it is sad that Looney Tunes aren't on TV as much as it used to be, it was one of those near-universal things you could enjoy across generations because practically everyone watched it as kids, not unlike Mickey Mouse cartoons.

Keep in mind that "Saturday morning cartoons" is no longer a thing, which is where many of us were exposed to a lot of the Warner Brothers and Hanna-Barbera cartoons, so the kids today don't have that "weekend tradition" anymore. Those cartoons were the mainstay of animated broadcast TV because they were the majority of American non-feature color animation up to that point.

They've been superseded by a vast number of newer cartoons, with more modern production values and themes, which are what the kids of today are watching.

Even Mickey Mouse isn't all that universal at this point; aside from being the mascot for Disney, when was the last time Disney did a Mickey Mouse cartoon (aside from the CG for-toddlers show I've glimpsed a couple times channel-surfing)? Ask a kid today about a Disney character and I guarantee you're far more likely to hear Minions, or Elsa, or Judy Hopps than Mickey, Donald or Goofy.

No, it's not just that, I remember in the 90's seeing Looney Tunes on a fairly regular basis on Cartoon Network, usually among the filler they had in lieu of original programming when the TV station was new (before the days of Dexter's Lab, Powerpuff Girls, etc).

The classic Looney Tunes shorts eventually moved to Boomerang among other old shows they no longer wanted to take up room in their lineup and I hear even now they've been shoved aside on Boomerang itself.

Keep in mind the classic Looney Toons were made in the 40-50s for ADULTS initally shown in theaters at a time TVS didn't exist. Its hard to find the original Tom and Jerry and pretty forget about any of those unedited. Back in the late 80s early 90s Turner removed all scenes of Tom smoking probably drinking too.. Know almost anything that comes from Japan is edited this even includes something as innocent as the last Sonic the Hedgehog cartoon


Sometime between 1955 and 1970 cartoons became for kids

oh I know, I remember seeing earlier versions of some shorts and then in later reruns being edited... most involving Hitler, WW2, blackface, jokes of suicide and such... though some smoking and drinking stayed intact as I guess those were more comparably tame.

though if you mean Sonic X with your example, 4kids was notorious of frivolously editing a ton of anime they had the rights to, arguably a lot of it was unnecessary and dumb

I do indeed mean SonicX Well only the first 52 episodes which comprised the original Japanese run. I have a copy of that. In the first episode Sonic shouts "SHIT" in plain English. That happens severall other times during the series.

I've seen various clips of the Japanese version, despite my personal negative feelings on the show itself, again, I'm not remotely surprised with the edits since it was 4kids who had the rights to it at the time, they were particularly notorious for the edits in One Piece when they had it.

Its just different times.

-.-

We need to show them otherwise they will never think to watch them.
I know I'll be raising my kids, when I have some, on a good helping of classic cartoons that are uncut and just as good as I remember them from when I was a kid.

Twitter > Tweety Bird. According to our new hip young generation ._.

There isn't the money in it like there was back in the 80s and 90s

Almost every cartoon at the times had toys. There became concern there was no educational value to the cartoons and worse yet they were nothing more a thirty minute commercials.

Remember that the various "classic cartoon" blocks when Saturday morning cartoons were a thing were there because they were _cheap_. This was especially a concern in the early years of the (near-)pure cartoon schedule as the library of shows was being built up, when I was 'that age', almost every station had at least 2 hours of old cartoon shorts every Saturday[1].

The amount of it being used started dropping when two things happened: First, someone realized that grabbing an anime and doing a quick rewrite dub was just as cheap and you could get some of it back licensing it to independent stations[2]. Second, The Smurfs revealed a loophole in the law regarding cartoons based on toys. It might not have been legal to make a cartoon based on the GI Joe _toys_, but if there was a comic the show could officially be based on _that_ and if there also happened to be toys....

