Abhorrent Admirer: Pepé Le Pew in most (if not all) of the cartoons he was in (though there were times when the roles were reversed and Pepe became the hunted; and the only cartoon where he wasn't an Abhorrent Admirer was Arthur Davis's "Odor of the Day"); Daffy Duck in Frank Tashlin's "The Stupid Cupid"; the Mama Bear in "Bugs Bunny and the Three Bears"; and the portly Slavic-accented female bunny Millicent from "Rabbit Romeo." Pepe and Penelope Pussycat are special cases; Penelope freaks out at his interest mainly because he's a skunk, with all the attendant odor problems. When the tables are turned (often from Pepe either having his stench covered or removed), her attitude flips around as well and she becomes even more aggressive than Pepe was, intimidating him.
Absurdly-Long Limousine: Done in a lot of shorts. Often the gag would be further reinforced with a secretary or switchboard operator at the halfway point of the limousine fielding messages from the passenger to the driver.
Bennie: Are ya gonna show me how to catch mouses in the warehouse, George? Are ya? Sylvester: Okay, so we're gonna catch mouses in the warehouse. And stop callin' me George! My name is Sylvester. Bennie: But I can't say Sylvester, George. Sylvester: Okay, so I'm George.
Accidental Athlete: Happens to Cool Cat in Bugged by a Bee. Subverted in that the bee gets all the credit in the end and not Cool Cat.
Activation Sequence: In "Compressed Hare", Wile E. Coyote activates a 10-billion-volt electromagnet (to catch Bugs Bunny after he eats a fake metal carrot). It takes several seconds to power up the magnet, including activating what appears to be a power generator.
Actor Allusion: Bugs Bunny mentioning Cucamonga is a reference to when Mel Blanc was the announcer on Jack Benny's radio show and would shout, "Train leaving on track five for Anaheim, Azusa and Cucamonga!". It's funny because that's physically impossible for a single train to do.
Adaptation Species Change: There's a short where Goldilocks is a mouse and the Three Bears are replaced with the Three Cats (Sylvester and his family).
Adipose Rex: A lot of the medieval-based Looney Tunes portray their kings as fat (and often Fat Bastards).
Marvin the Martian most notably, who was intentionally created to be incredibly dangerous but very soft spoken and polite.
Elmer Fudd, on occasion.
"Gowwy, Mr. Wabbit. I hope I didn't hurt you too much when I killed you."
Sylvester the Cat (particularly in the cartoons where he has a son who's constantly ashamed of him)
Agony of the Feet: In Cheese Chasers, Hubie and Bertie, hell-bent on ending their own lives after eating too much cheese, hit Claude's foot with a hammer, trying to provoke him into eating them.
Alcohol Hic: The tunes use Mel Blanc's very recognizable, comic hiccup when a character is drunk - most notably in "High Note", where the drunk note hiccups throughout most of the short as he stumbles around.
Bugs: Run for the hills, folks, or you'll be up to your armpits in Martians!
Alliterative Name: Most, if not all of the Looney Tunes characters (Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Road Runner, Porky Pig, Cool Cat, etc).
All Just a Dream: The ending of "Smile, Darn Ya, Smile!", parodied in "The Mouse That Jack Built", plus "Water, Water, Every Hare", "Scrap Happy Daffy" and "The Wearing of the Grin".
"Scrap Happy Daffy" was more of an "Or Was It a Dream?", considering Daffy wakes to find the goat and a group of nazis stranded at the top of his scrap heap.
"The next time you dream, INCLUDE US OUT!"
"A Cartoonist's Nightmare", as suggested by the title.
"A Waggily Tale" plays with this; Junior wakes up from his nightmare of being a dog and is relieved. He goes to hug his dog, who tells the camera, "That's okay with me, 'cause I'm not a dog, neither. I'm really another little boy having a dream."
"Hyde and Go Tweet" as well- the whole thing with Tweety transforming into a giant bird was a dream of Sylvester's.
Amusing Injuries: A huge part of the series' comedy falls into this category, with much of the humor being animated slapstick.
Anachronistic Soundtrack: Since the series was a Long Runner, certain songs being used years (in some cases, decades) after they were made was inevitable. Justified in that many came to be closely associated with the Looney Tunes series, especially if they were used for leitmotifs. As writer Jaime Weinman explained:
Jaime: But eventually, while the cartoon scores remained great, they sounded less contemporary. There were various reasons for this: Stalling was getting older; WB was making fewer musicals and selling off its music-publishing holdings; there was a longer time lag between the production and release of the cartoons; musical styles were changing in directions that weren't compatible with the Stalling cartoon-music style. (When Friz Freleng wanted a distinctively late '50s musical sound for "Three Little Bops," he turned to an outside musician, Shorty Rogers, to do a score in a decidedly non-Stalling style.) So the WB cartoon music after 1951 or so doesn't use a lot of contemporary music, and doesn't have a sound that anchors it in its time the way the sound of the "Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarves" score screams early '40s, or the way Bugs' rendition of "It's Magic" (in 1951's "Rabbit Every Monday") tells us we're in the era of Doris Day. By 1962, which was the last year of cartoons scored by Stalling's lieutenant Milt Franklyn, the Stalling song library was starting to sound a bit anachronistic: it's the '60s and the cartoon scores are still quoting Raymond Scott and Billy Rose.
In "Fresh Hare", Humphrey Bogart asks waiter Elmer Fudd for an order of fried rabbit. Elmer tells him that they're fresh out of rabbit, but Bogart grabs him by the collar and gives him one hour to get him that rabbit, or else.
Bobo the Elephant in "Gone Batty", Bugs Bunny in "Baseball Bugs". The latter in particular had Bugs invoke Loophole Abuse everywhere.
Boulevardier From The Bronx (Freleng, 1937) is a baseball film, but the only athletes present are two roosters (Claude and Dizzy Dan) and a turtle as catcher who uses his shell as a chest protector.
The backs of Dan's outfield can be seen prior to the start of the game, a pig is Dan's first strikeout victim, and a dachshund scores an inside-the-park home run.
Animal Nemesis: The "Rabbit Season/Duck Season" cartoons (and some of the Bugs/Elmer cartoons that are a remake of "A Wild Hare") invariably contain variants on this.
