Tiny Toons Adventures

***Tiny Toon Adventures*** is an American animated comedy television series that was broadcast from September 14, 1990 to December 6, 1992 as the first collaborative effort of Warner Bros. Animation and Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment after being conceived in the late 1980s by Tom Ruegger. The show follows the adventures of a group of young cartoon characters who attend Acme Looniversity to become the next generation of characters from the *Looney Tunes* series.

The pilot episode, "The Looney Beginning", aired as a prime-time special on CBS on September 14, 1990, while the series itself was featured in first-run syndication for the first two seasons. The final season was aired on Fox Kids. The series ended production in 1992 in favor of *Animaniacs*; however, two specials were produced in 1994.

## Background

### Premise

*Tiny Toon Adventures* is a cartoon set in the fictional town of "Acme Acres", where most of the *Tiny Toons* and *Looney Tunes* characters live. The characters attend "Acme Looniversity", a school whose faculty primarily consists of the mainstays of the classic Warner Bros. cartoons, such as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Sylvester the Cat, Wile E. Coyote and Elmer Fudd. In the series, the university is founded to teach cartoon characters how to become funny. The school is not featured in every episode, as not all of its storylines revolve around the school.

Like the Looney Tunes, the series makes use of cartoon violence (e.g. anvils falling on someone, liberal use of explosives) and slapstick. The series parodies and references the current events of the early 1990s and Hollywood culture. Occasionally, episodes delve into veiled ethical and morality stories of ecology, self-esteem, and crime.

### Characters

Artwork displaying a majority of the *Tiny Toon* cast.

The series centers on a group of young cartoon characters who attend a school called Acme Looniversity to be the next generation of *Looney Tunes* characters. Most of the Tiny Toons characters were designed to resemble younger versions of Warner Bros.' most popular Looney Tunes animal characters by exhibiting similar traits and looks. The two main characters are both rabbits: Buster Bunny, a blue male rabbit, and Babs Bunny, a pink female rabbit not related to Buster, Plucky Duck, a green male duck, Hamton J. Pig, a pink male pig. Other major characters in the cast are generally nonhuman as well. These include Fifi La Fume, a purple-and-white female skunk; Shirley The Loon, a white female loon; Dizzy Devil, a purple tasmanian devil; Furrball, a blue cat; Sweetie Pie, a pink canary; Calamity Coyote, a bluish-gray coyote; Little Beeper, a red-orange roadrunner; and Gogo Dodo, a zany green dodo. Two human characters, Montana Max and Elmyra Duff, are regarded as the main villains of the series and also are students of Acme Looniversity. As villains, Elmyra is seen as an extreme pet lover while Montana Max is a spoiled rich brat who owns either many toys or polluting factories. Supporting characters included Li'l Sneezer, a gray mouse with powerful sneezes; Concord Condor, a purple condor; Byron Basset, a usually sleeping basset hound; Bookworm, a green worm with glasses; Arnold the Pit Bull, a muscular white pit bull; Fowlmouth, a white rooster with horrid language; Barky Marky, a brown dog, and Mary Melody, an African American girl.

Feeding off the characters are the more traditional Looney Tunes such as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and Porky Pig among others. Most of the adults teach classes at Acme Looniversity and serve as mentors to the Tiny Toons while others fill secondary positions as needed.

## Production

### Writers

The series and the show's characters were developed by series producer, head writer and cartoonist Tom Ruegger, division leader Jean MacCurdy, associate producer and artist Alfred Gimeno and story editor/writer Wayne Kaatz. Among the first writers on the series were Jim Reardon, Tom Minton, and Eddie Fitzgerald. The character and scenery designers included Alfred Gimeno, Ken Boyer, Dan Haskett, Karen Haskett, and many other artists and directors. The series was actually planned to be a feature film. Once Steven Spielberg was attached, numerous things changed, including the idea of turning the movie into a television series.

"Buster and Babs Go To Hawaii" was co-written by three then-teenage girls who were fans of the show.