There's no money for the classic cartoons now for a couple of reasons:

- The old Loony Tunes are not the dirt-cheap filler they used to be.
- The Saturday morning cartoon blocks are gone, partly due to cartoon channels and partly due to the closure of loopholes[3].
- There is much more in the way of supply, even a 24hr cartoon channel can fill its schedule with stuff that is no more than five or so years old.

[1] Not just Loony Tunes and Tom & Jerry, they were using everything they could get their hands on.

[2] Plus, what you got was better, and certainly more popular, than a lot of the garbage they had dug up. For some reason, more kids want to watch a show about interplanetary heroes in their spacefighters than a giant duckling in a diaper.

[3] The reason for those moral play bits at the end of so many shows was to allow them to count for the educational/informational content requirement. Every few years the FCC would tighten the rules to try and force stations to air programming that had real E/I value, by the mid-90s the rules were tight enough that it was easier to just do nature programs and be done with it.

+1 Informative

welp time to force all my nieces and nephews to watch looney toons

Please don't. -_- All forcing does is give kids reason to hate it. Instead watch them while they'e around. If they're into it, great just don't push it on them.

Tell that to my parents.

Tell that to my parents.

you take things very seriously and at face value huh...

we're talking about cartoons... and small children, forcing in this instance meens I put it on and actualy sit down in the room with them.

what? you think I"m strapping children into a dentist chair laughing in a menacing manner their eyes taped open as I play reel after reel of old cartoons?

Yeah I do tend to take people at their word. Silly me.

Forbid them to ever watch the 'toons (they're so violent, after all), and keep the disks some place they could never access them, such as on the coffee table or in the player. Within a week they'll be quoting the dialog and mastering the timing.

I'm kinda sad they didn't ask who Foghorn Leghorn was, or Elmer Fudd. Or Marvin the Martian xD

A lot of the old toons are politically incorrect or offensive by todays generation. Its a pity. And there's something about the art style and characters acting of the new generation that just doesn't appeal to me.

"I've heard of Twitter, but not Tweety." Ouch...
In another 15 to 20 years kids might have all together never seen or heard of those classics.
That's kinda scary. It should be our duty to show kids these days and the next gen of kids (just to be sure) these classics.
Well it's a good thing I have my Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator just in case things don't work out just quite right.

Modern pop culture references?

You mean like the ones Looney Tunes were _filled_ with?

Oy. Well, at least they don't seem openly HOSTILE, I suppose...

Honestly I feel less bad about this since I basically WAS one of those kids in my child hood. Sure I knew who the Looney Tunes were, but most of the humor went over my head. Never realised Bugs Bunny's famous catchphrase was done as an inversion to the typical 'hunter vs. cute animal' set up that Disney had used so often, nor that his carrot chomping was a reference to Clark Gable and his cigar.

Then of course there were the jokes about shadows of people getting up like they were in a movie theater, and the hairs that were flickering across the screen. Only now that I've studied how those old cartoons were originally shown does it make sense. XD

I never got Scooby Doo. Still can't really get into it-and I'm of the age I should be part of its main demographic (I'm 42). I'm sure whatever these kids are into they'll be fine. Most of what they watch was influenced by Loony Tunes anyways.

I grew up with the classics like the Looney Tunes but I can remember by my 20's I was so tired of them being in syndication and always on TV. Kids of today have way more choice then I did back in the 70's and 80's.

It's a shame, because sometimes a kid (even a young one) would be in my path with their mother. Plenty of room if the kid would stay close, but they don't know any better, and they're staring off somewhere other than checking on things (because they don't know any better).

So?

"MEEP! MEEP!"

This gets the kid's attention and a smile on the parent's face.

