Looney Tunes (late 1964-1969)

**Looney Tunes and (its spin-off Merrie Melodies)** is an American animated short film theatrical series by Warner Brothers.

Due to the shutdown of Warner Bros. Cartoons, which produced the original *Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies* cartoons, in 1963, these cartoons had to be outsourced to DePatie-Freleng Enterprises between 1964 and 1967 with smaller budgets (though eleven Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner cartoons were outsourced to Format Films, a studio specializing in made-for-TV animation, which handled three other shorts during a transition period in 1967). Under the supervision of William L. Hendricks, and now under the name Warner Bros.-Seven Arts, the studio reopened in 1967 with even smaller budgets and would close down for the last time in 1969 after Kinney National Services acquired the company and, looking to cut costs, axed the cartoon studio. Even though most of the original *Looney Tunes* shorts were well received by critics and fans, and the shorts of late 1962-1964 (and to a lesser extent, the 1930-mid-1933 era), while not entirely horrible, received weaker to okay reception, the same can't be said for these cartoons (along with the late 1933-1935 era), which were panned (the DePatie-Freleng Enterprises era, on the other hand, however, got positive-to-mostly mixed reviews) by critics and fans alike. This article will be talking about the *Looney Tunes* cartoons from *"Pancho's Hideaway"* to *"Injun Trouble"*.