In the Bugs Bunny cartoon "The Greyhounded Hare", Bugs attends a dog race and falls in love with the mechanical rabbit, which is designed as a female. Seeing the dogs chase after "her", Bugs turns chivalrous and attacks them. Something similar happens in "Hair-Raising Hare", where the scientist uses a mechanical lady rabbit as a lure. At the end of the cartoon, the lure comes back and Bugs follows it, well aware it's not real but not caring.
The Wartime Cartoon "Ding Dong Daddy" is about a dog falling in love with a statue of a greyhound named Daisy. Every time he tries to kiss her, the statue gets struck by lightning, which makes him think she's a great kisser. When the statue gets smelted to make ammunitions, the dog wanders the factory until he finds the shell that Daisy got turned into. He gives the shell a kiss and it explodes. "She hasn't changed a bit!"
Animated Actors: "You Ought To Be In Pictures," "Duck Amuck," "Rabbit Rampage," "This is a Life?", "A Star is Bored," and "Blooper Bunny" all operate with an in-universe fourth wall for the characters where they perform their shtick for entertainment.
Animation Bump: Just about all of Chuck Jones' early shorts, which often have very tight, solid animation (especially shorts like Old Glory) especially in contrast to the other directors (possibly due to the higher budgets his unit, tasked with producing the then-higher budgeted color Merrie Melodies, were afforded). Bob Clampett shorts (once he was handed Tex Avery's former unit in 1941) also had some of the most lavish animation in the studio's history, and Tex Avery's shorts were already undergoing this by 1940 due to the increasing influence of both Bob Mc Kimson and a newly-emerging Rod Scribner.
Going in the opposite direction, the animation generally became less nuanced after the brief shutdown of the studio in 1953, due to tighter budgets. Bob McKimson's unit suffered the most; during the shutdown, nearly his entire animation staff, several of them inherited from the Clampett unit, jumped ship, leaving him with less experienced animators who would (particularly given the even-tighter budgets Mc Kimson's unit, as the lowest in the studio's hierarchy, received post-shutdown) just inbetween McKimson's layout poses and leave it at that, rather than go the extra mile and push the actions further, as Clampett animators like Rod Scribner or Bill Melendez would.
Anti-Climax: "The Wild Chase", a short from the mid-'60s, is about Speedy Gonzales and Road Runner racing each other. The cartoon ends with Sylvester and Wile E. Coyote crossing the finish line instead.
Art Evolution: The earliest shorts had a very strong early Disney influence in their animation (no surprise, considering the studio was founded by Harman and Rudolph Ising, as well as Friz Freleng, all of who were employees of Disney in the 1920s) but in the mid to late 30's Tex Avery and Bob Clampett slowly but surely began trying to veer off into a less Disney like cartoon style. Chuck Jones initially did VERY Disney like shorts with his Sniffles cartoons, until he decided (with the partial "encouragement" of studio head Leon Schlesinger, who may have contemplated demoting Jones due to his Disney-styled output's declining audience popularity) to drop the saccharine stuff and do funny cartoons. While Bob and Tex had already abandoned most of the Disney-esque art by the 40's, Chuck Jones and Robert McKimson's personal art styles wiped out any remaining trace of the original Disney influence that was clinging to the studio at that point.
Character-specific example: Speedy Gonzales, in his 1953 debut, looked much different than the version by Friz Freleng's unit in 1955. The latter design (which downplayed the visual stereotypes like buck teeth and greasy black hair) stuck, and is the one most people remember today.
Robert McKimson's unit went through a significant art evolution; when he started directing in 1946, his characters had a lot of girth. Around 1950 or 1951, his unit began to slim the characters down; Bugs, for example, actually began to look like the model sheet McKimson himself had created.
Artifact Title: The Merrie Melodies series used to be reserved for the cartoons that were just animated musicals with thin, simplistic plots (in an attempt at copying the "Silly Symphonies" series from Disney). By the late '30s, Merrie Melodies began to feature cartoons that weren't centered around advertising a song from the WB music library. The name difference became even more meaningless in 1944, when Looney Tunes (originally a black and white series) fully switched to color, and recurring characters also began to be used in Merrie Melodies as well. By then, the only difference in the two series was the title and theme music. In fact, Friz Freleng outright commented on the fact that he never initially knew whether the short they'd be creating was a Merrie Melody or a Looney Tune, and it didn't matter anyway.
When The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show began, it largely stuck to the show's title by having at least one Bugs and/or Tweety short in each episode. Over time, this rule waned.
There’s basically no point at which the view of Venus from Mars would be blocked by Earth as Marvin’s motive supposedly is, or at the very least it would happen only once in thousands of years. If anything, the Sun is more likely to be in the way.
Lampshaded in Chuck Jones biography "Chuck Amuck", where when he discusses how people have told him that his characters are "realistic", he compares the characters to their real life counterparts, ending with Tweety compared to a real canary, with Jones sheepishly admitting that the only similarity he was able to find being that they're both birds.
Artistic License – History: Bugs's account of the American revolution to his nephew Clyde, in "Yankee Doodle Bugs".
Actually, a lot of historical-themed Looney Tunes shorts have this, but get away with it because of the Rule of Funny.
In "Southern Fried Rabbit", Yosemite Sam claims to be holding the Mason Dixon Line, not letting any 'Yankees' across it. When Bugs tells him that the Civil War is long since over, Sam says he's no clock watcher. Later on, he catches some Yankees, but they're actually the New York Yankees — though they were in Chattanooga—so perhaps they were a Yankees minor league affiliate.
The short "Daffy Duck and the Dinosaur", with a caveman set along a dinosaur.
Art Shift: "Bartholomew versus the Wheel" isn't drawn in the typical style (looking more like something from Harold and the Purple Crayon).
Neither is "Senorella and the Glass Huarache," which seems to resemble a mid-60s or '70s De Patie-Freleng cartoons. (Not much of a surprise, as many De Patie-Freleng staff members worked on this short.)
Look at any number of Freleng's cartoons of the 40s and 50s and you'll see contrasting animators styles within each film. In The Wabbit Who Came to Supper (1942) you'll see Jack Bradbury, Cal Dalton and Gerry Chiniquy's styles (Bugs' face in each cartoon is wildly inconsistent); in "Show Biz Bugs" (1956) has Chiniquy, Virgil Ross and Art Davis' styles (less jarring).