I hate to be the guy with the bucket of Ice Water, but there's a bunch of limiting factors for the 'Toons
1. ALL the classic shorts characters, from every company were developed to entertain adults before the main movie started, thus, a lot of "get crap past the radar"
2. Ted Turner effectively bought out the non warner characters, vaulted them, and then cencored the crap outa them...to fend off lawyers (how many of you under THIRTIES have heard the original Mammy Two-Shoes voice in T&J shorts, or seen the poke at the confederate leaning south by Bugs, complete with Blackface?)
3. sometime in the seventies, toons suddenly became for the REALLY little kids ONLY in the adult mind (low sing digits), which is called 'Animation Age Ghetto'

>were developed to entertain adults before the main movie started

Well then how come I loved the Looney Tunes so much as a young kid?

Sure it was aimed at adults but I remember finding the cartoons hilarious as a kid. The creators were making QUALITY ENTERTAINMENT, and ALL AGES can appreciate quality entertainment. Hell, there was so much slapstick and kids *love* slapstick.

Because sometime on the 70s it was determined cartoons were for children. Also the jokes for adults were well done to the point they went over the heads of children so the cartoons appealed to children and adults

the Fennec/yote (?) is right. the morals changed around. in the eighties there was a flush of Moral Guardians popping up, concerned about the discarding of both the "comics code" and the ratings system then in place as things loosened up. they started to nitpick everything. the lawyers started to get called in late in the decade, and that's why we're where we are now.

with as much as the industry hates investing in new characters and franchises, they'll be re-imagined and re-introduced again. for better or worse

That's just sad, i have an 8 year old nephew and even HE knows who Bugs Bunny is.

WWWWWhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaat?!

You mean to say that todays kids don't have a clue about "Wabbit Season!" - "Duck Season!" etc etc... "Duck Season... FIRE!!!!!"

How sad! God you kids don't know the quality slapstick you're missing out on! Go and youtube it NAO!

What's even sadder is, even when CN were playing new original shows like Dexter's Lab, Ed, Edd, N Eddy and Courage, they STILL had plenty of room in their schedule to re-run all the old Looney Tunes and Hanna-Barbera cartoons, so there's really no excuse why they can't do that today.

Of course Hanna Barbera cartoons in the CN mindset means "Scooby Doo first and all that irrelevant time filler that went with it when Warner Brothers bought the assets."

The entertainment culture for modern children is very different from when we were kids. When we were young, there were few channels that were devoted to children's entertainment. If you had cable TV, there was Nickelodeon and The Disney Channel. If you didn't, your only opportunities for animated entertainment were weekday afternoons(maybe) and a 3-to-4-hour block on Saturday mornings. Because of the limited availability, there was a sense of occasion when you sat down in front of the TV on Saturday morning.

Flash forward to the present. Kids have Cartoon Network, Discovery Kids (formerly The Hub), Disney XD, and Nickelodeon. That's at least 4 always-on channels enabling kids to watch TV whenever they feel like. It's definitely a different world.

Yep. WHAT exactly are they growing up with today?

THIS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STHx3UpnTS4

... *Insert face-palm here*

The characters are annoying stereotypes of stereotypes, the animation is seizure-inducing, and the humor is some of the most childish crap I've ever seen.

BUT...

All of that I can forgive, and almost have. But after learning about "The Return Of Slade", "The Fourth Wall", or any of those other troll-written episodes...

No... This isn't just a cheap knock-off, this is the cartoon equivalent of North Korea.

kids these days know nothing of the cool cartoons of the 80s/90s :S

I find that I tend to feel old when I quote a line from a cartoon I watched growing up, and get a blank stare in return...

On the other hand, I have a group of nephews who tend to eagerly await packages from me for the included VHS tapes. Old cartoons and 80's movies.

Well actually it seems like we do have a downward trend in education. For example our math teacher always complained that we were the worst he's ever seen... but only in the first year, then he saw the people coming after us.

Seriously, kids today don't even know how to use computers. They cannot write a line of BASIC... or any other language for that matter. It's a serious problem that's going to come back to us.