## Why This Era Is Anything But Looney

1. **To get Bugs Bunny out of his Rabbit Hole**, the main problem with this era is how it was heavily plagued by budget problems, which only got worse as the years progressed.
	* Because of said budget problems, the studios were only allowed to use a minimal set of characters, most notably Daffy, Speedy, Wile E. Coyote, the Road Runner and occasionally Porky, Sylvester, and Granny. As a result, many other popular and long-time favorite Looney Tunes characters like Foghorn Leghorn, Tweety, Pepé Le Pew, Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam, Marvin the Martian, Taz, and even Bugs Bunny himself are nowhere to be found in this era, while both Elmer and Pepé Le Pew got retired before this era.
		+ To add insult to injury, DePatie-Freleng Enterprises wanted to bring Bugs Bunny back, but they were forced to stick to those same set of characters.
			- By 1967, Daffy and Speedy were the only classic characters left. To replace the remaining characters, director Alex Lovy had to create a new breed of characters, the most notable being Cool Cat, Merlin the Magic Mouse and Colonel Rimfire, many of whom were hated by fans, animation buffs, and even director Robert McKimson, with most of their criticism being targeted at their bland and unfunny nature, how they often tried too hard to be "hip" and "relevant" to the demographic of the 1960s era (especially Cool Cat), and how they barely had anything in common with the classic Looney Tunes and their classic characterizations but rather more in vein with every other television cartoon character of the era. Only Cool Cat, Colonel Rimfire, and Spooky made any prominent appearances after the Seven Arts era, and the rest either were reduced to silent cameos or not appearing at all.
				* One particular Looney Tunes character introduced during the Seven-Arts era, Cool Cat, is also criticized for being a pale knock-off of *DePatie-Freleng*’s Pink Panther, *Hanna-Barbera*’s Snagglepuss and *Looney Tunes*’ own Bugs Bunny, but without any of the humor and charm of all three characters, hence one of the many reasons why Cool Cat is not well-received among fans and animation buffs, through not as bad as Buddy.
2. Terribly limited animation, much like the post-1959 Paramount cartoons that is a massive downgrade from the earlier *Looney Tunes* cartoons and to a lesser extent, the late 1962-1964 era. It ranges from being bland to plain uncanny, creepy-looking, and/or simplistic. It bottoms out with the Rudy Larriva-directed Format Films cartoons and the Alex Lovy-directed Warner Bros.-Seven Arts cartoons, which had animation quality that wouldn't feel out of place on television of the time.
	* Robert McKimson-directed Warner Bros.-Seven Arts cartoons did have slightly better animation, but still.
	* The backgrounds and character designs are noticeably staler and cheaper than before, making the cartoons feel something out of a *Pink Panther* or UPA cartoon than a Looney Tunes cartoon (Co-incidentally, DePatie-Freleng Enterprises, which produced these cartoons, also produced the Pink Panther cartoons and its various "spin-offs" such as *The Inspector* and *The Ant and The Aardvark* at the same time). As the years progressed, the backgrounds and character designs became increasingly cheaper and staler, making the cartoons feel less like a Looney Tunes cartoon and more something out of a Hanna-Barbera, Jay Ward, or Total Television cartoon following the Seven-Arts era, not helping were William Lava's uninteresting music score and the overuse of Hanna-Barbera sound effects enhancing these "cheapened" animated cartoons of the Seven-Arts era.
3. Limited stock sound effects (mostly from the Hanna-Barbera library), which got worse during the Seven Arts cartoons. "The Great Carrot Train Robbery" is most infamous for the limited amount of sound effects used.
4. The "abstract" intro that was first used on "Now Hear This" (keep in mind that this was designed just for abstract, one-shot cartoons) mostly consists of moving lines, showing how low the budget of this era (along with the late 1962-1964 era) was.
	* Adding onto that, it replaced the "bullseye" opening and closing title cards and uses a very "clunky" version of "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down". The closing title card theme is a cut version of William Lava's theme. This theme would get "lighter and calmer" variants during the Seven Arts cartoons with fewer instruments. Additionally, *Merrie Melodies* no longer used its "Merrily We Roll Along" theme.
5. Although the DePatie-Freleng era is considered to be the least bad out of these eras of this period, most of the shorts from said era (whether good or bad) tend to have their plots consist entirely of mishmashes of animation and gags from older, better cartoons from the classic era:
	* "Pancho's Hideaway" re-uses scene of Speedy coming out of the hole from "Mexican Boarders"
	* "The Wild Chase" re-uses animation and gags from the Chuck Jones-directed Road Runner shorts "Wild About Hurry", "Zoom and Bored", and "Hopalong Casualty".
	* "Cats and Bruises" re-uses animation and gags from the Speedy/Sylvester cartoons "Here Today, Gone Tamale" and "The Pied Piper of Guadalupe" and the Tweety/Sylvester cartoons "Canary Row", "Dog Pounded", and "A Pizza Tweety-Pie".
	* "Mucho Locos" re-uses animation and gags from the Daffy Duck shorts "Deduce, You Say", "Robin Hood Daffy", and "China Jones" and Speedy Gonzales shorts "Tortilla Flaps" and "Mexicali Shmoes".
	* "Road to Andalay" re-uses animation from "The Jet Cage" (aka the short that also started the downfall of the classic era of "Looney Tunes").
	* Just like "To Beep or Not to Beep", both "Zip Zip Hooray!" and "Roadrunner a Go-Go" are just nothing but made up entirely from re-used footage of the unsold Adventures of the Road-Runner pilot.