### Casting info

Voice director Andrea Romano auditioned over 1,200 voices for the series and chose more than a dozen main voice actors. The role of Buster Bunny was given to Charlie Adler, who gave the role, as producer Tom Ruegger said, "a great deal of energy". The role of Babs Bunny was given to Tress MacNeille. Writer Paul Dini said that MacNeille was good for the role because she could do both Babs' voice and the voices of her impressions. Voice actors Joe Alaskey and Don Messick were given the roles of Plucky Duck and Hamton J. Pig, respectively. Danny Cooksey played Montana Max and, according to Paul Dini, was good for the role because he could do a "tremendous mean voice." Cooksey was also the only voice actor in the cast who was not an adult. Cree Summer played the roles of Elmyra Duff and Mary Melody; former *Saturday Night Live* cast member Gail Matthius played Shirley the Loon, and Kath Soucie had the roles of Fifi La Fume and Li'l Sneezer. Other actors for the series included Maurice LaMarche as the voice of Dizzy Devil; Candi Milo as the voice of Sweetie, Frank Welker as the voice of Gogo Dodo, Furrball, Byron Basset, Calamity Coyote, Little Beeper, Barky Marky, and other voices; and Rob Paulsen as the voice of Fowlmouth, Arnold the Pit Bull, Concord Condor, and other characters. The legendary voice behind the Looney Tunes, Mel Blanc, was set to reprise his roles as the classic characters, but died in July 1989. His characters were recast by the likes of Jeff Bergman, Joe Alaskey, Greg Burson, and Mel's son, Noel Blanc.

During production of the series' third season, Charlie Adler left the show due to a conflict with the producers. Adler was upset that he had not landed a role in *Animaniacs* while voice actors with smaller roles in *Tiny Toon Adventures* like Rob Paulsen, Maurice LaMarche, and Frank Welker were given starring roles in the new series. John Kassir replaced Adler for the remainder of the show's run (although Adler would eventually return to voice Buster in the cancelled video game, *Tiny Toon Adventures: Defenders of the Universe*). Joe Alaskey, the voice of Plucky Duck, also left *Tiny Toons* for financial reasons, but returned when an agreement was reached with the studio.

### Animation

In order to complete 65 episodes for the first season, Warner Bros. Animation and Amblin Entertainment contracted several different North American and international animation houses. These animation studios included Tokyo Movie Shinsha (now known as TMS Entertainment), Wang Film Productions, Morning Sun Animation, AKOM, Freelance Animators New Zealand, Encore Cartoons, StarToons, and Kennedy Cartoons. Tokyo Movie Shinsha also animated the series' opening sequence. Some of the Warner Bros. staff disliked working with Kennedy Cartoons due to the animation studio's inconsistent quality, and episodes that they animated were often subject to multiple re-takes. In other cases, such as the debut episode "The Looney Beginning", portions of Kennedy Cartoons-animated episodes were re-animated by another animation studio. Kennedy Cartoons was actually dropped after the end of the series' first season.

*Tiny Toon Adventures* was made with a higher production value than standard television animation. It had a cel count that was more than double that of most animated television shows then. The series had about 25,000 cels per episode instead of the standard 10,000, making it unique in that characters moved more fluidly. Pierre DeCelles, an animation producer, described storyboarding for the series as "fun but a big challenge because I always had a short schedule, and it's not always easy to work full blast nonstop".

### Music

During the development of the show Steven Spielberg said that Warner Bros. would use a full orchestra, which some thought too expensive and impossible, but they ended up agreeing. Warner Bros. selected Bruce Broughton to write the theme tune (for which he would win a Daytime Emmy along with Tom Ruegger and Wayne Kaatz, who both worked with Broughton on the lyrics) and serve as music supervisor. Screen credits for the composers were given based on the amount of music composed for, or composed and reused in, the episode.

Twenty-six other composers were contracted to create original dramatic underscore for each different episode during the series run: Julie and Steve Bernstein, Steven Bramson, Don Davis, John Debney, Ron Grant, Les Hooper, Carl Johnson, Elliot Kaplan, Arthur Kempel, Ralph Kessler, Albert Lloyd Olson, Hummie Mann, Dennis McCarthy, Joel McNeely, Peter Myers, Laurence Rosenthal, William Ross, Arthur B. Rubinstein, J. Eric Schmidt, David Slonaker, Fred Steiner, Morton Stevens, Richard Stone, Stephen James Taylor and Mark Watters. The composers conducted their own music. Of these composers, Broughton, Bramson, Davis, Olson, Stone, Taylor and Watters wrote the score to *Tiny Toon Adventures: How I Spent My Vacation*.