Coming from someone else who grew up on Looney Toons, maybe it's about time they became history. The originals are dated and every time they try and make more they seem to screw it up. They were good for a long time, but...goodbye Looney Toons, hello MLP and Samurai Jack.

It's a known fact that if you grew up Warner Brothers, you're probably liberal, while if you grew up Disney, you're probably a stinking ultra-conservative. ^^

Is that actually something people say? If evidence actually supports that theory than I somehow became the exception on that one lol. XD

It's been a popular theory. ^^ Disney and WB were at war for the big screen for decades. In fact, WB toons came about because the creators felt Disney was too sweet and cute. ^^

You ever watched a Donald Duck short lately?

WHERE ARE HIS PANTS??????????????? ^^

Well, that too. I was just thinking about what a violent little tern he was.

Srsly, tho. Ol' boy Walt just wanted to make family films, and WB animators wanted to slip in dirty jokes to take folks' minds off the fact there was a war on. I don't think it's any more complicated than that.

It wasn't.
Disney was for the kids.
WB was for the adults. No doubt. ^^

That is hilarious honestly. I'll have to look more into this one because now I'm curious ^^.
I was a huge Disney geek growing up, (still am actually), but I learned to appreciate looney tunes as I got older.

Well, a lot of people walked off of Disney because he was a tyrant, and migrated over to WB. Remember, in these days, animation was still a "new" thing. A lot of experimental animation came about early on. I think you have to go back to the Max Fliescher and Rudolf Ising work to really understand how sugary sweet and cute animation really was. It was beyond watchable. =P Then the mavericks came out like Tex Avery, Chuck Jones, Friz Freling, etc., and they said "cartoons aren't just for babies!" And lo and behold, Warner Brothers animation started the ball rolling. WB was proud of the fact they had cartoons that could die, be blown up, raped, murdered, brutally assaulted in so many ways. ^^ They changed animation forever. That's why a lot of people compare WB and Disney as liberal and conservative. The WB people were the bad-ass exceptions to the rule, the renegades, the revolutionists.

Except the new Beauty and the Beast film and what they have with Le Fou.

It looks lovely. I might go see it. ^^

I grew up watching both and I'm Canadian. So what does that make me? :P

A likable conservative. ^^

I'll settle for just likable xD

A Tory?

Remember that US politics starts with blue Tories and heads off to the right.

But again, I am Canadian so I don't have to worry about US politics as much as someone that is actually american and living there.
So would I really be called any of the slang terms from american politics? Or would I be a whole new species? lol

I'm Canadian and the company I work for sends Engineers to the US all the time, so I have to worry about US politics a surprisingly large amount.

Every single employee (Except HR, who never go anywhere) has a "bad time at the border" story.

Ouch, that sounds like a royal pain in the ass. And it's only going to start getting worse for anyone wanting to get in there for business or pleasure reasons.

I wasn't offended by this, a little amused, but not offended.

They seem to know the very basics, aside from a couple, so I think it's more a fault
of parents not showing them many shorts.

That and most kids aren't really into cartoons in general these days, animation is slowly becoming a young adult- mid age thing.

Most kids these days have never seen a Roadrunner cartoon, and if they did, I suspect most of them would be very sad because the poor coyote got hurt.

If you lived in SE Pennsylvania back in the late 60's-early 70's wow but you got to watch some great stuff on the local channels.

I remember they used to show those old B&W Popeye cartoons, the Little Rascals, Three Stooges, the old Flash Gordon serials, Shock Theater with Dr. Shock, the Bowery Boys, Abbott & Costello, Looney Tunes, all the old classics.

And there was the anime/tokusatu block with Marine Boy, Kimba, Ultraman, Space Giants, Johnny Sokko, films like Godzilla and Gamera and Daimajin, sometimes even weirder stuff like Inframan... man those days were great. TV rocked back then.

Without the Loony Toons, how will the kids get their secret introduction to Wagner, and watch the entire Ring Cycle in a mere seven minutes?