	* "Rushing Roulette" re-uses animation from Chuck Jones' "Zip 'n Snort", and the two scenes of Wile falling down the canyon reused footage from "Beep Prepared".
	* "A-Haunting We Will Go" re-uses animation and gags from "Duck Amuck", even recycling the iconic "mutant Daffy". This cartoon also uses recycled scenes from the Bugs Bunny cartoons, "Broom-Stick Bunny" and "A Witch's Tangled Hare".
	* "Mexican Mousepiece" re-uses the "flying sequence" animation from "Stupor Duck".
	* "Feather Finger" re-uses the shooting gag from "Daffy's Inn Trouble".
6. Tons of animation errors.
	* In "Cats and Bruises" during a brief shot showing the bulldogs in the dog pound, the bulldogs appear to be completely static and their mouths do not move in sync with the barking sounds.
	* In "Mucho Locos", Señor Vulturo's color scheme is black, instead of blue in his first appearance, "Tortilla Flaps". In addition to that, "Mucho Locos" also suffers from **other** animation errors too and not just this, *all thanks to redrawn animation*.
	* In "Shot and Bothered", where Wile E. Coyote does not disappear after a boulder falls on him for the first time.
	* In "Out and Out Rout", Wile E. Coyote's eyebrows keep changing color while flying.
	* Most importantly, in "See Ya Later Gladiator", the same background for two shots of Daffy walking to a window was used, **even though he's in a *completely different* room both times**.
7. Very weak writing compared to the classic era, to the point that some of them don't even stay true to the show, particularly during the Seven-Arts era.
	* Like the previous late-1962 to 1964 era, the cartoons of these eras tend to overuse way too much dialogue-based humor which often come off as dry, unfunny, talky and dreary as opposed to relying a lot on physical humor which the series is best known for, mainly due to budget cuts in the animation forcing the directors to rely more on dialogue as opposed to full animation, with the most of the Seven-Arts era cartoons being the **absolute worst** offenders of such. The only exceptions of cartoons which still rely on full animation for the sake of physical humor during this era are the Road Runner cartoons (yes, even including the Larriva Eleven), the one-shot cartoon "Rabbit Stew and Rabbits Too!" (which is completely nonverbal) and "Fistic Mystic".
	* The DePatie-Freleng Enterprises and Format Films eras also notably lacked the one-off cartoons, unlike the Seven-Arts era.
8. These three eras have logic that makes no sense, even for *Looney Tunes'* standards.
	* Wile E. Coyote drowning in a birdbath fountain in "Chaser on the Rocks".
	* Daffy as a big-game hunter hunting a bear in "Supressed Duck", when it should've been the other way round.
	* In "Quacker Tracker", Speedy's group manages to catch Daffy's hat on fire by squirting hot sauce at it.
	* Sometimes, gags can make no sense even by *Looney Tunes* standards because of animation errors; for example in "Speedy Ghost to Town" where when Speedy activates the bomb/phone trap with Daffy on it and it explodes, but the phone and bomb set disappears from the shot rather than being destroyed, and Daffy appears to be unharmed from said explosion.
	* In the ending of "See Ya Later Gladiator", Nero is brought to the 20th Century, and then everyone acts as though he's trapped there, with no one explaining why they can't just use the time machine to send him back to Ancient Rome.
	* In the ending of "Injun Trouble", Cool Cat cuts an outline of himself to leave the saloon into a somewhat-fittingly white void.
9. Rudy Larriva's eleven Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote cartoons (collectively nicknamed "The Larriva Eleven"; however, no disrespect to the deceased) have been considered by many as the worst Road Runner cartoons due to poor animation, weak gags, and repetitive music. Notably, these cartoons lack the famous Latin phrases gag that was used in the previous Road Runner cartoons, recycle the same "coyote fall" and explosion scenes, and often break the "laws" of
10. Chuck Jones' Road Runner cartoons.
11. Some of the *Looney Tunes* characters suffered Flanderization during these eras;
	* Daffy suffers the **absolute worst** case of flanderization in this era, even more so than any other *Looney Tunes* characters, or his persona from the Bugs Bunny shorts (which is when his flanderization started), and one of the worst character derailments in the whole franchise. He went from a screwball, yet a mischievous prankster in the original cartoons to a grouchy, humorless sadist whom is basically just a Hate Sink Knock Off Of Yosemite Sam but without his charm or likability and does anything to get what he wants and doesn't care about anyone else. Most of the Daffy vs. Speedy shorts such as "Assault and Peppered", "Well Worn Daffy", "Chili Corn Corny", "Mucho Locos", "The Astroduck" and "Snow Excuse", as well as "Tease for Two" (Daffy's only pairing with the Goofy Gophers) and "Suppressed Duck" are the worst offenders for using this characterization of Daffy as examples. Most of these show they had Daffy play at his absolute worst.
		+ To add salt to the wound, the butchery of Daffy's character in this era was first done by both Friz Freleng and Robert McKimson, two veteran directors who previously worked on the Daffy Duck cartoons in the classic era, as opposed to new writers/directors who never worked on any of the original *Looney Tunes* cartoons before, all because DePatie-Freleng Enterprises needed a new antagonist for Speedy Gonzales to replace other *Looney Tunes* antagonists who have been retired from this era, such as Sylvester and Yosemite Sam.
