a lot on physical humor which the series is best known for. This is mainly due to budget cuts in the animation forcing the directors to rely more on dialogue as opposed to full animation, most notably in cartoons such as "Mad as a Mars Hare". The only exceptions of cartoons which still rely on full animation for the sake of physical humor during this era are the Road Runner cartoons, the Ralph Wolf/Sam Sheepdog cartoon "Woolen Under Where" and "Now Hear This", all of which are completely nonverbal.
  3. Unlike the previous cartoons, there are lots of mean-spirited moments on characters that often don't deserve it or does nothing wrong even more so than the 1939-mid 1940 era. Examples include:
    • Daffy Duck being sentenced to hang by a mentally sick captain and his equally sick pet bird called Mr. Tristan in "Good Noose".
    • Yosemite Sam getting executed at the end of "Shishkabugs".
    • Sylvester constantly getting tortured by Speedy Gonzales in a bullfight arena for no reason whatsoever and ending up burrowed to the ground into an unknown fate in "Mexican Cat Dance".
    • Wile E. Coyote constantly getting tortured by Bugs Bunny who stands in for the Road Runner in "Hare Breadth-Hurry" non-stop due to the latter constantly violating Chuck Jones' Road Runner rules (most notably the #1 rule stating that "The Road Runner cannot harm the Coyote except by beeping").
    • The very infamous scene where Martian runs through an abstract hell of people yelling and screaming, holds his ears to block out the noise, and tearfully putting his space gun to his head with the narrator encouraging him to commit suicide if he truly feels that no one loves him with the infamous line ""If you're a monster, what are you going to do? Commit suicide? Why not? If nobody loves you...". This was shown in "Martian Through Georgia".
    • Daffy Duck pulling out a gun on a pack rat when it takes his gold nugget in "Aqua Duck".
    • An apparently-deceased Yosemite Sam being tasked to bring Bugs Bunny to Hell in "Devil's Feud Cake" especially when Bugs did nothing to deserve it.
  4. Many of the final Bugs Bunny or Daffy Duck cartoons, while most of them aren't outright bad, became a bit more one-sided and predictable by having Bugs defeat his foes more easily due to him becoming more aware of their presence unlike in the earlier cartoons.
    • Daffy Duck, on the other hand? That's was another story, as he became more angrier and short-tempered than in previous cartoons as the series progresses throughout this era, as notable in his solo cartoons such as "Good Noose" and "Aqua Duck", to the point that by the time of his final appearance in this era "The Iceman Ducketh" he is badly-flanderized into a mean-spirited sadist similar to his characterization in the DePatie-Freleng and Seven Arts eras.
    • Even Speedy Gonzales isn't safe from flanderization as well, as in only one of his cartoons "Mexican Cat Dance" he has been heavily flanderized from a troublesome but innocent and heroic "Fastest Mouse in All of Mexico" into a sadistic jerk who inflicts pain on Sylvester throughout the short without any comedic moments. Fortunately, this flanderization was immediately undone starting from "Chili Weather" and mostly onwards, where Speedy Gonzales was reverted back to the likable "Fastest Mouse in All of Mexico" he was.
  5. Noticeably staler background and character designs than before, making the cartoons feel something out of a Pink Panther or UPA cartoon than a Looney Tunes cartoon (with "Señorella and the Glass Huarache" (and to a lesser extent, "Bartholomew Versus the Wheel" and "Now Hear This") being the biggest out of them)
  6. Most of the time, there’s a notable change in pace whereas it’s a lot more slower than before. This caused most of the jokes in these cartoons to fall flat.
  7. While it doesn’t happen as much as in the DePatie-Freleng era, some of the cartoons' plots are mostly rehashes or watered-down copies of previous cartoons:
    • "Shishkabugs" is a rehash of the 1947 Bugs Bunny cartoon "Slick Hare".
    • "Fast Buck Duck" is a rehash of the 1948 Daffy Duck cartoon "Daffy Dilly".
    • "I Was a Teenage Thumb" is a British style rehash of the 1940 cartoon "Tom Thumb in Trouble".
    • "Chili Weather" is a rehash of the 1954 Goofy Gophers cartoon "I Gopher You".
    • "The Million Hare" is a rehash of the 1959 Bugs Bunny/Daffy Duck cartoon "People Are Bunny" as well as all the Bugs Bunny vs Cecil Turtle cartoons of the 1940s.
    • "Mexican Cat Dance" is a rehash of the 1953 Bugs Bunny short "Bully for Bugs", so much so that it recycles the opening scene from a said cartoon.
    • "Nuts and Volts" is a rehash of the 1953 Bugs Bunny short "Robot Rabbit".
    • "Devil's Feud Cake" is a clip show rehash of the 1954 Sylvester/Tweety short "Satan's Waitin'".
    • "A Message to Gracias" is a rehash of the 1961 Sylvester/Tweety short "The Rebel Without Claws".
    • "Freudy Cat" is a rehash of the 1959 Sylvester/Tweety short "Tweet Dreams".