We NEED shorts like What's Opera Doc? in order to instill of love of Culture in the youth!

KILL DA WABBIT! KILL DA WABBIT! KILL DA WABBIT!

We're hunting Elmers!
😆😆😆😆

:3

WITH MY SPEAR AND MAGIC HELMET!!

^_^

Good quote to remember.

Thanks! 😊

You're very welcome.

You're right, sad to say this generation doesn't even know characters older than, say The Lion King. Worst encounter I had with even industry related workers was cast members of Disneyland in the 90's.

NONE of them even knew of Karnage, Kit etc. oh the knew the standard ones but .. yeah it's sad.

I think they can't see past the Pokémon, or their smart phone screen.

OMG! This video HURT! That is SO SAD!!! CN needs to bring back the classics that we all grew up with again. That bit about Bugs saving his voice actor's life was interesting.

makes me glad I was born before everyone started getting butthurt over nothing

Bah screw nowaday kids. Loon toons were rad and still are.

"REACT"
There's your problem right there. It's a react video. React videos are made on purpose to piss you off that kids don't know what a VCR is or that old people don't like Metallica or Taylor Swift or whatever. That's how they get views in the first place. There's nothing more to it than "how DARE somebody out there think differently from me?!"

Just do what Zidders said and introduce them casually to the stuff you liked then, and see if they like it too. If they don't, well, bummer, but if they do, everybody wins. That's how my little brother got into Speed Racer, Adam West's Batman and classic arcade games for a while.

Tex Avery, Chuck Jones, William Hanna, Joe Barbera, Friz Freleng

The Masters. Learn from them, kiddies.

Bob Clampett. Bob Camp, for that matter.

I can just imagine how today's pc crowd would freak out over how violent and horrid a coyote and roadrunner cartoon is.

Of course they're not going to know what it is. The parents freaked out 15 some-odd years ago over how violent the cartoons were, and now everyone is too much of a pussy to let their kids watch something that is just mindless fun.

Given how much stuff there is out there today, it's incredible how much old pop culture kids know. My 11-year-old niece never ceases to amaze me. So, yeah, I think kids are doing plenty well enough given the kind of horrible mess we're leaving them. 8)

Now what really bothers me is the general style of modern Western animation. Nothing but massive takes with computer-aided tweening. Ugh. It's only a step above those infamously cheap 80's superhero cartoons.

*sighs* Times have changed... Times have so much changed... While pepe and coyote are less mentioned... I'll remember you

Kids React is the pinnacle of "those darn kids and their technology or whatever". Lol.

And I liked The Looney Tunes Show too!

...So sad and depressing.

Christ look at all these old farts crying about children not watching something from 70 years ago. Get over yourselves.

Lookit the bright side. Maybe cartoons that were equally revolutionary, cartoons like Ren & Stimpy and all its ilk, take their place some day? John K. clearly had inspiration from guys like Ub Iwerks and such, so there's a trail to follow for everyone who's real interested in the history of it.

Unfortunately John K thought he was bigger than his contract to produce X number of episodes for a tv series on time and within budget. Pissing off network tv brass big time won't win them over in the long term.

Unfortunately Viacom is a collective of horses' asses.

Rerunning the same first six episodes of Ren and Stimpy over and over on Nickelodeon while waiting for John K to finish newer episodes didn't make Viacom exactly pleased to deal with him either.

It's the network that tried extorting an extra $2B out of DirecTV, who turned right around and said "Hey, since these assholes are holding your kids' Spongebob and Nick Jr. stuff hostage, anyone who's currently a subscriber gets all the Disney channels free, for life."

How can kids NOT know who the Looney Tunes are?

They aren't stuck with the choice of "Looney Tunes, Baby Herman or some old black and white slapstick short movies?" when they get up Saturday morning.

Good grief...