	* In "The Larriva Eleven", the Road Runner has changed from an innocent and lovable bird into a sadistic and malicious annoyance who tries to harm the Coyote without going "Beep beep". This flanderization is also carried over to Robert McKimson's shorts (albeit to a much lesser extent, at least), for example, in "Rushing Roulette" **he throws the Coyote off a mountain on a trolley** and in "Sugar and Spies" **he sends the Coyote to the moon using a *remote control at the end*.**
	* In "The Larriva Eleven", Wile E. Coyote went from a hungry genius coyote with a fanatical desire to eat the Road Runner into becoming a dumb coyote who always ends up constantly making a fool of himself due to his incompetence even worse than before.
		+ Although, unlike the Road Runner, Wile E. still retains his old personality from the Chuck Jones originals in Robert McKimson's shorts "Rushing Roulette" and "Sugar and Spies".
	* Speedy Gonzales, despite being the most likable major character of this era while most cartoons in these eras still continue to portray him as the likable "Fastest Mouse in All of Mexico" he is best known for, depending on the mechanics of the plots he appears in, particularly in the Daffy/Speedy cartoons, he can either be bland and pointless to the point that he could easily be replaced by just any Looney Tunes character and the plot wouldn't change in the slightest (such as in most of the Seven-Arts era cartoons such as "Rodent to Stardom" and "See Ya Later Gladiator") or a flat-out sadistic jerk like in "It's Nice to Have a Mouse Around the House", "Swing Ding Amigo" and "The Music Mice-Tro" (though still nowhere near as bad as his incarnation in "Mexican Cat Dance").
	* Sam Cat, Sylvester's frenemy who appeared in the cartoons "Trick or Tweet" and "Mouse and Garden", went from a dimwitted but snarky and hilarious feline with a Frank Fontaine-esque voice in the classic era to be more incompetent and dumber than he previously was in this era. Notably in "Merlin the Magic Mouse", he fails to see through Merlin's fake moustache disguise even though it's blatantly obvious the fake moustache does not conceal his mouse identity.
12. Due to the studios only being allowed to use a minimal set of characters, this era shows some awkwardly mismatched character pairings among the classic characters, most notably the Daffy Duck and Speedy Gonzales pairings. The problem is that unlike past character pairings, such as Daffy Duck/Porky Pig or Elmer Fudd, Sylvester/Tweety, Bugs Bunny/Elmer Fudd or Yosemite Sam, and Sylvester/Speedy during the first few years of the era, the Daffy/Speedy pairings are a weird mismatch due to poor chemistry between the duo.
	* To add salt to the wound, during these eras (especially during the Format Films and Seven-Arts eras), Daffy is always constantly shoehorned needlessly into every single cartoon which Speedy Gonzales appears in since "Moby Duck", regardless of how unneeded he is in each cartoon Speedy appears in such as "The Spy Swatter" for example.
13. Uninteresting music from William Lava (again, no disrespect to the deceased) that doesn't sound like it would belong in *Looney Tunes*, mainly due to poor William "Bill" Lava being forced to work with a much smaller orchestra than he previously did in the late 1962-1964 era, hence leaving William Lava in a much more unfair situation than ever before. What's worse is that in "The Larriva Eleven", all of the music would be repeated for all, but the first short.
	* Walter Greene's music in the last few cartoons in the DePatie-Freleng era is a bit better than William Lava's work but is a bit aged and still isn't as memorable as anything Carl Stalling or Milt Franklyn had previously done, albeit still passable at best.
		+ Same goes for Herman Stein's score for "Mucho Locos", Irving Gertz's score for "Daffy Rents" and Frank Perkins' score for "Quacker Tracker".
14. These cartoons from these eras have *barely* any originality, as most of the cartoons' plots in these eras (especially the DFE era) are rip-offs or rehashes of older, better cartoons from the classic era. For examples:
	* "Moby Duck" is a rip-off of the 1951 Sylvester cartoon "Canned Feud" and the 1956 Bugs Bunny/Yosemite Sam cartoon, "Rabbitson Crusoe".
	* "Assault and Peppered" is a rip-off of the 1950 Bugs Bunny/Yosemite Sam cartoon "Bunker Hill Bunny".
	* "Well Worn Daffy" is a rip-off of the 1955 Bugs Bunny/Yosemite Sam cartoon "Sahara Hare".
	* "Corn on the Cop" is a rehash of the 1956 Daffy Duck/Porky Pig cartoon "Rocket Squad".
	* "Tease for Two" is a rip-off of the 1955 Goofy Gophers/Elmer Fudd cartoon "Pests for Guests".
	* "The Astroduck" is a rip-off of the 1951 Bugs Bunny/Yosemite Sam cartoon "The Fair-Haired Hare".
	* "A-Haunting We Will Go" is a rip-off of the 1956 Bugs Bunny/Witch Hazel cartoon, "Broom-Stick Bunny" and the 1962 Bugs Bunny/Yosemite Sam cartoon, "Shishkabugs".
	* "Mexican Mousepiece" is a rip-off of the 1950 Bugs Bunny/Yosemite Sam cartoon "Big House Bunny".
	* Much like "Nuts and Volts", both "The Solid Tin Coyote" and "Daffy Rents" are rip-offs of the 1953 Bugs Bunny/Elmer Fudd cartoon "Robot Rabbit".
	* Both "Just Plane Beep" and "Flying Circus" are rip-offs of the 1964 Bugs Bunny/Yosemite Sam cartoon "Dumb Patrol".
	* Both "A Squeak in the Deep" and "Hippydrome Tiger" are rip-offs of racing cartoons from the classic era, particularly of the 1963 Bugs Bunny/Daffy Duck cartoon "The Million Hare".
	* "Swing Ding Amigo" is a rip-off of the 1957 Speedy Gonzales cartoon "Tabasco Road".
	* Much like "Freudy Cat", "A Taste of Catnip" is a rip-off of the 1959 Sylvester/Tweety cartoon, "Tweet Dreams".
	* "Daffy's Diner" is a rip-off of the 1946 Sniffles cartoon "Hush My Mouse".
	* "Rodent to Stardom" is a rip-off of the 1956 and 1957 Bugs Bunny/Daffy Duck cartoons, "A Star Is Bored" and "Show Biz Bugs".