Bob Clampett's cartoons even more so, to the extent that Clampett would intentionally play up the contrast of Rod Scribner's loose, wild animation and Robert McKimson's more subtle, Disney-like animation.
Ascended Fanboy: Bugs Bunny was given the honorary rank of Master Sergeant in the US Marine Corps after the cartoon "Super Rabbit"
As Long as It Sounds Foreign: Hitler's speech in Russian Rhapsody which includes bizarre references to Friz Freleng, Heinrich (German version of Henry) Binder (Henry Binder was one of the associate producers of WB cartoons when Leon Schlesinger was there), "What's Cooking, Doc?", someone named "Tim O'Shenko"note A pun on the name of the Soviet general Semyon Timoshenko, who was the "People's Commisar for The Defense of the Soviet Union" at the time of Hitler's invasion in 1941 (he was replaced early on by Joseph Stalin himself taking over), ordering saurkraut from a delicatessen, and the chattanooga choo-choo (a shout out to the classic big band tune from the 40's).
The whole premise of the 1943 short "What's Cookin', Doc?". Bugs assumes he's going to win an Oscar, but it ends up going to James Cagney instead. Bugs tries to convince the Academy to give him the Oscar instead.
Also seen in the 1955 short "This is a Life?". Daffy assumes the program will be a retrospective about himself, when instead it's about Bugs.
Babysitter's Nightmare: Several Foghorn Leghorn episodes see him trying to babysit various chicks to impress the hens he's romancing. Some play destructive pranks on him, while his most common charge, Egghead Jr., is a Cute Mute whose various science experiments and technical know-how end up leaving Foghorn worse for wear. Unlike most examples, though, Foghorn's bad treatment is usually deserved, as his Know-Nothing Know-It-All and Motor Mouth tendencies make him particularly vulnerable to the kids.
Backwards-Firing Gun: Bugs causes guns to do this in a variety of implausible ways, once by simply moving the iron sight to the other end of the barrel...
Bugs Bunny. How many bunny rabbits do you know who can stare down the barrel of a shotgun and casually ask "What's up, Doc?"?
Garth: Did you ever find Bugs Bunny attractive when he put on a dress and played girl bunny? Wayne: No. (cracks up laughing) Wayne: No! Garth: Neither did I. I was just asking.
Also, Speedy Gonzales is a cute, cheerful little mouse who is incredibly strong for his size.
Even Tweety, the sweet little canary has his moments, especially when he has to defend himself against Sylvester.
Even the Road Runner gets his rare moments. For example, near the end of the cartoon, "Hip Hip-Hurry!", he manages to trip Wile E. Coyote just as the latter is gaining up on him.
And what about Hippety Hopper, the baby kangaroo? He's very cute and playful, but whenever Sylvester tries to take on the so-called "giant mouse", Hippety Hopper kicks his butt, all the while just having fun! If he can kick a grown cat's butt while just having fun, imagine what Hippety Hopper could do if he wasn't playing!
The duckling in "A Corny Concerto", most likely a child version of Daffy Duck. An adorable little black feathered duck who blows a hawk out of the sky when it carries off some baby swans whose company he wanted to join.
Bad Guy Bar: The bar from "Lady Play Your Mandolin". This short was made and is obviously set during Prohibition, and the patrons of the bar proudly proclaim themselves as sinners.
"Little Red Riding Rabbit" sort of has one too, in which by the end of the short, even Bugs is getting tired of Red Riding Hood's constant interruptions. He then switches the Big Bad Wolf, who was about to fall onto red hot coals because of all the furniture Bugs threw on him, with Red. Bugs and the Wolf, arms around each other and sharing a carrot, watch proudly as Red soon gets what she deserves.
"Tortoise Beats Hare", "Tortoise Wins by a Hare", and "Rabbit Transit". Though Bugs could also be considered the bad guy, considering how much of a jerk he was to Cecil Turtle in the first place.
Although never shown actually eating his prey, nearly every Henery Hawk short ends with him carrying off Foghorn Leghorn so he can eat him.
"Mice Follies", which ends with the cat successfully scaring Morton, Ralph, Alice and Trixie out of their own home.
"Daffy's Diner" is an odd example of this, as Daffy is technically in an antagonistic role but loses to an even more antagonistic character (El Supremo the cat).
Bait-and-Switch: In Hare Remover, Elmer Fudd is trying to create a Jekyll & Hyde formula and tests it on Bugs Bunny. After going through a few seconds where it seems the formula worked, Bugs uncovers his face to reveal... his regular face. "No soap, Doc."
Ralph uses toy balloons to fly in an attempt to snatch a sheep in ''A Sheep In The Deep". Unfortunately for him, Sam has a peashooter.
Banana Peel: Examples include “Tweet Zoo,” “To Hare Is Human,” and “A Sheep in the Deep.”
Barbie Doll Anatomy: One of the Indians in "Westward Whoa" is only wearing a loincloth that does a poor job of covering his nether regions, but thankfully there's nothing there to see.
Battle Discretion Shot: Happens near the climatic end of the Bugs Bunny short "Knights Must Fall".
In "The Stupid Cupid", Daffy is hit by a giant arrow from Cupid, which hits him with such force that he ends up with his beak stuck through a board. He struggles to lift his arm just to burble his lips.
Porky's hunting dog burbles after hitting his head on a tree in "A Corny Concerto".
The giant pair of lips that appear behind the Fats Waller cat in "Tin Pan Alley Cats" does this before disappearing into thin air.
John Rooster does this at the end of "Each Dawn I Crow" as he is cooking himself for dinner. He kept thinking farmer Fudd wanted to chop his head off when he didn't—Fudd was chopping down a tree, which falls right on top of John.
The Sylvester and Tweety cartoon "Room and Bird" has the cat and bird's owners keeping them secretly inside an apartment building that doesn't allow pets. In the end, the manager finds out and announces on the PA system that all pets be removed from the premises immediately. He is then trampled by a stampede of wild animals, including lions, giraffes, elephants, and a little monkey.
"Dime to Retire" has Porky stay in Daffy's hotel, which only charges a dime a night. It turns out to be a scam, as Daffy gets his real money by charging exorbitant amounts to get animals out of the room. Starting with a mouse, he escalates to a cat, a dog, then a lion and finally an elephant (which is removed by scaring it with the original mouse).