You're absolutely right, Eric. I grew up with the Looney Toons. Bugs Bunny was the first anthro character I remember seeing. It's unfortunate that Looney Toons isn't shown on TV, or theaters, any more.

I think I can safely say I'm older than you are, and Looney Tunes were always part of our Saturday Morning fare from the early 1960s. There were other cartoons -- Tom and Jerry, Rocky (still in first run), the Hanna-Barbera series, Popeye, and the Paul Terry cartoons, but none of them carried the weight of the Warner Brothers.

Nothing beats original Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies cartoons, plus original Tom & Jerry cartoons. Although I will say, once both of those series got into the 1960s the quality seemed to really go downhill. I love the stuff from the 30s, 40s, and 50s.

I miss the looney tunes show. <3

Eh, it's no big. (Full disclaimer: for those who don't know me, I'm a tail-end Gen-Xer, about to hit 40, so you could argue that skews my perspective, and you'd proooooobably be right.)

They were trying to reinvent the basic Looney Tunes concepts (via Tiny Toons) even when I was a teenager, because they already knew the characters were showing a bit of wear by then. I don't really mind that the Gen-Z kids don't know this stuff, because it's still out there. A handful of them will voluntarily discover the old stuff when they're in their twenties, and appreciate the craft, and perhaps even become animators, so the core artistic essence will eventually be passed on. I also doubt corporations like WB and Disney will let their flagship properties collect too much dust, so I'm sure there'll be further attempts to reinvent Bugs and Mickey, with varying success rates.

Ultimately, it is what it is, and it's inevitable. There are pieces of Great American Literature that the Boomer Generation adored -- and Gen X casually disregarded -- and now you find them as discount paperbacks in the $2 bin at used bookstores. It's just a function of time and shifts in society. Personally, I look forward to seeing the new stuff that comes along. Yeah, some of it will be (already is) garbage, but some will be gold, too.

It's important to remember that stuff ends. There'll be a point, perhaps a century or two from now, when most of the great cultural touchstones we hold as vital and life-affirming and inescapable will be obscure if not forgotten. And that's OK, because guess what, it's gonna happen whether we grumble about it or not. x)

Just hope the timeless aspects of said animated creations live on and the stuff that ends would be dated fads, dated pop culture references, and shock value materials like bodily function gags and toilet humor.

Would the vintage cartoon humor and stories stay fresh 10 or 20 years from now when you watch the cartoons again or would you cringe and say I can't believe I liked this shit back in the day.

What survives will ultimately likely be a mix. I mean, there's some raunchy stuff in Shakespeare -- by 17th-century standards, anyway. It'll depend somewhat on what storage media survives the next century or two (and assumes they'll still be readable in the future), but they'll probably recover bits and pieces that range from Fantasia to the grossest episodes of Ren and Stimpy. So, yeah.

And I already feel awkward about some of the stuff I used to watch thirty years ago. x) (Though that doesn't stop me from enjoying it.)

"What's Looney Tunes?" *jaw drops* Sweet mother! Politically incorrect or not, these need to be shown again!

I know what you mean. I was born in the 90's literally. Plus I remember watching Beast Wars and even watching certain episodes on vhs recorded with commercials on it. I even have one that they weren't called Beast Wars, they were called Beasties. Don't know why, but thought you like to know. Reboot was a blast too. I do have to say that in Canada, most of the animation shows are more action packed and such. I haven't been to Canada since I was a little kid. My last time to Canada was trying out to play the game Beyblade. The other time before was I did remember going to a toy factory from Irwin. Man I wish I can turn back time to remember that moment. Anyway I agree with your statement that the younger generation would never understand our nostalgic stuff.

Perhaps Looney Tunes needs a reboot. After all a few series that were created in the 90's are still going today, TMNT for one.
I always like Looney Tunes over the more saccharine disney offerings. Daffey being my favourite, as evidenced by this quote of his, "I can't help it, I'm a greedy slob" :3