A Cartoon Ethnography

Ever wonder what a Looney Tune is? How about a Merry Melodie? They all have their roots in the early days of animation when cartoon production would begin with the soundtrack and only later, the animation (allegedly because animating a piece of music made it easier to devise plot elements and characters).

First out of the box with this concept was Disney with their Silly Symphonies series (1929-1939). Knowing a good idea when they saw it, Warner Brothers followed suit a year later with Looney Tunes (1930-1969). And here's where it gets interesting. Warner figured they would extend the concept of a musical short to live action - essentially a pre-curser to today's (or yesterday's) music video. The result was Spooney Melodies (1930-1931). However, the idea didn't take and was subsequently converted to another animated musical shorts program, Merry Melodies (1931-1969). MGM was substantially late to the party with their also-ran series, Happy Harmonies (1934-1938). Further muddling matters, Warner opted to reissue some of their older Merry Melodies in the 1940's under the name 'Merry Melodies, Blue Ribbon Classics' (in case you ever wondered what the blue ribbon in the title sequence was all about). Perhaps Warner Director Fritz Freleng said it best: "I never knew if a film I was making would be a Looney Tunes or a Merrie Melodie, and what the hell difference would it make, anyway?"