	* "Go Away Stowaway" is a rip-off of the 1942 Daffy Duck/Conrad Cat, the 1951 and 1956 Tweety/Sylvester, and the 1962 Daffy Duck cartoons, "Conrad the Sailor", "Tweety's S.O.S.", "Tugboat Granny", and "Good Noose".
	* "Big Game Haunt" is a rehash of the 1940 one-shot cartoon, "Ghost Wanted".
	* "Feud with a Dude" is a rip-off of the 1936 one-shot, 1938 Egghead, and 1950 Bugs Bunny cartoons, "When I Yoo Hoo", "A Feud There Was", and "Hillbilly Hare".
	* "3 Ring Wing-Ding" is a rip-off of the 1940 one-shot, 1946 Bugs Bunny, and 1955 Tweety/Sylvester cartoons, "Circus Today", "Racketeer Rabbit", and "Tweety's Circus".
	* "See Ya Later Gladiator" is a rip-off of the 1955 Bugs Bunny/Yosemite Sam cartoon and 1955 Bugs Bunny cartoon, "Roman Legion-Hare" and "Knight-Mare Hare".
	* "Shamrock and Roll" is a rip-off of the 1951 Porky Pig cartoon, "The Wearing of the Grin".
	* "Cool Cat" is a rehash of the 1940 Bugs Bunny debut/Elmer Fudd cartoon, "A Wild Hare".
	* Some cartoons from this era *even go as far* as to rip-off **other** classic-era cartoons from other studios, hence more proof that these eras *barely* have any originality. For example,
		+ "Suppressed Duck" is a rip-off of the 1955 Donald Duck/Humphrey Bear cartoon "Beezy Bear".
		+ "Snow Excuse" is a rip-off of the 1964 *Tom and Jerry* cartoon, "Snowbody Loves Me".
		+ "Merlin the Magic Mouse" is a rip-off of 1965 short from the same franchise, "Haunted Mouse".
		+ "Feather Finger" is a rip-off of the 1961 cartoon from the same aforementioned franchise again, "Tall in the Trap".
15. Most of the cartoons are either unfunny, repetitive, frustrating, or boring. A lot of gags in this era are reused from the classic cartoons, most notably with "Tease for Two" and "3 Ring Wing-Ding".
16. Notably slow pacing and timing, causing most of the jokes in these cartoons to fall flat, with The Larriva Eleven and most of the Seven-Arts era cartoons being the worst offenders of such.
17. They didn't even bother to hire Mel Blanc to voice any of the Seven Arts cartoons aside from the Daffy/Speedy shorts, the one-shot cartoon "Chimp & Zee", and the two Bunny and Claude shorts. Instead, Larry Storch joined the cast and voiced most of the characters in these shorts. While he wasn't a terrible actor and tried his best, he just wasn't as funny as Mel Blanc. Daws Butler was pretty good as the first voice of Merlin the Magic Mouse and Second Banana, but quit after the first short, leaving Storch to do the rest.
	* To add salt to the wound, Mel Blanc, as well as Pat Woodell and Billy Strange (both of whom voiced Robert McKimson's respective characters Bunny and Claude) would also quit voicing the *Looney Tunes* characters after "The Great Carrot Train Robbery", leaving Larry Storch as the sole voice actor for the rest of the final Looney Tunes cartoons of the Seven-Arts era, resulting him to voice *every* single character in these shorts (with the notable exception of "Rabbit Stew and Rabbits Too!", as that cartoon had no spoken dialogue at all), including the *female* characters, often with disastrous results, especially in "Injun Trouble" where the voice he uses for the Native American maiden is rather poor and unconvincing.
18. "See Ya Later Gladiator", the last short with the classic cast in the Seven Arts era and the classic era as a whole, is often considered the absolute worst Warner Bros. short by critics and fans (though, perhaps amongst the absolute worst) due to its half-hearted animation, off-model character designs, uncharacteristic plot, bad simplistic music, and overuse of Hanna-Barbera sound effects. While most shorts of this era had at least one, two, or three of these attributes, not only did this short have all of them, but were greatly worsened in this short alone.
	* On a side note, "Suppressed Duck", the last Daffy Duck solo short of the classic era as a whole is often considered the weakest Daffy Duck solo short by critics and fans.
19. The last Warner Bros. short, "Injun Trouble" (not to be confused with the 1938 Bob Clampett-directed short of the same name), was not a good way to end the theatrical era of the *Merrie Melodies* label, as not only was it a cartoon starring the forgettable Cool Cat, but it was also banned from syndication and HBO Max due to the Native American stereotypes.
	* Besides just "Injun Trouble", there are still some racially controversial shorts in this era, such as "Hocus Pocus Powwow" (which was also banned from HBO Max), the last gag of "Run, Run, Sweet Road Runner" and "The Door". But at least the late cartoons of the classic era, such as "Tom Tom Tomcat", "The Oily American" and "Horse Hare" tried to dial down these Native American stereotypes during the mid/late 1950s and early 1960s.
	* Additionally, but less offensively, cartoons such as "Suppressed Duck" (only the ending gag with the bear, which seems somewhat suggestive), "Mucho Locos" (containing a recycled scene from "China Jones", which may be considered offensive), and "Well Worn Daffy" (which contains Daffy Duck as an oasis Arab Riff Raff) should be noted as well, even though the shorts aren't much of a racial problem.
20. The Seven Arts cartoons worsened most of the problems stated above.
	* The Format Films-era is also just as bad as the Seven Arts-era, if not perhaps even worse because, in addition to having television-quality animation, the shorts have very slow pacing and don't have any funny or fun-to-watch cartoons. Doesn't help the fact that both eras also started and ended on a mediocre, sour, or terrible note, unlike the DePatie-Freleng Enterprises-era.
	* Despite Robert McKimson returning to work on the series during the Seven-Arts era in late-1968, it flopped miserably and ended up canceling the series and closing down the Warner Bros. cartoon studio until at least 1987.