These composers would later write the musical scores for shows including *Animaniacs* and *The Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries.*

## Voice cast

* Charlie Adler – Buster Bunny (1990–1992)
	+ John Kassir – Buster Bunny (1992–1995)
* Joe Alaskey – Plucky Duck
* Danny Cooksey – Montana Max
* Maurice LaMarche – Dizzy Devil
* Tress MacNeille – Babs Bunny
* Gail Matthius – Shirley the Loon
* Don Messick – Hamton J. Pig
* Candi Milo – Sweetie
* Rob Paulsen – Arnold the Pitbull, Fowlmouth
* Kath Soucie – Fifi La Fume, Sneezer
* Cree Summer – Elmyra Duff, Mary Melody
* Frank Welker – Gogo Dodo, Furrball, Byron Basset, Calamity Coyote, Little Beeper

### Recurring cast

* Jeff Altman – Dr. Gene Splicer
* Orson Bean – Geppetto
* Michael Bell – Batman (in "Hollywood Plucky")
* Jeff Bennett – Batman (in "The Return of Batduck"), Kevin Costner
* Bob Bergen – Porky Pig (in "Animaniacs" and "Hero Hamton"), Tweety (in "Animaniacs")
* Jeff Bergman – Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Foghorn Leghorn, Dr. I.Q. Hi, Duck Vader, Elmer Fudd (in "Her Wacky Highness," "Psychic Fun-omenon Day," "Tiny Toon Music Television," "K-ACME TV," and "Viewer Mail Day"), Sylvester (in "Animaniacs," "Viewer Mail Day," and "The Son of the Wacko World of Sports"), Tweety, Yosemite Sam (in "Looniversity Daze," "Son of Looniversity Daze," and "K-ACME TV"), Tasmanian Devil (in "Prom-ise Her Anything" and "Animaniacs")
* Stephen Bishop – Mailman
* Noel Blanc – Porky Pig (in "The Wacko World of Sports," "Fields of Honey," and "The Acme Bowl"), Tasmanian Devil (in "You Asked For It Part 1"), The Great and Powerful Principal, Additional Voices
* Susan Blu – Sphinxy
* Valri Bromfield – Fran, Mary Hartless
* Julie Brown – Julie Bruin
* Rodger Bumpass – Ronald Grump
* Greg Burson – Bugs Bunny (in "Buster and Babs Go Hawaiian" and "Best of Buster Day"), Daffy Duck (in "Two-Tone Town"), Elmer Fudd, Foghorn Leghorn (in "Buster and Babs Go Hawaiian"), Tasmanian Devil (in "Best of Buster Day"), Pepé Le Pew
* Pat Buttram – Bicycle Bob
* Hamilton Camp – Scottish Flea
* Dan Castellaneta – Jeffries, Lars Thorwald
* Jim Cummings – Iodizer, Jack Nicholson, Melvin the Monster, Mike Tyson, Papa Flea
* Tim Curry – Prince Charles, Reginald
* Louise DuArt – Barbara Walters
* Pat Fraley – Chef, Travel Agent
* Stan Freberg – Junior Bear, Pete Puma
* Matt Frewer – Mac Duff (in "Take Elmyra Please" and "Grandma's Dead")
* Soleil Moon Frye – Amanda Duff
* June Foray – Granny, Witch Hazel (In "Night Ghoulery")
* Ben Ryan Ganger – Duncan
* Danny Gans – Donald Trump, Johnny Carson
* Joan Gerber – Gotcha Grabmore
* Phillip Glasser – Pedro
* Desirée Goyette – Roxy
* Edan Gross – Tyrone the Turtle
* Phil Hartman – Octavius
* Whitby Hertford – Duncan Duff, Fleo
* John Hillner – Michigan J. Frog
* Carol Kane – Ollie
* Casey Kasem - Flakey Flakems
* Jim MacGeorge - Announcer
* James Mates - Narrator
* Edie McClurg – Winnie Pig
* Cindy McGee – Mary Melody (in "Furrball Follies")
* Brian Stokes Mitchell – Vinnie
* Robert Morse – Goopy Geer
* Vincent Price – Edgar Allan Poe
* Clive Revill – William Shakespeare
* Andrea Romano – Andrea Romano the Magnificent
* Roger Rose – David Letterman, Ninja Turtle
* Maggie Roswell – Mary Vain
* Nathan Ruegger – Baby Plucky Duck
* Fran Ryan – Grandma Duff
* Jean Smart - Announcer
* Steven Spielberg – Himself (in "Buster and Babs Go Hawaiian"), Roger Rabbit
* Sally Struthers – Rhoda, Sandy Witch
* B.J. Ward – Honey
* Vernee Watson - Announcer, Joker
* Billy West - Hamton Pig (only in video games - 1999–2002)
* Jonathan Winters – Stanley Elephant, Wade Pig
* Henny Youngman – Himself