The Merrie Melodies Show

The Merrie Melodies Show
It's Merrie Melodies time to change the channel!
Genre: Animated-Anthology Running Time: 23 Minutes Country: United States Release Date: 1972 Distributed by: Warner Bros. Television Starring: Mel Blanc Larry Storch Episodes: 24 Episodes

The Merrie Melodies Show (not to be confused with the Merrie Melodies shorts, nor Merrie Melodies Starring Bugs Bunny & Friends, another anothology series from the 1990s) is an animated television anthology series hosted by Speedy Gonzales, Daffy Duck, and Sylvester, composed of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons released by Warner Bros. from 1951 to 1969.

This show aired with its "sister" show, The Bugs Bunny Show. Due to its focus on the later cartoons of Looney Tunes which generally had much weaker reception than the cartoons produced during the studio's heyday in the 1940s and 1950s, this show is the most obscure of the "sister" shows of The Bugs Bunny Show.

Why It's No Merrie

NOTE: Most of these pointers mainly apply due to the lackluster cartoon selection and the way the cartoons are presented, specifically in the bridging segments before, between and after this cartoon.

1. The main problem with this show's package is that it is primarily focused on the 1959-1964 red ring cartoons and the DePatie-Freleng and Seven Arts cartoons. This is primarily due to the main theme of this show being the Speedy Gonzales cartoons, which can't be described well when looking at the Daffy/Speedy cartoons. No words are needed to describe the DePatie-Freleng and Seven Arts cartoons. The 1959-1964 red ring cartoons, while still good for the most part, are considered the weakest cartoons of the post-1948 classic era (the show could use any cartoon from You Were Never Duckier up to Injun Trouble) and often have their fair share of problems with the later cartoons, especially with a few notorious cartoons from the late 1962-1964 era such as Mexican Cat Dance and Good Noose.
   • Out of all of the 72 shorts shown, only two of them comes from outside the 1959-1964 red ring cartoons or the DePatie-Freleng and Seven Arts-era (being Corn Plastered from 1951 and Birds Anonymous from 1957). Out of the remaining 70 shorts, 22 of them comes from the 1959-1964 classic era. This leaves the remaining 48 shorts (2/3 of the entire show) being DePatie-Freleng and Seven Arts cartoons.
     • All of the DePatie-Freleng and Seven Arts cartoons aired on this show except for sixteen Road Runner cartoons in the DePatie-Freleng era, Norman Normal, and The Door. And yes, this includes the infamous See Ya Later Gladiator.
     • Misleading title card: The title card (pictured on the page) uses the 1957-1958 blue rings, but yet, none of the 1957-1958 blue ring cartoons are even shown in the program at all. In addition, the 1957-1958 blue rings in the title card appears to be cheaply drawn, even by 1972 television standards.
2. Forgettable theme song, as, outside of Casey Kasem's narration, it is just Bill Lava's unused take on Merrily We Roll Along that appeared in the Seven Arts MPAA screen of the theatrical cartoons, which remains dissonant (although more jolly than his take on The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down). The only other additional music is the segments of the music in Fiesta Fiasco.
3. Lazy bumpers, being just cuts of various past cartoons.
4. Unlike the other sister shows of The Bugs Bunny Show, famous animators such as Chuck Jones, Friz Freleng, and Robert McKimson had no involvement with the creation of additional animation of the show.
5. Speaking of which, there is no additional animation in this show, making this way more of a clip show than its sister shows.
6. As with the other sister shows, there is censorship for some of the more violent moments in the cartoons. However, it still managed to air some racially controversial shorts with no censorship, such as Hocus Pocus Powwow and Injun Trouble.
7. Cartoons with Bugs Bunny, Road Runner, Wile E. Coyote, Marvin, and the Tasmanian Devil are nowhere to be seen.

The Only Redeeming Quality

1. There's some good shorts here or there.

Trivia

• As said above, the beginning of the intro was the MPAA "Rated G" Screen score accompanied by Bill Lava's composition of Merrily We Roll Along before the the Seven Arts cartoons that were shown in the theaters.
• This show was the only airing of the 1969 short Injun Trouble on United States networks, as it was quickly banned due to the Native American stereotypes. It is also one of the very few airings of Hocus Pocus Powwow, which was also quickly banned and last aired in the early 2000s.

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