## Redeeming Qualities

1. Ten years later after this era ended, Friz Freleng and Chuck Jones came back to produce new cartoons to air for television, effectively reviving and saving the series.
	* Likewise, the *Looney Tunes* theatrical cartoons themselves get better when new theatrical cartoons continued production in 1987, beginning with Greg Ford and Terry Lennon's "The Duxorcist". In fact, Chuck Jones would return to direct a handful of new *Looney Tunes* theatrical cartoons for the first time since the series' golden age until his retirement in 1996.
		+ After this era, Cool Cat and Merlin would rarely appear, with both mostly only making cameos in the spin-off show *The Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries*, *Tweety's High-Flying Adventure* (along with Colonel Rimfire), or *Looney Tunes Cartoons*.
			- Additionally, even though the new characters like **Cool Cat, Colonel Rimfire, Merlin the Magic Mouse (with his partner, Second Banana), Norman, Rabid Rabbit and Quick Brown Fox, Chimp & Zee, Sheriff, Bunny and Claude, and Spooky** are far from being perfect when compared to the other *Looney Tunes* stars, they were at least very original and unique for what they are, unlike Buddy (who's a rip-off of Bosko).
2. Aside from the era's "Big Four" characters (Daffy Duck, Speedy Gonzales, Wile E. Coyote, and the Road Runner), Porky Pig, Sylvester and Granny are the only other major Looney Tunes characters to appear in this era, even though they only made minor appearances in this era.
	* Porky Pig appears in only two cartoons; "Corn on the Cop" and "Mucho Locos" (though the latter's appearance is stock footage from "Robin Hood Daffy").
		+ "Corn on the Cop" has the best Daffy-Porky chemistry since "Robin Hood Daffy." What makes it interesting that this short was directed by Irv Spector, who worked at Paramount Cartoon Studios.
	* Granny appears in only two cartoons; "It's Nice to Have a Mouse Around the House" (cameo appearance) and "Corn on the Cop".
	* Sylvester appears in five Speedy Gonzales cartoons; "Road to Andalay", "It's Nice to Have a Mouse Around the House" (cameo appearance), "Cats and Bruises", "The Wild Chase" and "A Taste of Catnip" (cameo appearance, albeit twice).
		+ Even a few minor/supporting characters appear in this era, like the Goofy Gophers appearing in "Tease for Two", Ralph Phillips appearing in "Zip Zip Hooray!" (despite using reused footage from "Adventures of the Road-Runner"), Witch Hazel appearing in "A-Haunting We Will Go", Jose and Manuel appearing in "Chili Corn Corny" (or a possible relative/cousin, as the character is just named "The Loco Crow") and "Mucho Locos", and Sam Cat appearing in "The Spy Swatter" and "Merlin the Magic Mouse".
3. Out of all three eras, the DePatie-Freleng era is the least bad as it uses a wider set of classic characters, has less bad shorts, has more sound effects, and has slightly better animation than the Format Films and Warner Bros.-Seven Arts eras.
	* The Seven Arts era finally got slightly better after Alex Lovy departed and *Looney Tunes* veteran Robert McKimson returned as director, trying his best to return the cartoon studio to its heyday. He retired some of Lovy's less-regarded characters (most notably the irritating Colonel Rimfire in the Cool Cat cartoons) and added a few touches of racy, belly laugh-inducing humor (for example, the "Is that all you can think about -- carrots?" line in "Bunny and Claude -- We Rob Carrot Patches" and the Topless Saloon in "Injun Trouble" (1969).
		+ Speaking of which, Robert McKimson's Road Runner cartoons are far superior to Rudy Larriva's, even if he only made two Road Runner shorts, neither of which are really up to the caliber of the Chuck Jones shorts.
4. There are still a small number of cartoons where Daffy Duck is likable, such as:
	* "Skyscraper Caper" where he is friends with Speedy instead of an enemy,
	* "Fiesta Fiasco", where Daffy has an actual reason to be going after Speedy (thinking Speedy's forgotten his birthday) and makes up with him at the end of the cartoon.
	* "A Taste of Catnip" which essentially pokes fun at the idea of the Daffy/Speedy pairings as a horrible mismatch by depicting Daffy's obsessions of chasing Speedy to be abnormal.
	* "Mexican Mousepiece", where he is portrayed as a "Well-Intentioned Extremist"/anti-villain without selfish goals, trying to send off Speedy Gonzales and his mouse friends to a pair of starving cats that may go extinct, even if he went a *little* too far or overboard.
	* "It's Nice to Have a Mouse Around the House" since his actions weren't far unlike his next shorts.
	* "Rodent to Stardom" and "The Music Mice-Tro" despite being a Butt-Monkey from those shorts.
	* "Corn on the Cop" when he's teaming with Porky Pig.
		+ Thankfully, Daffy Duck would be reverted to his old personality after this era, despite his brief Flanderization in "The Chocolate Chase".
	* Also, the later cartoons in the DePatie-Freleng era often depict Daffy as a sympathetic character who has better reason to go after Speedy than a full-on antagonist.
		+ Likewise, the Road Runner would also be reverted to his old personality once Chuck Jones resumed making new Road Runner cartoons for television.
5. The awkward animation and music can make for unintentional comedy.
	* The animation can be good in some scenes, especially "Rushing Roulette", "Sugar and Spies", "Rabbit Stew and Rabbits Too!" as well as other animators like Volus Jones (who provided the highest quality animation during the Seven-Arts era), Virgil Ross (who provided the highest on-model quality animation during Format Films shorts), Norman McCabe, Bob Matz and Manny Perez.
6. There are still some good or decent shorts, even if some are copies of old and old shorts, such as:
	* "Pancho's Hideaway" (which started this era as well as the DePatie-Freleng Enterprises era on a high note)
	* "Daffy's Diner" (which ended the DePatie-Freleng Enterprises era on an okay note)
	* "Rushing Roulette"
	* "The Wild Chase" (which ended Friz Freleng's directional career of the classic era on a high note)
	* "Sugar and Spies" (which ended Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner's classic-era careers on a high note)
	* "It's Nice to Have a Mouse Around the House" (which started the Daffy and Speedy shorts on an okay note)
	* "Go-Go Amigo"
	* "A-Haunting We Will Go" (also ended Witch Hazel's career on a good note)
	* "A Squeak in the Deep"
	* "Swing Ding Amigo"
	* "A Taste of Catnip" (which ended Sylvester's career on an okay note)
	* "Fiesta Fiasco"
	* "Skyscraper Caper" (one of the best Daffy and Speedy shorts in Seven-Arts-era)
	* "Corn on the Cop" (which ended Granny's career on a high note)
	* "Rabbit Stew and Rabbits Too!" (the only exceptionally good short of the Seven Arts-era; which also ended the one-offs on a high note)
	* "Fistic Mystic"
	* "Bugged by a Bee" (which ended the *Looney Tunes* label on a high note, unlike *Merrie Melodies*)
	* "Norman Normal" (a cool experimental short)
	* "The Door" (same as "Norman Normal", despite having Native American stereotypes)
	* "Zip Zip Hooray!" (despite re-using footage from the *Adventures of the Road Runner* pilot)
	* "Roadrunner a Go-Go" (the best the era has to offer, mainly due to it being the era's most popular short; despite re-using footage from the *Adventures of the Road Runner* pilot)
	* "Chimp & Zee" (which ended Alex Lovy's directional career on the series on a high note)
	* "Bunny and Claude: We Rob Carrot Patches" (depending on your view, and also began Robert McKimson’s return to directing the cartoons on a decent note)
	* "The Great Carrot-Train Robbery" (depending on your view; also ended Mel Blanc's career on a good note)
		+ Likewise, while they are not the best shorts, "3 Ring Wing-Ding", "Feud With a Dude", "Tease for Two" and "Big Game Haunt" are still passable at best, even if they are forgettable shorts, or are rehashes of old or early works.
7. The intro and outro music most specifically can be catchy, even if it's not as great as the past cartoons.
	* Some scores are also quite fitting and pretty good, most notably in "Chimp & Zee", "Zip Zip Hooray", "Roadrunner a Go-Go", and "Rabbit Stew and Rabbits Too!".
8. Amazing voice acting from Mel Blanc, and passable voice acting for Larry Storch, and the other voice actors, for the most part.