    • "Hawaiian Aye Aye" is a rehash of the 1955 and 1956 Sylvester/Tweety shorts "Sandy Claws" and "Tugboat Granny".
  8. Some cartoons (especially Friz Freleng's shorts) have their plots being entirely mish-mashes of animation and gags from older, better cartoons from the classic era:
    • "The Jet Cage" re-uses the rod scene from "A Bird in a Bonnet".
    • "Devil's Feud Cake" is made up entirely from re-used and redubbed footage of "Hare Lift", "Roman Legion-Hare", "Sahara Hare" and even wrap-around segments from the Bugs Bunny TV show episode "Satan's Waitin'".
    • As stated above, "Mexican Cat Dance" re-uses the beginning scene from "Bully for Bugs". Even the jet skates gag from "Beep, Beep" is included here as well.
    • "Chili Weather" and "The Unmentionables" re-use the factory scenes from "I Gopher You" with the former also reusing animation from "Speedy Gonzales".
    • "Freudy Cat" re-uses scenes from the Sylvester, Sylvester Jr, and Hippety Hopper cartoons "Who's Kitten Who?", "Cats A-weigh!" and "The Slap-Hoppy Mouse".
    • "To Beep or Not to Beep" is made up entirely from re-used and re-dubbed footage of the unshown Adventures of the Road-Runner pilot.
    • "Dr. Devil and Mr. Hare" re-uses the painting tongue gag from the Foghorn Leghorn cartoons called "Henhouse Henery" and "Feather Bluster".
    • "Nuts and Volts" re-uses animations and gags from "Robot Rabbit" especially the robot explosion scene but with Sylvester's head.
  9. Chuck Jones was fired during 1962 for moonlighting on UPA's Gay Purr-ee, violating his exclusive contract with Warner Bros. Directional duties of his two final works ("Woolen Under Where" and "The Iceman Ducketh") were handed over to his fellow animator Phil Monroe. This however, resulted in the writing for the two shorts to not have as much charm as Chuck Jones. This is most notorious with "The Iceman Ducketh" which flanderizes Daffy Duck into a mean-spirited sadist similar to his characterization in the DePatie-Freleng and Seven Arts eras.
    • Before his firing in 1962, Chuck Jones at least managed to contribute as a screenwriter and received onscreen credit as such for "Woolen Under Where" even though this was not the case for "The Iceman Ducketh" which in contrast had no involvement at all from Chuck Jones himself. His final few cartoons were also released in this era, something better than what happened despite the budget cuts in animation.
    • On a side note while Friz Freleng left for Hanna-Barbera in late-1962 and later was setting up for DePatie-Freleng Enterprises in 1963, directorial duties of two shorts produced by his team ("Dumb Patrol" and "Hawaiian Aye-Aye") were handed over to one of Friz Freleng's animators named Gerry Chiniquy. Chiniquy's works on the shorts are rather weak compared to those of Freleng's and both ended the careers of Yosemite Sam and Tweety (as well as the Merrie Melodies series in this era for the latter) on a mediocre note.
  10. Many classic Looney Tunes characters (most notably Sylvester Jr. and Hippety Hopper, Yosemite Sam and Tweety) who were retired from the Golden Age of Animation ended their Golden Age era cartoon careers either sourly or mediocrely.
  11. In a few cartoons produced during the late-1962 and early-1963 period like "The Jet Cage", "Shishkabugs", "Devil's Feud Cake" and "Chili Weather", Mel Blanc gave an uncharacteristically flat and tired delivery in the voice-acting. This is most noticeable with Yosemite Sam who hardly ever raises his voice in both "Shishkabugs" and "Devil's Feud Cake". This could probably be because at the time these cartoons were produced Mel Blanc recorded the voices while he was still recovering from the car accident he had on January 24, 1961. Despite the rather flat and tired delivery in the voice-acting in those affected cartoons Mel Blanc's voice-acting was passable at best.
  12. The gags in these shorts may be offensive to some viewers. The recycled scene of Yosemite Sam being an Arab Riff Raff from "Sahara Hare" in "Devil's Feud Cake", a brief "blink-and-one-will-miss-it" Native American scene in "The Iceman Ducketh" and the very infamous Chinese Road Runner gag in "War and Pieces" are examples of this. All of these were restored with the former two for HBO Max despite the scenes while the latter was prevented from HBO Max for milder gags. "War and Pieces" got restored on MeTV as of March 2021, uncut and uncensored.
    • On another side note, some cartoons in this era also contain mild profanity despite the Hays Code censorship rules of the time not allowing the use of such bad language from all theatrical productions of the time from 1934-1969. This is noticeable in "I Was a Teenage Thumb" where it had an infamous, yet laughable line: "Morty! You ASS!". There’s another one with "Dumb Patrol" with Bugs Bunny's "I've heard of Hell's angels, but I never thought I'd see one." line. Both shorts were restored for MeTV and/or WarnerMedia RIDE respectively and are available for viewing as of today.

