I'm a dyed-in-wool Looney Tunes man. Favorite titles: "Porky in Wackyland", "What's Opera, Doc?", "The Dover Boys". My earliest memory is sitting in front of the big, black and white console TV set in the corner of the living room with my dad, watching Looney Tunes on his lap, after waiting for him to come home from work. I can find a lot to like about post-Warners Tex Avery, and I love a lot of Fleischer and Ub Iwerks stuff, and there's no denying the artistry of Disney, but it will always be Looney Tunes in my world.                   

                     I was always a fan of the Warner Brothers stuff for as long as I can remember. Didn't like Tom and Jerry and the MGM crowd that much and my Mom tried in vain to get me to watch Mickey Mouse on Wonderful World of Disney on Sunday nights in the 70s to no avail.

In college I tuned in on the Fleischer studios stuff, most noteably their Superman cartoons. Great stuff! Even though I'm not a Popeye fan, I still have a disc of the Fleischer studio cartoons just because the craftsmanship is outstanding on them. I just wish someone would put out the couple of Betty Boops with Cab Calloway!

I've just recently became more interested in the early days of animation, especiall after attending a lecture by Ub Iwerks granddaughter in Philadelphia.                   

                     I don't know that I'll "reign supreme", but I am definitely something of an expert on classic animation, having studied nearly everything written about it, spent endless hours in revival theaters and film collectors' living rooms (starting long before cable TV, much less Cartoon Network), and I've personally collected cartoons (on film, long before VHS and Laser, much less DVD) for over thirty years.

I was lucky enough to attend Leonard Maltin's legendary New School course on cartoons the last time that he gave it (in 1982, just before he began his Entertainment Tonight gig), and I myself taught a cartoon appreciation course for the Learning Annex, and have done many little presentations (some paid, but most just in friends' living rooms) over the years...

I was in that pioneering group of early and middle baby boomers who were the first people who could really appreciate the quality of cartoons after watching them endlessly on TV - my parents' generation saw them *once* in theaters, enjoyed them, then forgot them, so short cartoons just weren't take seriously. Before others in this group (Leonard Maltin, Mike Barrier, John Canemaker, Bob Solomon, Danny Peary, Leslie Carbarga, Joe Adamson, etc.) actually published articles and books on this subject (most significantly with Maltin's *indispensible* "Of Mice and Magic" in 1980), it was a very small subculture. Getting to see stuff, and researching the people who made the cartoons, was very difficult. It took me *years* to become well versed, and I spent an awful lot of time explaining to people why cartoons should be taken seriously by adults. They were generally considered "kid stuff", and even the film critic and film scholar communities just didn't care...

(Now that everybody has a shelf full of VHS tapes and/or DVDs, it's hard to believe that, before the mid-80s, being a "film collector" was the absolute height of "weird" nerd activities - and this at a time when nerds got *no* respect, not recognition that they were on their way to making big bucks in the computer field!)

Compiling a list of my favorites would be difficult, if not impossible. Suffice it to say that I love: prewar Disney, particularly the amazing Silly Symphony one-shot shorts; virtually everything the Fleischer brothers did, especially the Betty Boops and Supermans; nearly everything that came out of M-G-M, from Harmon-Ising through Hanna and Barbera - but especially Tex Avery's 40s masterpieces; Warner Bros. (of course!), especially the 30s/40s/50s work of the greatest directors (Avery, Freleng, Tashlin, Clampett, and Jones); there also some great toons from the lesser studios - Terrytoons, Walter Lantz, Iwerks, Van Beuren, Columbia - but they tend to be the exceptions, rather than the rule...

Anyway, I'm thrilled to discuss this stuff!

PS - Shutterbug, I have 16mm prints of all three of the Warner Bros. masterpieces you mentioned!                   

                     After a quick search and a review of the plot summery I believe you are correct sir!  I have told folks about that cartoon for years without anyone remembering it.  Now I've just got to locate a copy, and keep it with me always so I can produce it to all those naysayers.  Thank You                   

                     Only Avery could get away with something this shocking. . . .



Don't blame me if this image fouls up a few dreams, fellas!                   

I'm not sure who the mastermind behind the 40's and 50's 'concept' cartoons was but those were my favorite cartoons. I loved the 50's concept cars and the televisions that folded down to reveal the legs of a model. I also like Tex Avery cartoons and Disney.

Only Avery could get away with something this shocking. . . .



Don't blame me if this image fouls up a few dreams, fellas!

                     Bob Clampett cartoons are also superb (I mean, when Avery left WB, Clampett inherited his unit), I especially like The Big Snooze and Russian Rhapsody.                   

                     Comparing Jones & Clampett is like comparing apples and oranges.  They're both amazing for different reasons. 

I always liked Clampett's bizarre dream sequences.  For lack of a better term, his work was much more trippy.  I love the cartoon where Elmer falls asleep and Bugs goes into his dream and a manic dream sequence ensues.  Who doesn't love Elmer in drag? 

I'm not as well-versed as all of you are, but didn't Clampett do Duck Tracey as well?  That is one of my favorite cartoons of all time.  I love crazy, early Daffy Duck before he got bitter and jealous of Bugs.  Yes, I admit it... I'm a Daffy lover.

Did anyone see the American Masters program that PBS aired about Chuck Jones?  It was a really good program.  It really made me realize how groundbreaking Jones' work was.  It really made the watcher appreciate his cartoons as pieces of art. 

Jones was a master with music.  I think the Rabbit of Seville and What's Opera Doc? are his masterpieces.  I hope I'm not the person who sings along with those cartoons in the solitude of my own house. 

Here's a question...  Why don't they ever play the Bugs Bunny cartoon where he's in an abandoned house and the Edward G. Robinson and Peter Lorre gangster characters hole up in the house with Bugs?  That's another favorite of mine and I think they've stopped playing it because I haven't seen it in years.                   

Marlowe wrote:

As a Jazz buff, I have to include Three Little Bops (1957) as an all-time favorite.  Directed by Friz Freleng.


Marlowe

"You gotta get real hot, to play real cool!"

Yes!  I agree wholeheartedly.  And if anyone can get me a good recording of that song, I'll pay handsomely.                   

<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Charlie H - Yes, I actually have a print of one of those (late 60s/early 70s)
Alas, the best of them ("Tin Pan Alley Cats" and "Coal Black") are now on the "banned" list due to wrongthinking PC nonsense... And Clampett&#39;s use of dream sequences and fugue states for his wildest stuff, with psychedelia rivaling the Fleischers, is an utter delight. And yes, Clampett did "The Great Piggy Bank Robbery" with Duck Twacy...

Great stuff, folks - keep it coming&#33;

                     Not only do I get the jokes, I often have to explain them!!