Blog:Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies (late 1962-1964)

Even though most of the Looney Tunes shorts in the classic era has received positive reception, the shorts of late 1962 up to the closure of the original Termite Terrace studio in 1964 received weaker reception compared to the earlier cartoons. This blog will be talking about the shorts from "The Jet Cage" up to "Señorella and the Glass Huarache", with the sole exception of "Mother Was a Rooster".

1962

 * "The Jet Cage" (Freleng; September 26; with Sylvester and Tweety)
 * "Good Noose" (McKimson; November 10; with Daffy Duck)
 * "Shishkabugs" (Freleng; December 8; with Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam)
 * "Martian Through Georgia" (Jones; December 29; one-off)

1963

 * "I Was a Teenage Thumb" (Jones; January 19; one-off)
 * "Devil's Feud Cake" (Freleng; February 9; with Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam; clip show short)
 * "Fast Buck Duck" (McKimson; March 9; with Daffy Duck)
 * "The Million Hare" (McKimson; April 6; with Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck)
 * "Mexican Cat Dance" (Freleng; April 20; with Speedy Gonzales and Sylvester)
 * "Now Hear This" (Jones; April 27; one-off)
 * "Woolen Under Where" (Monroe; May 11; with Sam Sheepdog and Ralph Wolf; last appearances of Sam Sheepdog and Ralph Wolf in Golden Age of Animation)
 * "Hare-Breadth Hurry" (Jones; June 8; with Bugs Bunny and Wile E. Coyote)
 * "Banty Raids" (McKimson; June 29; with Foghorn Leghorn and Barnyard Dawg; last appearance of Barnyard Dawg in Golden Age of Animation)
 * "Chili Weather" (Freleng; August 17; with Speedy Gonzales and Sylvester)
 * "The Unmentionables" (Freleng; September 7; with Bugs Bunny and Rocky and Mugsy; last appearance of Rocky and Mugsy in Golden Age of Animation)
 * "Aqua Duck" (McKimson; September 28; with Daffy Duck)
 * "Mad as a Mars Hare" (Jones; October 19; with Bugs Bunny and Marvin the Martian; last appearance of Marvin the Martian in Golden Age of Animation)
 * "Claws in the Lease" (McKimson; November 9; with Sylvester and Sylvester Jr.)
 * "Transylvania 6-5000" (Jones; November 30; with Bugs Bunny)
 * "To Beep or Not to Beep" (Jones; December 28; with Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote; reuses footage from Adventures of the Roadrunner)

1964

 * "Dumb Patrol" (Chiniquy; January 18; with Bugs Bunny, Yosemite Sam, and Porky Pig; last appearance of Yosemite Sam in Golden Age of Animation)
 * "A Message to Gracias" (McKimson; February 8; with Speedy Gonzales and Sylvester)
 * "Bartholomew Versus the Wheel" (McKimson; February 29; one-off)
 * "Freudy Cat" (McKimson; March 14; with Sylvester and Sylvester Jr.; last appearances of Sylvester Jr. and Hippety Hopper in Golden Age of Animation; clip show short)
 * "Dr. Devil and Mr. Hare" (McKimson; March 28; with Bugs Bunny and Tasmanian Devil; last appearance of Tasmanian Devil in Golden Age of Animation)
 * "Nuts and Volts" (Freleng; April 25; with Speedy Gonzales and Sylvester)
 * "The Iceman Ducketh" (Monroe; May 16; with Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck)
 * "War and Pieces" (Jones; June 6; with Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote; last short directed by Chuck Jones)
 * "Hawaiian Aye Aye" (Chiniquy; June 27; with Sylvester and Tweety; last appearance of Tweety in Golden Age of Animation)
 * "False Hare" (McKimson; July 16; with Bugs Bunny; last appearances of Bugs Bunny and Foghorn Leghorn in Golden Age of Animation)
 * "Señorella and the Glass Huarache" (Pratt; August 1; one-off; last short in classic era)

Bad Qualities

 * 1) The writing in this era (especially those of Freleng's and McKimson's cartoons) started to go from witty and clever into stale, repetitive, and predictable.
 * 2) Poorer animation style. The cartoons from Freleng shows this out most, as these cartoons constantly recycles animation from past cartoons, resulting in a mishmash of older, better animation to the more linear, newer animation.
 * 3) Milt Franklyn died of a heart attack while producing the music for "The Jet Cage". Bill Lava serves as his replacement for these cartoons. While he tries his best, most of the music composed are too atonal, bombastic, or suspenseful which does not capture the feel of the cartoons that Carl Stalling and Milt Franklyn were able to capture.
 * 4) Numerous bad episodes scattered throughout the era, such as "Good Noose", "Mexican Cat Dance", "Devil's Feud Cake", "Freudy Cat", and "The Iceman Ducketh". The rest of the works can range from mediocre or forgettable at best.
 * 5) There are mean-spirited moments on characters that often don't deserve it or does nothing wrong, such as Yosemite Sam getting executed at the end of "Shishkabugs" and Sylvester being burrowed to the ground into an unknown fate in "Mexican Cat Dance".
 * 6) Flat background designs.
 * 7) Chuck Jones was fired during 1962, and most of his remaining works were outsourced to fellow animator Phil Monroe. However, this resulted in the writing for the shorts to become weaker, most notoriously with "The Iceman Ducketh", which flanderizes Daffy Duck into a mean-spirited sadist similar to his characterization in the DePatie-Freleng and Seven Arts eras.

Good Qualities

 * 1) There are still plenty of great shorts from this era, especially those from Chuck Jones, such as "Now Hear This", "Mad as a Mars Hare", and "Transylvania 6-5000".
 * 2) *Even the other directors still have decent works in this era, such as Freleng's "The Unmentionables" and McKimson's "The Million Hare".
 * 3) *"False Hare" and "Señorella and the Glass Huarache" both ended the classic era on a high note.
 * 4) The animation, while mediocre on Freleng's and McKimson's ends, and the music are still better than what the series would become.

Reception
Notable cartoon critic Trevor Thompson (a.k.a. Ferris Wheelhouse) deemed this era as the downfall of the Looney Tunes series instead of the 1964-1969 era, declaring that these cartoons are when the writing started to show little care and criticized the music in the era, despite also having warm reception with a few cartoons such as "Señorella and the Glass Huarache".