In 1969, the Looney Tunes series ended after Warner Bros.-Seven Arts, under Kinney National Company, shut down its struggling animation department after two years to save money.
But suppose that producer Bill L. Hendricks and director Robert McKimson were able to convince Kinney to keep the animation studio open. What would happen to the Looney Tunes franchise? And what would happen to animation in general?
Merrily We Roll Along: A Post-1969 History of Looney Tunes is a timeline from AlternateHistory.com, written by Tacomaster. It can be read here
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Tropes include:
- Adaptational Name Change:
- Super Scooper (one of the new characters) becomes Scoop Snoop due to the existence of Hanna-Barbera's Super Scooper.
- Downplayed examples: Wendy the Good Little Witch later becomes Wendy the Witch, and in The Harvey Girls, Little Audrey is renamed to simply Audrey.
- Adaptational Villainy: Chuck Jones becomes a much worse person ITTL, including becoming a sexual harasser.
- Adapted Out: Lola Bunny doesn't exist due to Honey Bunny already appearing in cartoons.
- Asshole Victim: After Chuck Jones is fired, his shorts are pulled, his final film with Warners is left to die, most of his characters are Put on a Bus, and his body of work is re-evaluated. Given what he did, it's easy to not feel bad for him.
- Banned Episode: In-universe, after Chuck Jones is fired and arrested for sexual assault, all of his shorts, films, and TV shows are removed from circulation. All of his characters (aside from Elmer Fudd and Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner) are also retired.
- Breaking the Glass Ceiling: Penelope Koshkin becomes the first female Looney Tunes director.
- The Bus Came Back: In-universe, many of the old Looney Tunes characters such as Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck return in the 1970s.
- Canon Foreigner:
- Penelope Koshkin, one of Jones' victims who becomes a director at the Warner Cartoon Group, is fictional.
- Kanga Roo, a new character created by Robert McKimson as a parody of the new characters introduced in the Seven Arts era, doesn't exist IOTL. Neither does Silly Sylvia, the hippie chick screwball who becomes Rankin/Bass' mascot.
- Condemned by History: In-universe, Chuck Jones falls into this after his firing. His Pepé Le Pew cartoons are criticized for normalizing sexual harassment, some of his best-known cartoon series receive criticism for being formulaic, his later works are criticized for losing their wit or being pretentious, his retools of characters such as Bugs and Daffy receive scorn, and whatever comedic charm his earlier works had is now credited to his writers such as Michael Maltese.
- Creator Couple: Penelope Koshkin later marries her writer, Michael Maltese.
- Different World, Different Movies:
- Warner Bros. continues making theatrical shorts until 1980. Looney Tunes is once again fully animated, uses some of the older characters, and is aimed at all audiences, Merrie Melodies uses the newer characters, is aimed at children and uses limited animation, and a third short series, Cartoon Classics, focuses on more well-known older characters like Bugs Bunny and is aimed towards adults. Joe Oriolo and Jay Ward join as producer and director, respectively, while Tex Avery returns to the series.
- The Peanuts specials and films were co-produced with the Warner Cartoon Group.
- TimberWolf is a Looney Tunes character introduced in the 1970s.
- Bugs Bunny: Superstar is very different: instead of focusing almost solely on Clampett, it focuses on Friz Freleng, McKimson, and especially Chuck Jones. Controversially, Avery is only mentioned in passing, Clampett isn't mentioned at all, and neither of their shorts are highlighted.
- The Woody Woodpecker series continues, going back to the character's screwball roots of the 1940s, complete with Mel Blanc, Woody's original voice actor, returning to his role.
- Star Wars is animated instead of live-action, and is a co-production with Nelvana.
- Chuck Jones' final collaboration with Warners is the movie The Earth Creatures, which gets released early in the year with minimal promotion after his downfall, and is ripped apart by critics.
- Paramount's theatrical series include Richie Rich (which doubles as a satire of capitalism), Wendy and Casper, and The Harvey Girls (TTL's equivalent to Harvey Street Kids).
- Enemy Mine: While Avery and Clampett aren't fans of Ward's style, they choose to side with him during the Chuck Jones controversy purely to be contrarian to Jones.
- Executive Meddling: In the Peanuts specials, Warner forces the writers to have Peppermint Patty refer to Charlie Brown as "Charles" (Marcie's nickname for him) instead of "Chuck", as an effect of Chuck Jones' scandals. Freleng justifies it in his head as Marcie rubbing off on Patty.
- Fatal Flaw: Pride, for Chuck Jones. A major reason for his downfall is that he's a pretentious egotist who goes as far as to openly disparage his colleagues.
- Gender Flip: Both the Road Runner and Quick Brown Fox become female under Koshkin's hands.
- It's All About Me: Jones' intense egotism can be summed up with this line at the "Meet the 'Mation Makers" event:THEY'D (Michael Maltese and Maurice Noble) be NOTHING without ME! LOONEY TUNES would be NOTHING without ME! I AM LOONEY TUNES!
- Mexicans Love Speedy Gonzales: The Trope Namer is invoked in Friz Freleng and McKimson's response to Jones citing Speedy Gonzales in his accusations of the crew being racist, in which they point out Speedy's popularity in Mexico.
- Old Shame: Robert McKimson isn't proud of the new characters he created (especially Hoppy), and is relieved to be able to work on the old characters again.
- The Other Darrin: Koshkin takes over the Road Runner's beeps from Paul Julian's 1949 recordings.
- Race Lift: Like in OTL's Harvey Street Kids, Dot becomes African-American.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Both Jones and Clampett chew each other out during the "Meet the 'Mation Makers" event; Clampett chews Jones out for his ego, while Jones bites back at Clampett for "soiling" animation.
- Retcon:
- Silly Sylvia was originally Caucasian, becoming African-American in the 1990s. Later, this was changed so Sylvia was always black.
- Originally, Clampett was going to return to animation, but it was retconned into Clampett deciding to stay retired, with Avery on his behalf.
- Scrapbook Story: The preferred format for many chapters, using transcripts and printed materials to assemble them.
- Seasonal Rot: Jones' works in the 1970s are criticized for their pacing and humor, and the Koshkin Road Runners aren't well-liked for their changes.
- Suddenly Voiced: Road Runner and Quick Brown Fox speak under Koshkin, though in the shorts it's limited to brief quips taking the place of the traditional signs. They do speak much more often in wraparounds, though (especially the Road Runner).
- Take That!: According to
Word of God, TTL's portrayal of Jones and his subsequent fall from grace is due to his dislike of Jones as a person. - Tempting Fate: Like IOTL, McKimson brags about outliving his peers after receiving a clean bill of health and learning of his family's history of living past 90. He dies of a heart attack two days later.
- Tuckerization: Penelope Pussycat is named after Koshkin in-universe.
- Villainous Breakdown: Jones' meltdown at Clampett during the "Meet the 'Mation Makers" event in January 1977, in front of hundreds (potentially thousands) of animation fans, no less! Jones proceeds to disparage his colleagues, as well as boast about how he's better than Disney and UPA, and show hypocrisy by criticizing the Sylvester And Tweety and Speedy Gonzales series, but defending his Road Runner cartoons as "subversive masterpieces".
- What Could Have Been: In-universe, Avery offers a stake in the Warner Cartoon Group to Clampett around the time of the Bugs Bunny: Superstar controversy, but Clampett refuses, wanting to stay independent and retired.