Beatnik: Sylvester Jr. briefly talks like one in "The Slap-Hoppy Mouse":
Sylvester Jr.: Hey man, you're not broken down, you're one cool cat. Sylvester: (confused) Uuuuummmm... yeah.
Being Watched: One of many fourth-wall breakers ("Did you ever have the feeling you was being watched?").
Benevolent Genie: In "A Lad in His Lamp" and "Ali Baba Bunny". Although the first one ("Smokey") did have a thing about being summoned too many times in a row (especially when it interrupted his making out with a female genie), and the latter didn't care much for being stomped on.
Beware Of Hitch Hiking Ghosts: The ghost in the Porky Pig cartoon "Jeepers Creepers" tries to hitch a ride in Porky's police car towards the end. Porky stops, backs up and holds up a sign that says "No Riders."
Bicolor Cows, Solid Color Bulls: Toro the Bull is black. "Daffy the Gaucho" features Daffy as a rancher, and all the cows are black-white or brown-and-white.
Big Eater: Occurs many times. One such example is the rival chicken in "Cock-a-Doodle Duel" downing dozens of hot dogs at once.
Big Little Man: One short inverts this. Beaky Buzzard finds a small reptile peeking through some rocks. Noting that the creature seems shorter than him, Beaky tries to grab it and take it home for dinner. Turns out "Shorty" is just the small head of a huge dragon.
The Chuck Jones Warner Brothers cartoon Duck Amuck:
Daffy: All right. Let's get this picture started.
(iris out and THE END appears)
Daffy: Nooooo! Nooooo!
The Friz Freleng cartoon "Bucaneer Bunny" has Yosemite Sam (a.k.a. Pirate Sam) say a couple of Big No's when Bugs attempts to throw a matchstick inside his pirate ship which is filled with gunpowder.
It is reused in a similarly-themed cartoon "Captain Hareblower".
Also one near the end of the McKimson short "Sleepy Time Possum" in which Paw Possum, disguised as a dog, gets catapulted by his son
Big "SHUT UP!": Usually phrased as "AAAAAAHHHHH, SHADDUP!"
Bird-Poop Gag: Defied when Bugs lets Elmer shoot him in front of a tree but notices two birds and steps aside to avoid being pooped on.
Bittersweet Ending: "Nelly's Folly" - Nelly the giraffe has lost her fame and fortune due to infidelity, but she falls in love again.
Black Comedy: The Chuck Jones shorts are often quite cynical and jaded in their humor, and Jones was quite fond of using Chew Toy characters such as Wile E. Coyote, and portraying his interpretations of the characters as more nasty and flawed than the other directors (such as his iconic Straw Loser take on Daffy Duck, turning Bugs into a more vengeful, passive-aggressive trickster with somewhat less playfulness, creating Marvin, an alien villain who wants to destroy the earth for blocking his view of Venus, etc.). Even some of his one-shots like Fresh Airedale and Chow Hound run on this. Ironically, as the Looney Tunes franchise ran its course, Jones toned down this aspect of his cartoons to be lighter and sometimes even sentimental in tone.
Blazing Inferno Hellfire Sauce: Elmer Fudd puts a drop of liquid white pepper on his already hot sauce-filled steak in "What's My Lion?". He never gets around to eating it but the lion does, causing him to breathe fire.
Blind People Wear Sunglasses: In the short Daffy Duck and Egghead, Daffy responds to Egghead's inability to shoot him by giving him sunglasses and a cupful of pencils, and also puts a "BLIND" sign around his neck.
Bloodless Carnage: Despite the high levels of violence in several cartoons, there was never any blood, although Bugs Bunny or Daffy Duck would sometimes cover himself in ketchup pretending that he's bleeding in order to throw off his enemies, squeeze a tomato, or pour red ink (as seen in "Hare Trigger").
Sam: (gets angry, then demurely) Why did you pour ink on my head? (gets angry again)
One particular example is in "The Whizzard of Ow", wherein during the climax, Wile E. Coyote's mode of transportation turns into a crocodile, which proceeds to bite the Coyote's nose off.
Bomb Whistle: Used to punctuate a character, particularly the Coyote, taking a long fall (though there have been exceptions).
Book Ends: "Feather Finger" begins and ends with Daffy begging for money.
Daffy: Gifts, donations, charity... ANYTHING!
"The Ducksters" begins with Porky on a conveyor belt headed for a bandsaw; the ending turns the tables by having Daffy on the conveyor belt.
Born in the Theatre: Most Looney Tunes, classic or modern, aired in theaters before they aired on television, and they often have gags messing with the Fourth Wall of Film.
Bowdlerization: When aired on television (and sometimes, home video — usually gray-market, public domain videos; the official release videos and DVDs try to make it as uncut as possible. If there are any missing scenes, it's because some of those scenes were lost long ago), a lot of the violent and politically-incorrect scenes and gags will be altered or cut. There's a website dedicated to tracking down what cartoons were edited and what channel edited them: [1]
Elmer tries it again in "Hare Remover". Bugs finds the trap amusing ("My grandfather told me about these things, but I never thought I'd see one.") and decides to humor Elmer and get trapped, since he went to such trouble to make one.
Elmer uses the trap a third time in "Pests for Guests", this time on the Goofy Gophers Mac and Tosh. As soon as the trap falls, the sounds of a car driving are heard from inside, followed by a loud car crash. An alarmed Elmer lifts the box to see what happened, accidentally letting the gophers out.
Breaking the Fourth Wall: The damage done to it ranges from large cracks to pulverizing it to a fine powder. On more than one occasion, near the end of a cartoon, the film suddenly breaks, leaving the screen white. A character from the cartoon then steps out onto the white screen and says, "Ladies and gentlemen, due to circumstances beyond our control, we are unable to continue with this picture."
Breakout Character: THE WHOLE SERIES has lived and breathed this trope. It all started with Friz's Batman Gambit in 1935 to jump start Leon's ailing cartoon studio with several new cartoon characters in the short "I Haven't Got A Hat"-two pups named Ham and Ex, Kitty, Oliver Owl, Beans the Cat and Porky Pig. Porky was an instant hit with audiences, even though the studio thought for some reason that Beans would be the studio's next bankable star-but he too quickly faded into obscurity while Porky became the studio's star—THEN, two more stars broke out from Porky's cartoons-a little Daffy Duck from "Porky's Duck Hunt" and the Bugs Bunny prototype "Happy Hare/Bugs' Bunny" from "Porky's Hare Hunt", "Hare-Um Scare-Um" and "Presto-Change-O." Oh, and Bugs Bunny himself obviously.