## Reception

Both the DePatie-Freleng (1964-1967), Format Films (1967) and Seven-Arts eras (1967-1969) of *Looney Tunes*, unlike the earlier eras (yes, even the 1939-mid-1940 era, as well as the late 1962-1964 era) as well as the later eras, were universally panned by critics, audiences, *Looney Tunes* fans and animation buffs alike, especially from veteran cartoon critic Trevor Thompson (a.k.a. Ferris Wheelhouse), and these eras have been widely regarded as the worst eras of *Looney Tunes*, with the Seven-Arts eras (1967-1969) (along with Buddy era (late 1933 to late 1935) being the absolute worst eras of *Looney Tunes* overall, though the DePatie-Freleng era (1964-1967) is often regarded by many as the least bad of the three eras. Most of the criticisms targeted at these eras include their extremely low budgets, their awfully weak writing (to the point that some of them don't even stay true to the show, particularly during the Seven-Arts era), their cartoons' lazy rehashing of gags and jokes from the classic era (**ESPECIALLY** during the DePatie-Freleng era, who did this the most unlike the Format Films and Seven Arts eras), their lower quality animation which is often comparable to that of television cartoons of the 1960s decade (especially during the Format Films and Seven-Arts eras), the awkward mismatching of various classic Looney Tunes characters due to the limited number of classic characters allowed to be used during those era (including the infamous and notoriously mismatched Daffy Duck and Speedy Gonzales pairings of these eras), the atrocious flanderization of Daffy Duck into a grouchy, mean-spirited and humorless sadist who took up more villainous roles very often during these eras, the elimination of the classic "bullseye" titles the series is well-known for, as well as William Lava's canned music score which often feels out-of-place of *Looney Tunes,* though the voice acting of Mel Blanc and Larry Storch received mixed-to-positive reviews (at least, for the most part).

