[Amazing] 25 Looney Facts About Looney Tunes
Many of us grew up watching Looney Tunes comedy shorts (produced by Warner Bros.) and for some special reason most of us continue to love them even as adults. What’s even more amazing is that millions of kids today love Bugs Bunny, Tweety, Sylvester, Duffy Duck, and the rest of the Looney Tunes gang just as much as children loved them back in the 1930s when they were first created. Though we can name many reasons why this is so, the only sure thing is that the pure joy and laughter that these magical characters offer will uplift everyone’s spirit, regardless of age, gender, or race, for as long as they’re around.
This is the main reason why Looney Tunes characters have so many followers in every corner of the globe and why their fan base includes people of every color, religion, and nationality. However, and despite loving Looney Tunes characters from a very young age, it’s quite possible you still don’t know that much about them. For example, not many fans are aware that arguably the most popular character of all, Bugs Bunny, was used by the US Army during World War II for propaganda purposes. If you want to know more about Bugs and the rest of Warner Bros. cartoon family, take a look at these 25 Looney Facts About Looney Tunes.
Bugs Bunny is a known traveler who most often takes the wrong turn; this is why you’ve seen him in places like the Himalayas and Antarctica. However, very few people are aware of where Bugs originally came from. In case you wondered, Bugs was born in Brooklyn, New York.
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Did you know that before given the name Tweety the famous bird was called Orson? He was also originally pink, not yellow.
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In 2006 Volkswagen rolled out three new GTI commercials starring the Looney Tunes superhero mouse, Speedy Gonzalez. The commercials were part of an ongoing effort by the German automaker to win the growing Hispanic market in North America.
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Sylvester’s name is a pun on silvestris, the scientific name for the wildcat and also ancestor of domestic cats.
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Yosemite Sam is better known in France as Sam the Pirate. That’s because the French have become accustomed to seeing his pirate persona as the default Sam and all the others—including the cowboy—as variations.
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Witch Hazel is the only character to date to appear in both Warner Bros. and Disney shorts.
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Bosko was the first-ever major Looney Tunes character. His first film was called “Bosko, the Talk-Ink Kid,” first shown on April 19, 1929.
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In case you always wondered what the letter E stands for in Wile E. Coyote, it stands for Ethelbert.
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Though many people assume Tweety is female, in the Tweetie Pie short we learn that Tweety is male.
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Despite Taz being one of the most popular and iconic Looney Tunes characters, he has appeared only in five shorts.
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Private Snafu appeared in twenty-six training shorts for the US Army during World War II, which were not available to the public until recently.
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Porky Pig was initially voiced by a stutterer who later lost his job and was replaced by Mel Blanc for not being able to get through his lines.
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Marvin the Martian was never named in the original Looney Tunes shorts.
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Even though she was not the original voice for Granny, June Foray is the most well-known and the one who has voiced her the longest. She started back in 1955 and sixty-one years later she’s still the voice of the iconic cartoon granny.
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Foghorn Leghorn was based almost exclusively on another character: Senator Beauregard Claghorn, a character from the Fred Allen radio show. He was also the only major Looney Tunes character whose physical design never changed.
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Elmer Fudd is the only major male Looney Tunes character not voiced by Mel Blanc. He was voiced by Arthur Q. Bryant. His singing voice was done by Roy Rogers in the 1938 cartoon A Feud There Was.
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Mel Blanc’s voicing of Daffy Duck holds the record for the longest of an animated character by the original actor/actress: fifty-two years, from 1937 to 1989.
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We’re not sure if you remember this but Cecil Turtle beat Bugs Bunny in all three of the cartoons in which he appeared.
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Bugs Bunny was officially drafted by the US Marine Corps during World War II as a Private First Class.
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However, this wasn’t the only time Bugs was involved in World War II. In 1944, Bugs starred in Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips, an American WWII-propaganda short that quickly became dated because of its racist portrayals of Japanese soldiers. In case you feel like Bugs has been a racist, just keep in mind that the film was created shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
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Duffy Duck was the original star and main face of Looney Tunes until Bugs Bunny appeared. This caused him to become jealous, and they became rivals. With the passage of time, however, they eventually became friends.
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The Road Runner can’t hurt or harm Wile E. Coyote in any way. The only thing he does is “beep beep,” which seems to irritate the famous coyote way too much for his own good.
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Sylvester, arguably one of the most “tortured” cats in history, appeared in three out of the five Oscar-winning Looney Tunes shorts. That makes him the company’s character with the most Academy Awards.
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Speedy Gonzales was at one point taken off the air in the United States for fear of offending Mexican Americans, who then lobbied to have him put back because they considered him a positive role model for Latino children in America.
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It might sound unbelievable but Bugs Bunny was the first TV drag queen. You can see him in “Mississippi Hare” (1949), transforming into a Southern belle in order to seduce a stranger to escape from Colonel Shuffle.
Source: looneytunes.com, Image: Wikipedia