The Tasmanian Devil, despite only appearing in five of the original shorts, became immensely popular due to later spin-offs and merchandising. Essentially nearly every mainstream character was decided this way, having usually been cast as a one-timer or side role alongside a an intended star before becoming popular with the audience.
In "Bill of Hare": When Taz is right behind Bugs:
Bugs: (to audience) Eh... did you ever have the feeling you were being watched?
Marvin the Martian, like Taz, appeared in only five of the original shorts, whom would later be prominently featured on the post-1969 material and merchandise.
Foghorn Leghorn also qualifies. He originally served a supporting role to Henery Hawk. However, it was Foghorn who got the most attention, quickly morphing the Henery Hawk series into the Foghorn Leghorn series, where Henery himself sometimes showed up as a foil to Foghorn.
Brick Joke: Lots of Looney Tunes cartoons will have gags/characters that don't really add to the story until the big punchline later in the film. A lot of Road Runner cartoons run on this (a perfect example is a retractable wall from "Stop, Look and Hasten" (1954, Jones)). An example from "Little Red Walking Hood" (1938, Avery), which had Egghead walking past the action randomly:
Wolf: Hey, bud. Just a minute, bud. Just who the heck are you anyway??
Egghead: Who, me? I'm the hero of this picture! (clobbers wolf with a mallet)
The Dover Boys has a gag similar to the "Little Red Walking Hood" one: a strange, mustached man in a sailor suit wanders through the cartoon several times, looking like a walking Big-Lipped Alligator Moment and nothing else. That is until he ends up hooking up with the girl the heroes had been trying to save the entire cartoon.
At the beginning of "Often an Orphan", Charlie Dog sees a car coming up, then adopts Puppy-Dog Eyes, remarking, "Big, soulful eyes routine. Gets 'em every time." However, the car passes by without notice. At the end of the cartoon, Porky does the same thing, and it worked for him.
The vehicle that picked him up as a dog catcher truck.
In A Feud There Was, a boy mocks the hillbillies on the other side of the boundary line, prompting them to shoot "DO YA MEAN IT? onto the other side's wall. They shoot back to spell "YAS WE MEAN IT!".
In My Favorite Duck, Daffy, after finding out that duck season has opened, tries to make a shotgun-wielding Porky show mercy by holding up a white flag. Porky shoots, instantly putting holes in the flag spelling "START PRAYING DUCK".
The title card for the first Bunny & Claude cartoon We Rob Carrot Patches is spelled out with bullet holes.
In "An Egg Scramble", bank robber Pretty Boy Bagel looks out the window of his hide out and tells the cops that they can't get him. The cops fire at the window, leaving "Wanna bet?" in bullet holes on the window shade.
In Easter Yeggs, Bugs Bunny is fleeing the home of a Bratty Half-Pint whose family is a bunch of shotgun-toting thugs. As they fire at him, they leave "And Stay Out!" spelled on the door.
Bulletproof Vest: Daffy Duck advertises one in The Stupor Salesman adding, "Guaranteed to get your money back if it fails to work!"
Similarly, in the Duck Dodgers short where he meets Marvin the Martian, he has a disintegration proof vest that was indeed not disintegrated by Marvin's gun. Unfortunately, the rest of Daffy was not so lucky...
Butt-Monkey: Almost every single character falls victim to these two very painful tropes. Some, like Bugs Bunny, Tweety, and Roadrunner are smart enough to stay out of harm's way (though not always); others, like Daffy Duck (the greedy narcissist, not the manic screwball), Porky Pig, Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam, Sylvester, and Wile E. Coyote are the worst offenders.
The Porky Pig cartoon "Who's Who In The Zoo" (1942) concludes with an ice cream truck and its vendor being flagged down by a zoo's lion who presumably wants an ice cream bar. The vendor walks out of the scene towards him. We hear the lion roar, then we see the lion with a Balloon Belly and the vendor's hat, licking his lips and giving out with a very satisfied hiccup.
1943's "Puss 'N' Booty" starts off with house cat Rudolph hiccupping out the feathers of the last bird he ate. At the conclusion, when Rudolph turns up missing, his owner asks new bird Dickie Bird where he is. He says he doesn't but then he hiccups out Rudolph's ribbon.
Butt Sticker: in the cartoon "Rabbit Punch" Bugs Bunny lifts the Champ over his head, but can't hold him up for long and is crushed. When the Champ sits up, Bugs is flattened on his back.
Cactus Person: "Flowers for Madame" features a parade of anthropomorphic flowers. One entry is a cactus who gets laughed at by the float judges, but saves the day when a wildfire breaks out.
The Cameo: Bugs Bunny at the end of "Porky Pig's Feat" (in his only black and white appearance, no less), "Crazy Cruise," "The Goofy Gophers" and "Duck Amuck." Foghorn Leghorn at the end of "False Hare." Daffy at the end of "Sahara Hare" and "Apes Of Wrath." Elmer at the end of "Rabbit Rampage." Tweety in "No Barking" and "Heir Conditioned." Pepe Le Pew in "Dog Pounded."
Captain Ersatz: Foxy the Fox and Roxy the Fox from the first three Merrie Melodies shorts, who were very obviously patterned after Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse (he's even the page image for Captain Ersatz), but with pointier ears and a bushy tail. Walt Disney got wind of the ripoff and forced Rudy Ising to stop using the character. Foxy was immediately replaced by the character of Piggy note unrelated to the kid from "At Your Service, Madame" and "Pigs Is Pigs" for two shorts.
Can't You Read the Sign?: In A Day at the Zoo when a lady feeds the monkey a banana. The monkey scolds the lady "Can't You Read?" and points to the sign that reads "Do not feed the animals!"