By the Seven-Arts era, the negative reception of these final *Looney Tunes* cartoons have worsened to extreme levels, with "See Ya Later Gladiator" and "Flying Circus" being widely considered by many to be the worst cartoons ever made by the Warner Bros. studio (behind only "Buddy In Africa"; which is **far worse** than those shorts). The intense negative reception of the Seven-Arts era was so severe that nearly all of the cartoons of the era had bombed at the box office and therefore failed to turn out a profit, resulting in the cancellation of the *Looney Tunes* cartoon series as well as the closure of the Warner Bros. cartoon studio in 1969, with the studio not reopening until at least 1987 when a new generation of cartoonists (such as Greg Ford and Terry Lennon, Darrell Van Citters, Douglas McCarthy, Stephen Fossati, and Spike Brandt) as well as Chuck Jones, the only returning animation director from the series' golden age, tried their hand at restoring the *Looney Tunes* theatrical cartoon series to its original classic era glory beginning with "The Duxorcist". But unfortunately, this resulted in any further plans on new theatrical and television cartoons from Warner Bros. in the late-1960s such as an animated adaptation of *Keystone Kops* to get canceled and sadly, never saw the light of day.

American film critic and historian Leonard Maltin has called the whole batch of cartoons from these three eras as "abysmal", making these eras of *Looney Tunes* cartoons the most forgotten and overlooked in the studio's history; so much to the point that even the earliest Harman-Ising *Looney Tunes* cartoons of the early-1930s (and to some extent, even the Buddy cartoons from 1933-1935) have received more attention in animation history books. He even criticized the Rudy Larriva-directed Road Runner cartoons in his book *Of Mice and Magic* as "witless in every sense of the word."

Despite the negative reception of these eras, very few of the cartoons from these eras had a very warm reception from both critics and audiences alike, mostly from the earliest cartoons from the DePatie-Freleng era from "Pancho's Hideaway" up until "The Wild Chase", as well as "Rabbit Stew and Rabbits Too!" (a one-off Looney Tunes cartoon very reminiscent to that of Chuck Jones' Road Runner cartoons from the studio's heyday), "Skyscraper Caper" (one of the best Daffy & Speedy cartoons in the Seven Arts era since they were friends here), and "The Door" which are widely considered by many to be the most positively-received cartoons from the *Looney Tunes*' darkest age during the Seven-Arts era.

According to an interview with Robert McKimson Jr., his father, director Robert McKimson overall was unsatisfied with the direction and cartoons during the Seven Arts era, stating how he missed fuller animation and criticized the restrictions of classic characters (by the time McKimson directed in the Seven Arts era, he couldn't use Daffy or Speedy, or any other pre-existing classic *Looney Tunes* characters at all). Robert McKimson also mentioned that Alex Lovy's characters, particularly Cool Cat, Colonel Rimfire, Merlin the Magic Mouse and Second Banana, had poor development and were hard to work with.

## List of notable bad shorts from these eras

### DePatie-Freleng Enterprises

* "Moby Duck"
* "Assault and Peppered" (One of the most infamous shorts of all time)
* "Well Worn Daffy" (One of the worst shorts of all time)
* "Suppressed Duck"
* "Mucho Locos"
* "Snow Excuse"
* *The Larriva Eleven*

### Format Films

* "Quacker Tracker"
* "The Music Mice-Tro"
* "The Spy Swatter"

### Seven Arts

* "Speedy Ghost to Town" (Which started the Seven Arts era on a sour note)
* "Rodent to Stardom"
* "Go Away Stowaway"
* "Cool Cat"
* "Merlin the Magic Mouse"
* "Hocus Pocus Powwow"
* "See Ya Later Gladiator" (Arguably the worst Looney Tunes short and one of the most infamous golden age shorts of all time)
* "Flying Circus" (Also counts as the worst one)
* "Injun Trouble" (A terrible way to not only end this era, but the run of classic shorts as well. Also one of the worst Looney Tunes shorts)