Everybody loves Warner Bros. cartoons. Bugs Bunny. Porky Pig. Daffy Duck. The Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote. We know them, we love them.
But for every cartoon character Warner Bros. brought us, there were more than a few that just never worked out. These are the characters that never connected with the audience, the characters that just weren’t funny, or in watching them really cost us seven minutes of our lives that we’ll never get back.
Today, I’ve collected some video clips of various Warner Bros. cartoon characters – these are the ones that had a few tryouts, a few appearances… and then just vanished.
Such as…
BEANS THE CAT
Beans the Cat debuted in a film called I Haven’t Got a Hat, an attempt to create an “Our Gang” animated series with funny anthromorphic animals. Beans only lasted for a few cartoons, but one of the other characters who debuted in that cartoon – some swine named Porky Pig – lasted much longer.
SNIFFLES THE MOUSE
This character was one of Warner Bros’ few attempts to create a “cute” character. All I need to say is that Chuck Jones was arguably one of the greatest Warner Bros. cartoon directors of all time. Kinda wish he wasn’t the person behind these saccharine Sniffles cartoons, though…
COOL CAT and COLONEL RIMFIRE
In the late 1960’s, Warner Bros. was one of the only animation studios that were still providing 7-minute cartoons for movie theaters. But by the 1960’s, in order to crank out a 6-minute WB cartoon every couple of weeks, the WB staffers went so deep into “limited animation” that these episodes almost play out like animated radio dramas.
BUNNY AND CLAUDE
I don’t care how much money the movie Bonnie and Clyde made. There’s no excuse for creating a rabbit-based series based on the 1930’s outlaw bandits. And there’s no excuse to make Robert McKimson draw these cartoons. And there’s no excuse…
BABBIT AND CATSELLO
Well, apparently there was precedent for the Bunny and Claude fiasco. Cause look what we have here. One of a series of cartoons featuring two animated kittycats who think they’re the reincarnations of Abbott and Costello.
RALPH PHILLIPS
Now this is the kind of cartoon that Chuck Jones should be remembered for. Ralph Phillips has some of the most vivid and vibrant daydreams out there, and Jones has a lot of surreal fun with this character. I’m kinda sorry that there’s only a couple of these cartoons that were ever made.
HUBIE AND BERTIE
These mice appeared in about half a dozen Warner Bros. cartoons, and their schtick was to give their adversary – mostly a feline named Claude Cat – a serious mental mind-twist.
CECIL TURTLE
Cecil Turtle only appeared in three Warner Bros. cartoons, mostly in comic retellings of Aesop’s fable of the Tortoise and the Hare. But take note – of all the adversaries Bugs Bunny has faced in his animated career, Cecil is the only one who consistently beat Bugs Bunny at his own game in every appearance.
MERLIN THE MAGIC MOUSE
Another late 1960’s attempt by Warner Bros. to create a new character, this series featured voice work by Daws Butler. That would explain why Merlin’s assistant, “Second Banana,” sounds just like Elroy Jetson.
So what do you say after a blog post featuring old Warner Bros. cartoons?
Easy…
Chuck The Writer 
I LOVE the Warner Brothers characters & cartoons. Thanks for sharing Chuck – have a great day and Labor Day Weekend!
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Cecil the turtle was a great character, though his appearances were few.
I also really liked that adorable kitten that was usually paired with a bulldog (the internet tells me her name was Pussyfoot)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dA7yjRGmzmo
But I think my all time favorite Looney Tunes character was Beaky Buzzard
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7ygJ8Z0jfI
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Anyone remember in A Chrismas Story when Ralph daydreamed in class?? Tell me that’s not a bow to Ralph Phillips
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There are few other forgotten characters that I consider worth mentioning. They are all Bugs Bunny’s girlfriends and/or wives.
– a wife of Happy Rabbit – seen in Porky’s Hare Hunt from 1939, in one moment when Porky is about to shoot Happy Rabbit he shows him a photo of him and his wife surrounded ‘few’ children
– Daisy Lou – a girl bunny Bugs Bunny loves in ‘Hare Splitter’. Basically she looked like Bugs with added female features. In 1990’s updated, they added her hair to make her easily distinguishable from Honey Bunny that I’ll describe in a moment
– Lula Belle Bunny – appeared in few comic stories in late 1940’s and early 1950’s
– Millicent – a two-tons female bunny from Russia whom Bugs Bunny runs away from in ‘Rabbit Romeo’. Later appeared in ‘Bugs Bunny’s Thanksgiving Diet’. She’s been thrown out of the window and now ‘her iz getting vorse and vorse’…
– Mrs Bugs Bunny – Bugs’ wife that appeared in ‘Hold the lion please’. She wears the pants in this family and dominates over Bugs…
– Honey Bunny whom we can consider a ‘proto-Lola’ (and basically Lola Bunny is just an updated version of her). A girlfriend of Bugs Bunny that later became his wife. Created too late to apppear along with her boyfriend in animation. Her appearances were limited to comic stories, merchandise and shows in theaters. Her ‘life story’ is so long that instead of writing it here I’ll just put a link to a biography of her I wrote some time ago: http://www.honeybunnyworld.com/1,en,articles,title.html
Daffy Duck has also had few love interests, the most notable are:
– Mrs Daffy Duck – just like Mrs Bugs Bunny, she dominates over her husband. She appeared in few shorts under different names and nicks (Daphne Duck, Honey Bunch, My Love)
– Melissa Duck, a girlfriend of Daffy Duck who, just like Honey Bunny, got updated and now she appears in The Looney Tunes Show under the name of Tina Russo Duck (though some artists state that they are ‘completely different’ and ‘completely unrelated’ characters)
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