Card-Carrying Villain: In some of the 30's shorts, especially the ones with Porky Pig as the protagonist, the series tended to fall back on generic, one-note villains whose only purpose was to be complete menaces to anyone they encountered, including such punny cyphers as I. Killum ("Polar Pals") Nick O'Teen ("Wholly Smoke") Ali Mode ("Little Beau Porky"), Boris Karloff (a burlesque of Frankenstein's Monster and Boris Karloff in "Porky's Road Race") the legion of cartoon bad guys in "A Cartoonist's Nightmare", Mr. Viper from "Milk and Money", and so on. As the franchise progressed and characters more willing to dish out more than they took like Bugs Bunny came about, the use of such self-proclaimed villains was downplayed in favor of more shaded, but still arrogant, wrongheaded or just plain dimwitted villains just begging to get their just desserts, such as the momma's boy Killer/Beaky the Buzzard, ill-tempered man child Yosemite Sam, the sociopathic but oddly polite Marvin the Martian, or the haughty Giovanni Jones. Many shorts just dropped the idea of having their villains in the antagonistic role at all and just had the characters in playful or ridiculous conflict with each other with the one on the wrong often getting the most screentime and the POV (i.e. many of the Foghorn Leghorn shorts, where Foggy and Barnyard Dawg's rivalry stems from the loudmouthed schnook's attempts to prove to the bratty Henery Hawk that the dog is a chicken and not him, Wile E. Coyote's and Sylvester's fanatic and ineffectual attempts to catch the Road Runner and Tweety, etc.).
Casanova Wannabe: Pepé Le Pew (often mixed in with Handsome Lech). In a subversion, Pepe does succeed in catching his unwilling target, whether implied (as seen in the endings to "Wild Over You," "A Scent of the Matterhorn," "Touche and Go," "Heaven Scent," "Two Scents Worth," and "Louvre Come Back To Me") or directly stated/shown (as seen in "The Cat's Bah" and "Scent-imental Over You")
Cat Stereotype: Sylvester is the codifier for the unsuccessful black and white cat stereotype.
Cats Are Mean: Ironically, Warner Bros. was much more egalitarian about this trope than other studios like Disney. Outright subverted in shorts like "The Night Watchmen", "We, The Animals Squeak", "Fresh Airedale", "Chow Hound" and the Porky/Sylvester trilogy.
Caught in a Snare: Foghorn Leghorn sees Henery building a snare trap and points out how a smart chicken like him would just jump over it... which is just what Henery wanted, as the spot Foghorn lands is where the trap door was.
Chameleon Camouflage: A gag in "Unnatural History" involves a chameleon who proudly showcases his ability to change his color over any background. Then, he comes to plaid and breaks down.
Character Focus: Because he's a spotlight-stealer by nature (literally, in one case), most adaptations post-1960 are less about the whole Looney Tunes ensemble and more about Daffy Duck finding himself!
While Daffy Duck would retain shades of his Cloud Cuckoo Lander persona for many years after, the Looney Tunes short "You Ought to Be in Pictures" is the first defining moment of his more devious, glory obsessed characterisation of later shorts, duping Porky into leaving Warner Bros so he can take his place in the spotlight. From this point on, Daffy would slowly evolve into a more ambitious and self-centered character, with "Rabbit Fire" cementing his transition into a jealous Butt-Monkey rival for Bugs.
Bugs Bunny himself started out as a character known at the studio as Happy Hare, who was identical in personality to Daffy Duck. He was given a calmer demeanor in the cartoon "Elmer's Candid Camera", but it wasn't until "A Wild Hare" that the character we now recognize as Bugs — the unflappable, wisecracking Karmic Trickster — started to gel. Specifically, it was the moment he steps up to the hunter and calmly and casually introduces himself with what would become his catchphrase, "What's up, Doc?"
The same cartoon was also the Click Moment for his longtime nemesis Elmer Fudd. He began life as Egghead, an odd-looking patsy who first acted as a Butt-MonkeyEveryman, then was treated as a walking Non Sequitur who would interrupt the action before providing the punchline for the closing gag. Again, "Elmer's Candid Camera" started establishing his present personality, as well as his distinctive voice, but it's in "Wild Hare" that Elmer as we now know him makes his first true appearance.
Chariot Pulled by Cats: In "Kiss Me Cat" (a sequel to "Feed the Kitty"), Marc Anthony tries to get Pussyfoot to catch the mouse that has been raiding the kitchen. Instead, the mouse hitches Pussyfoot to a wagon and uses him to get more food.
Chased Off into the Sunset: Played straight in the 1934 Merrie Melodies short "The Miller's Daughter". At the end of the cartoon, the lady of the house angrily lashes out at the cat, thinking it had broken a lamp. The two statues watch with pleasure as she chases the cat out of the house and into the distance.
Porky may exist as the only consistent example that rarely brings it upon himself.
Chirping Crickets: Occurs in "Show Biz Bugs" after Daffy dances to "Jeepers Creepers" and the audience is silent.
Daffy: Ingrates.
Christmas Episode: "The Shanty Where Santy Claus Lives", "Gift Wrapped"
Christmas Special: 1979's Bugs Bunny's Looney Christmas Tales, which featured three shorts: "Bugs Bunny's Christmas Carol" (featuring Yosemite Sam as, who else, Scrooge), "Freeze Frame" (a Road Runner short set at wintertime), and "Fright Before Christmas" (a Bugs/Taz short). The first and last segments were directed by Friz Freleng, while the Road Runner short was by Chuck Jones.
There was also a modernized speical called Bah, Humduck! A Looney Tunes Christmas, which is A Christmas Carol but with Daffy as Scrooge.
Except for Daffy Duck, a lot of Porky's old sidekicks seem to have disappeared. Anyone remember Gabby the Goat? How about Beans the Cat, Ham and Ex, and/or Oliver Owl? Oh, and what happened to Porky's love interest, Petunia Pig?
Throughout the 1930s and 40s, it seemed WB were experimenting with numerous new recurring characters and scenarios to use as a mainstream cast, as time passed the cast was narrowed down to a select few that were developed or renovated (e.g., Bugs, Daffy, Sylvester) while many other previous established characters got the shaft (e.g., Hubie and Bert, Charlie Dog). Others such as Henery Hawk and Porky himself also got taken Out of Focus somewhat, but still had minor roles on occasion.
Another prominent Expanded Universe character that few remember these days is Bugs's girlfriend, Honey Bunny. Honey Bunny got displaced by Lola Bunny when Space Jam came out.
