One of the greatest disappointments as a kid was seeing "Cartoon" being billed in the Radio Times and it was a Happy Harmony, which was the series Harman and Ising went on to create when they defected to MGM, and were impossibly boring
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From what I (dimly) recall, there seemed to be a set of unwritten BBC rules for cartoons in the 1980s. Tom & Jerry were always billed as such, but Bugs Bunny & Co often went out under the 'Cartoon' banner. Tex Avery cartoons only appeared on BBC2, billed as 'Tex Avery's rather than the characters.
Meanwhile - checking Genome - the phrase "Looney Tunes" didn't even appear in RT listings until 2002. And curiously, as part of a Wagner season in Oct 1982, Bugs' famous short What's Opera Doc? had an airing at 10.35pm one evening.
I remember reading Warners themselves only had the rights to their post-1950 cartoons (the best ones) and they were on ITV, whereas pre-1950 were up for grabs, hence when you saw Looney Tunes on the Beeb in the 80s and 90s it was always a really old one
Yeah I saw both titles numerous times. It would have been on the original prints and there was no reason to remove it. The people who compiled the billings just didn't distinguish, it seems.
One of the other differences in Looney Tunes when it started was that they served an additional purpose as a promotional vehicle for Warner's song catalogue, and every cartoon was obliged to feature the chorus from one of them
One of the greater disappointments for me was seeing “Animation Now” billed and it would be an Oscar-nominated short film from Romania when the seven-year-old me was hoping for Daffy Duck.
Not a Happy Harmony, but I do recommend the Harman-Ising “Peace on Earth”, a post-apocalyptic tale which is almost fourth-wall-breaking in its explanation for why there are only animals in these cartoons.
I always use to be confused by the Looney Tunes that began with a picture of a blue ribbon (labelled "Blue Ribbon"). I assumed they were extra-good cartoons or something. (Sometimes there was a picture of a trophy, too.) Turns out it was just a lazy rebadge to sell them to TV stations. Hmph.
God, the post-Chuck Jones Roadrunner cartoons with the electric guitar instead of a full orchestra. Deadly stuff. There's a conspiracy theory that Rudy Larriva, the director of those ones, was snubbed by Jones early in his career, so pissed all over Jones's creation as revenge.
See also - Tom and Jerry when Tom is miaowing and hissing in the 'O' and his head looks too big. I believe FRED QUIMBY had virtually no input on any of them but if his name was missing on the intro then buyer beware.
The thing is, Chuck Jones did those ones, and they're not technically bad, but they're not good either, and he clearly wasn't comfortable doing them. Sometimes they showed Dicky Moe, one of the ultra-weird Tom and Jerrys made in the disturbing Czechoslovakian style. Brr.
God, yeah. The justifiably howling outrage when it turned out not to be Bugs Bunny or one of the good era Tom and Jerrys but bloody Honeyland. A load of bees crouching up and down and singing, be still my heart.
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