Looney Qualities

  1. There are still plenty of great, decent, or passable shorts from this period (especially from Chuck Jones and to a lesser extent, Robert McKimson), plus several characters managed to end their careers in the series better than those that would continue into the later eras. Such cartoons (also a few aforementioned) include:
    • "The Million Hare"
    • "Now Hear This"
    • "Woolen Under Where" (which ended Ralph Wolf and Sam Sheepdog's careers on a high note)
    • "Banty Raids" (which ended Barnyard Dawg's career on a high note)
    • "The Unmentionables" (which gave Rocky and Mugsy a fitting comeuppance in their final appearance (along with Bugs Bunny, unfortunately.))
    • "Aqua Duck"
    • "Transylvania 6-5000" (the best this era has to offer, mainly due to it being the era's most popular short)
    • "To Beep or Not to Beep" (despite using reused footage from Adventures of the Road-Runner)
    • "Bartholomew Versus the Wheel"
    • "Fast Buck Duck"
    • "Claws in the Lease"
    • "Mad as a Mars Hare" (despite relying too much on hit-or-miss dialogue-based humor, which ended Marvin the Martian's career on a good note)
    • "Dr. Devil and Mr. Hare" (which ended Tasmanian Devil's career on a high note; the best Robert McKimson short in this era)
    • "War and Pieces" (which ended Chuck Jones' career on the series on a high note)
    • "False Hare" (which ended Bugs Bunny's and Foghorn Leghorn's careers on a high note)
    • "Señorella and the Glass Huarache" (which ended both Looney Tunes label and this era on a high note unlike that of Merrie Melodies)
      • Likewise while they are not the best shorts, "Martian Through Georgia", "Claws in the Lease", "Chili Weather", "Dumb Patrol", "A Message to Gracias", "Nuts and Volts" and "Hawaiian Aye Aye" are still passable at best even if they are forgettable shorts or are rehashes of old or early works.
  2. Despite the drop in quality, this era is still far superior to the following 1964-69 era, which also got a surprisingly good start.
  3. The voice acting from Mel Blanc and the other voice actors are excellent for the most part.
  4. Some of William Lava's music fits certain scenes most notably in the one-shot cartoons such as "Señorella and the Glass Huarache", "Now Hear This" and "Bartholomew Versus the Wheel".
  5. Milt Franklyn's 1955 compositions of the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies opening and closing theme music are still used in the openings and closings.
    • However, it wasn't going to be the same for William "Bill" Lava's version.
  6. To be fair, none of this was the directors' fault. Warner Bros. themselves had to cut budgets because of television but they're not to blame either.

Shorts with Their Pages

Reception

Most audiences and fans alike as well as notable cartoon critic Trevor Thompson (a.k.a. Ferris Wheelhouse) deemed this era as the start of the downfall of the Looney Tunes series instead of the 1964-1969 era, declaring that these cartoons were when the writing started to show little care, the animation quality notably becoming cheaper and less theatrical quality-like and more television quality-like, the firing of Chuck Jones, and the minor flanderization of Daffy Duck (and to some extent, even Bugs Bunny and Speedy Gonzales are not safe from this) and criticized the William "Bill" Lava music in the era, despite also having a warm reception with a few cartoons in this era such as "Señorella and the Glass Huarache", "False Hare" and "Aqua Duck".

Despite the mixed-to-negative reception of the cartoons of this era, these cartoons however were much more well-received than those of the later 1964-1969 era and the much earlier Buddy era where most of the cartoons of those eras were universally panned by both critics and audiences alike.

Trivia

  • The much-maligned and infamous "Abstract WB" intro commonly associated with the cartoons from the mid-to-late 60s saw its first use in this era; the intro was used for the shorts "Now Hear This", "Bartholomew Versus the Wheel", and "Señorella and the Glass Huarache". Ironically, all three of these cartoons are well-received, with "Now Hear This" being the last Looney Tunes short to be nominated for the Academy Awards (but not the last theatrical short overall).
    • At the close of "Now Hear This", when the "modern" close is in progress, they have the first four notes of the Westminster Quarters play to bring on the four elements of the "WB" lettering, then as the words "A Warner Bros. CartOOn" scroll appear, Big Ben chimes, and then as the OO's in Cartoon separate from the words, a bicycle horn is heard squeaking three times. Big Ben gives one more chime as the words finish appearing on the screen before the fadeout.
      • All further cartoons retain the opening and closing sequence starting with "Señorella and the Glass Huarache" and "Pancho's Hideaway", through the closing titles swap out the sounds of Big Ben and the bicycle horn to a shortened version of the opening theme with the background being changed from white to black starting with "Road to Andalay".
  • As of 2021, all shorts in this era have been restored and are the only era that is fully restored in its entirety.
  • The short "Dumb Patrol" shares its name with a 1931 Bosko cartoon, both of which have been restored for MeTV and/or WarnerMedia RIDE.

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