Cigar-Fuse Lighting: In "Catty Cornered", Sylvester the Cat hides Tweety under an empty can. When the mobster Rocky finds Tweety under the can, he lights a firecracker with his cigarette and places under the can for Sylvester to find.
Circling Birdies: Often the result of falling anvils, falling boulders, mallet hits, falling pianos, fights covered up by the big, dusty ball of violence. Birdies don't always circle around the character's head — sometimes it's stars, sometimes it's brightly-colored dots or orbits, sometimes it's something completely different (like kings as seen in 1949's "Rabbit Hood.")
The 1951 Looney Tunes cartoon "Hare We Go" has Bugs Bunny join Christopher Columbus on his voyage across the Atlantic Ocean. When rations run short, Captain Columbus tries to make a meal of the rabbit. The chase is interrupted when the ship runs aground. Realizing that they've landed on the New World, Bugs exults, "Bugs Bunny discovers America!" However, Columbus brought the Spanish standard, and has planted it on a nearby hill. "Oh, Bugs-a Bunny? Who'sa discover America?" Shrugging off the slight, Bugs takes the L well: "No sense changing all the history books just for little ol' me."
Looney Tunes Cartoons: A recurring series of "mini-shorts" feature Marvin the Martian landing on a planet to claim for Mars, only for something strange to happen when he tries to plant the flag.
The 1950 Merrie Melodies cartoon "Bunker Hill Bunny" has Bugs Bunny on the side of the American Revolution, holding down a picket fort by himself. His opponent is Sam von Schamm the Hessian, manning a stonework fort by himself. Twice, the two combatants charge at each other, narrowly miss, and end up in the other's fort. There, they switch flags to denote the change in management.
Clip Show: "His Hare-Raising Tale", "This is a Life?", "Feather Bluster", "Tweet Dreams", "Hare-Abian Nights", and "Freudy Cat".
"Devil's Feud Cake" was probably the most blatant of all, as it contained very little original footage — it was actually a drastically cut down version of an episode of The Bugs Bunny Show.
Clothes Make the Superman: Subverted in "Fast and Furry-ous" (Wile E. Coyote wears a superhero outfit, only to learn the hard way that just because you wear it doesn't mean it grants you the ability to fly). Lampshaded in "Goofy Groceries," "Super Rabbit" and "Stupor Duck."
Although batman capes do allow Sylvester, Sam, and Wile E to fly at different points - but don't protect them from collisions of course.
Clothing Reflects Personality: The premise of "Bugs' Bonnets": Every time a new hat blows onto Bugs or Elmer, they change their personality to reflect the hat.
Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Daffy, especially in the earlier shorts. Even later he isn't the most stable of beings at times.
The demented flying fish in the Porky Pig film "The Sour Puss" certainly qualifies.
And literally, with the Dodo.
Some non-Tweety cartoons had Sylvester showing signs of mischievous irrationality (Back Alley Oproar, Doggone Cats, Kitty Kornered).
Early Bugs Bunny cartoons had him show signs of this too. This was tamed as his character evolved, though still makes the odd showing here and there.
Clown-Car Base: Sam's wood-burning stove holds a 1950s New Years' Eve party (and, in a later clip show, a late 1970s disco party), in "Rabbit Every Monday".
Coattail-Riding Relative: In "Hare Trigger", Bugs Bunny briefly hides from some rabbits waiting alongside the railroad tracks.
Bugs: '"A few of my poor relations. They're always ready for a touch."
Cold Opening: While not a cold opening in the strictest sense, many Road Runner shorts from the late '50s and early '60s (particularly "Beep Prepared" and "Hopalong Casualty") featured a bit of action before the title of the cartoon was displayed.
There's also "Porky's Romance", in which an introduction to Petunia Pig is made before the title card is shown. She keeps tripping over her lines and becomes increasingly desperate.
Cold Turkeys Are Everywhere: The basis of the Sylvester and Tweety cartoon "Birds Anonymous", in which Sylvester goes through this when he tries to give up eating Tweety.
In another Sylvester and Tweety cartoon, after various failed attempts to catch Tweety, Sylvester decides to swear off birds, after which a flock of birds perch themselves on Sylvester's shoulders. The cat gripes, "Sufferin' succotash! What a fine time I picked to go on a diet!"
Color Failure: A common occurrence with several characters:
A crow from "I'd Love To Take Orders From You" goes white with fright upon seeing Pa Scarecrow (Pa's son, Junior, is unaware, at first, that his dad was really the one that scared off the crow rather than himself).
In "Martian Through Georgia", after the taller man who was reading a newspaper that includes info about the green alien (later known as Q.T.) flees when he sees him nearby, the shorter man who was also reading about it turns around and notices him reading his copy of the paper. The shorter man goes ashen, including his clothes, stricken with fear and does the same.
In "Jumpin' Jupiter", Sylvester's entire body goes white with fright when he's on the edge of a moving saucer in space and sees just how high he is.
In "Boobs In The Woods", Daffy's body turns pale for a second, when Porky catches him attempting to ring a bell for a third time, which is used for alerting that a fish has taken the bait, which Daffy was using to fool Porky.
In "Bye, Bye Bluebeard", Porky's whole body goes pale at the sight of the eponymous, giant mouse when he encounters him at a doorway.
In the remake of "Horton Hatches The Egg", Horton's face turns pale as it becomes chalk-white, when confronted by Maysie about her egg and prepares to explain to her.
In the Censored 11 short "Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarves", this is one of two versions of the part where Prince Chawmin' attempts to revive So White with his "rosebud" kiss. In the freaky original version, after several frenetic efforts, he becomes so exhausted that his whole body goes ashen (although his clothes are already partly white, but most of his teeth are still gold), as they literally take the life out of him as he ages and he shrugs in defeat.
Company Cross References: A few of the shorts reference Casablanca, such as (to name one example) Bugs Bunny humming "As Time Goes By" in the 1944 short Hare Force. Both Looney Tunes and Casablanca were produced by Warner Bros..
Conversation Hog: Foghorn Leghorn is possibly the Trope Codifier. In at least two cartoons, Foghorn verbally beats down a character (even physically, in ignorance, at some points), not allowing them to speak, because he thought they were doing something malicious, or trying to take advantage, when it's actually the other way around. On more than one occasion, it really did end in a Big "SHUT UP!", with the victim whacking Foghorn over the head in frustration with whatever they were holding, or whatever was nearby.
