By Jonathan Klotz
| Published
They once defined American animation, but for the last 30 years, the Looney Tunes have slowly faded from the media landscape, with entire generations who know them mostly from Space Jam. That all changed following the news that David Zaslav, CEO of Warner Bros Discovery, was shelving the live-action hybrid comedy Coyote vs. Acme, which might as well have been the trigger words to activate the long-suffering fanbase. Seizing the moment, Tubi has stepped up as an unlikely savior, airing not only the criminally underrated 2011 The Looney Tunes Show, but over 700 episodes of the original Looney Tunes shorts, most of which have never been able to stream.
Starting with 1931’s “Smile, Darn Ya, Smile,” featuring Foxy, the Tubi collection bundles, on average, three shorts into 22-minute episodes. It covers the evolution of American animation from the musical shorts of the 30s and 40s to the heights of Bugs and Daffy from the 40s through the 60s, ending with a collection of shorts from 2003.
It was a crime against art for Warner Bros to sit on this treasure trove without making it available to the public. Now the question for fans is where to start exploring the collection?
Start Watching With Tortoise Beats Hare
One of my personal favorites growing up, “Tortoise Beats Hare” from 1941, is included in Episode 63 of Tubi’s Looney Tunes collection. In this retelling of the classic fable, Bugs Bunny takes on Cecil the tortoise in a race, but he’s slowly driven insane when, no matter how fast he runs, “Cecil” keeps appearing in front of him. Erect a barricade? Cecil’s there. Take out a bridge? Cecil’s there.
Cecil is shown calling all of his tortoise friends and relatives, who band together to drive Bugs crazy during the entire short, which is delightfully called out by one of the tortoises during a fourth-wall break. The short is a reminder that originally, Bugs Bunny was also kind of a jerk, so seeing him go nuts and get his comeuppance is both hilarious and satisfying. It’s not my pick for the best short, but as a starting point, it’s a fantastic introduction to what I consider the best years of the franchise.
The Best Looney Tunes Episode On Tubi
Pound for pound, my favorite episode in Tubi’s collection is Episode 158 featuring the 1953 shorts “Duck Amuck/Zipping Along/Duck Dodgers in the 24th ½ Century,” revealing with the first short, “Duck Amuck,” standing out as my personal pick for best short.
It starts off with Daffy as one of the Three Musketeers, and quickly devolves into a surreal cartoon with the animator torturing Daffy by redrawing the world around him. To say this short breaks the fourth wall would be an understatement.
From minute one, the fourth wall ceases to exist as the escalating feud between Daffy and the unseen animator, until he’s flying a plane into a mountain and is blown up by an artillery shell, combining slapstick comedy with a streak of philosophical musing about the nature of reality.
The episode also includes a Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote classic, in which you can’t help but feel a little bad for the coyote, even if he is trying to eat the Road Runner. It’s a reminder that Coyote vs. ACME is a brilliant concept for a movie, and why fans can’t wait for it to finally get released thanks to Ketchup Entertainment, the studio that was also behind the recent small-scale hit, The Day The Earth Blew Up, the basis of which, “Duck Dodgers in the 24th ½ Century” is also part of this collection.
Featuring Daffy Duck’s parody of Buck Rogers, the short also pits him against Marvin the Martian for the first time, as the two battle over Planet X. It’s a non-stop battle between the two, trying to outdo the other with more explosives and more elaborate weapons parodying the sci-fi serials and pulp novels of the time. Like most Daffy appearances, the fun isn’t in watching him win; it’s watching him lose.
Tubi’s collection is filled with hundreds of shorts that are bound to be someone’s new favorite, from the first appearances of Porky Pig, to Sylvester and Tweety, Speed Gonzalez, and even Foghorn Leghorn, it’s a time capsule of why Looney Tunes is considered an essential part of animation history. Thanks to the grassroots, fan-led efforts to save the Loony Tunes, a new generation will get to appreciate the timeless appeal of the whole gang.
The best part is that the entire collection is available to stream for free on Tubi, with no sign-up required.
