On April 19, 1930, American cinemas were introduced to Bosko for the first time, a young character (and a racist stereotype, to be fair) with which Warner, one of the major studios, wanted to dive into the lucrative business of animated shorts that was working so well for Walt Disney. For the name, they chose to make a parody and homage to the mogul, changing his “Silly Symphonies” to “Looney Tunes”. No one imagined that a few years later Bosko would be completely forgotten and his place would be taken by Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky, and dozens of supporting characters that formed the comedic childhood of several generations filled with bumps, hits, slapstick, and a lot, a lot of pain.
That’s all folks!
The Looney Tunes shorts won five Oscars, were more famous than Mickey Mouse himself, and showed that, beyond Disney’s fabulously animated cuteness, there was a whole world. First in cinema and then on television, millions and millions of children grew up with the Coyote falling off a cliff, Daffy being shot by Elmer, and, why not, Michael Jordan also learning to be a Looney in the immortal -though not necessarily good- Space Jam. The problem is that it seems the faucet has suddenly run dry.
In 2025, Bugs Bunny and company remain icons, but that’s all. Their iconicity is the only thing left in a world that has turned its back on them due to a handful of bad decisions made in offices that have failed to maintain their shining star in pop culture. Someone at Warner thought it was a fabulous idea to make a second part of Space Jam by mixing all their IPs and ignoring the fun that made the first part famous, and, as punishment for their poor numbers, condemned the already sadly famous Coyote vs ACME to oblivion (which will finally be released in theaters, we’ll see with what impact).
To add more ignominy, Max -future HBO Max… again- has decided to remove several shorts from its platform without prior notice, using the excuse that no one is interested in animation. In the United States, of course, in Spain they didn’t even get uploaded! In other words: they want the Looney Tunes to fade into the mist of nostalgia through blows, to ignore them to take away their place in popular culture, to forget about their existence to replace them with characters of their choice. They are bothersome because their humor is simply based on a perfectly crafted tempo and almost synchronous gags, demonstrating that animated violence, no matter what psychologists and educators say, is incredibly funny. And it is up to us to take care of them.
The Day Looney Exploded
The worst part is that the audience, increasingly focused on FOMO and paying attention to marketing, has ignored every attempt to bring them back to life. In a film world controlled by bankers and economists, if The Day the Earth Exploded, the movie starring Lucas and Porky, had been a huge success, by 2026 we would be flooded with Looney Tunes, to the point of exhaustion. However, it was a small failure. Not enough to bury the franchise forever, but enough to somehow justify Zaslav’s actions, the CEO of Warner, against animation.
And yet, if you ask anyone over 30, they will tell you that they adore the Looney Tunes. We watched them on television for years, when TV stations used them to fill gaps, and we learned to love them later, with masterpieces like What’s Opera, Doc?, Duck Amuck, or any of the infallible Road Runner shorts. Always imaginative, always hilarious, always with a visual imagination that could move mountains. However, with the shift to streaming, the tradition of watching Looney shorts has faded until it became “an old person’s thing.”
But it doesn’t matter that 70 years have passed: anyone can see that they remain immortal. Because the punches, the beatings, the gunshots, and the perfectly choreographed falls are funny at any age, and it is in our hands to teach this to new generations. That between Skidibi Toilets and the hours of nothing that fill streamers, there can also be a space for the Looney Tunes. That what is good knows no generations or ages. That the foundation of ninety percent of current humor is there. That if anyone deserves to be saved from the infallible destruction machine of streaming, it is Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. It is in our hands that they do not end up as a curiosity of past times. Please.