In "Bedevilled Rabbit", Bugs visits Tasmania only to be caught by the Tasmanian Devil and (after learning that rabbit is the Tasmanian Devil's favorite food), and is tied up like a turkey with an apple in his mouth while Taz seasons him with pepper and salt. Bugs can however persuade Taz to untie him so Bugs can cook "wild turkey surprise" for him (which turns out to be sticks of dynamite arranged in a turkey shape).
In "Bill of Hare", the Tasmanian Devil escapes from a crate and subsequently tries to eat Bugs (who is incidentally just preparing carrots for himself), first by tossing Bugs into his own carrot stew, then roasting him over a fire tied to a cooking spit, and finally putting him between two sides of bread as a "rabbit sandwich". Each time Bugs can escape by persuading Taz that he is not doing the cooking right in some way or other.
In "Holiday for Drumsticks", Daffy Duck's hillbilly owners Pa and Ma decide to have Daffy for Thanksgiving. After Pa has chased him some time trying to kill him with an axe and a gun, Daffy implores Thomas the Turkey for help; Thomas (who has no real interest in saving Daffy, as without Daffy he might become dinner himself) pretends that he has got him a passage to Rio and sends him off with a ship's ticket and a suitcase to board the boat to safety. The gangway however leads straight into the oven (which Daffy thinks is his cabin). The episode ends with Ma vainly trying to kindle the oven besides a big pile of used matches, with Daffy blowing out the match from inside the oven every time Ma lights a new one.
Couch Gag: Merrie Melodies had perhaps one of the first examples in animation. From "You Don't Know What You're Doin'!" (1931) through "We're in the Money" (1933), the title card had a one-shot character from the featured short posing alongside the Merrie Melodies logo. When the cartoon ended, the same character stood in front of a drum branded with "A Merrie Melody" and shouted "So long, folks!" to the audience. Beginning with "I've Got to Sing a Torch Song", the opening gag was retired, and the ending gag was modified to have the character standing on a stage next to the "Merrie Melodies" logo. This continued until "Those Beautiful Dames" where the one-shot was replaced by a jester, now signing off with "That's All, Folks!".
"Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: In "Bee-Deviled Bruin" and "Bear Feat", Mama Bear tries to inform Henry of something, but Henry keeps shouting at her to "shut up". If he hadn't shut her up and let her talk, the plots would have been avoided.
Country Matters: A very stealthy pun regarding the cartoon title Daffy Duck Hunt. Say it out loud. Appropriately titled, since Daffy's quite a pest in that short.
In "Bugs Bunny and the Three Bears", Bugs flirts with Mama Bear to escape harm from the other Bears. But he does too good a job, and she becomes the Abhorrent Admirer and eventually has her way with him resulting in this trope.
In "The Super Snooper", the Femme Fatale turns out the lights and we hear kissing noises. When Daffy Duck turns them back on he has lipstick marks all over his face which she gently wipes off.
In "A Gander at Mother Goose", a cartoon based on various children's rhymes, features a segment with Jack and Jill. When the narrator gets to the part about Jack falling down the hill, nothing happens. He repeats the line a few more times before Jack rushes back down, his face smeared with lipstick, tells the narrator to forget about going up the hill to fetch a pail of water, and rushes eagerly back up the hill.
The trope also happens at the end of "Katnip Kollege" during the iris out when Kitty Bright covers Johnny Cat with kisses leaving lipstick marks on him.
Every cat painted with stripes (Penelope Cat, Sylvester, etc.) experiences this when Pepe Le Pew encounters them smothering them with kisses.
Cranium Chase: On the short "Mouse Menace", a robot cat loses its head. It feels around for it but picks up a toaster and puts it on for a while before eventually stumbling into its own head.
Similarly, "A Scent of the Matterhorn" featured the crew members' names written in faux French.
"Nutty News" features upside down opening credits.
"Tortoise Beats Hare" has Bugs Bunny reading the credits before reaching the title and freaking out.
Crossover: Sylvester, Elmer Fudd, Mama Bear, Henery Hawk and Porky Pig all appear in Daffy's The Scarlet Pumpernickel. Daffy appears in Foghorn Leghorn's The High And The Flighty.
Daffy and Taz are paired together in Ducking the Devil, their only classic cartoon together.
This is a Life? features Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam and Granny. It is the only Golden Age short to feature all three of the main human characters.
There is also the crossover with Jonah Hex featuring Yosemite Sam and Foghorn Leghorn. It's one of the few cases where Looney Tunes is Darkerand Edgier
Crying a River: At the end of the Merrie Melodies cartoon "The Coo-Coo Nut Grove", everyone in the restaurant sadly cry so much that they flood the restaurant with their tears.
Crying Wolf: In "Westward Whoa", Ham and Ex the pups pretend Indians are attacking Porky, Beans the Cat and the other settlers. After a lecture from Beans, they try it again, but end up getting attacked by an actual Indian. None of the adults believe them when they run back to the camp that they're attacking—until the indians start firing arrows at them anyway.
The 1938 short Have You Got Any Castles? opens with a cuckoo clock coming out and signaling the time for the book denizens to come out and play. At the end, the bird comes out again to signal the time to go, but its beak has been wrapped shut so Rip Van Winkle can finally get some sleep.
In the 1938 short A Feud There Was, a clan of hillbillies have a rustic cuckoo clock in their bedroom. After the bird comments on their hurricane-strength snoring, he wakes them all up by popping open a jug of moonshine.
In the 1945 short Holiday for Shoestrings, a bunch of tiny elves come out of hiding to help an old shoemaker. One elf emerges from a cuckoo clock, and the bird inside is seen Bound and Gagged.
The 1946 short Book Revue has a similar beginning, only the bird is now stone-cold plastered while shouting "Cuckoo! Cuckoo! It's twelve o'clock!".
Cut a Slice, Take the Rest: This gag appears frequently, with various characters, and often with cake. In one early case, Porky Pig goes to a hospital with a stomachache from eating too much cake—the X-ray shows a mostly-uncut cake with a slice taken out, indicating that Porky took the large portion of cake after a slice was cut for him.
mid-'60s, is about Speedy Gonzales and Road Runner racing each other. The cartoon ends with Sylvester and Wile E. Coyote crossing the finish line instead.
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