YMMV / Robert McKimson

• Retroactive Recognition: One of McKimson's later animators was Ted Bonnicksen. After Warner Bros. closed its theatrical animation studio for the last time, he was hired to work on the cult animated film Fritz the Cat. He died shortly after its 1972 release, working on the film despite suffering leukemia.
• Seasonal Rot:
  • It is agreed that McKimson's shorts started to go downhill after the 1953 shutdown (released from 1955 onward) due to the loss of animators such as Rod Scribner, Phil DeLara, and Charles McKimson which caused the animation quality of his later shorts to plummet due to having to work with less experienced and talented animators which caused the gags to start to lose their touch as a result. There were also an increase in TV parody shorts as a crutch. around that time which were not received by fans, considering them to be too dated to be actually funny. While not seen as outright bad with shorts such as "Dime to Retire" and "The High and the Flighty" being well received, they are agreed to be a step down from his more popular 1946-55 (produced before the 1953 shutdown) period.
  • A small number have argued the decline in quality happened as early as 1951 when Tedd Pierce replaced Warren Foster as the main writer for the McKimson unit, causing the shorts to start to lose the comedic charm that Foster had brought to the unit.
  • The Looney Tunes shorts he directed for the DePatie-Freleng and Seven Arts eras are seen as continuing the decline due to being responsible for the majority of the infamous Daffy/Speedy pairing shorts, the gags getting even weaker, and the animation degrading even further due to lower budgets. That said, it says something when McKimson's efforts were still often regarded as the relatively better shorts of that era.