Category Archives: Saturday Cartoons

Top Cat ► Saturday Morning Cartoons

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Top Cat is one of the many cartoons produced by Hanna-Barbera, just like Tom & Jerry and The Flintstones, covered elsewhere in these pages.

Top Cat launched a year after The Flintstones debuted and, just like it, Top Cat was not a Saturday morning cartoon. It was originally broadcast on ABC at 8:30PM Wednesdays, sandwiched between The Steve Allen Show and Hawaiian Eye. Its competition was The Joey Bishop Show on NBC and Checkmate on CBS.

Top Cat had 2 major influences along with a host of minor ones. I’ll let the WikiWackyWoo tell you all about that:

Top Cat and his gang were inspired by the East Side Kids, characters from a series of popular 1940s ‘B’ movies, but their more immediate roots lay in The Phil Silvers Show, a late-1950s military comedy whose lead character (Sergeant Bilko, played by Silvers) was a crafty con-man. Maurice Gosfield, who played Private Duane Doberman in The Phil Silvers Show, provided the voice for Benny the Ball in Top Cat, and Benny’s rotund appearance was based on Gosfield’s. Additionally, Arnold Stang‘s vocal characterisation of the lead character, the eponymous Top Cat, was based on an impression of Phil Silvers‘ voice.

Other influences include the movie Guys and Dolls, in which actor Stubby Kaye played a short, stout, streetwise gambler: a virtual Benny the Ball prototype. Lastly, an unlikely contender (as it also came from Hanna Barbera) was the character Hokey Wolf on The Huckleberry Hound Show, whose segment also paralleled The Phil Silvers Show.[2][3]

It’s time for a Top Cat Sing-A-Long.
C’mon, you know all the words.

Top Cat and his gang (like Sgt. Bilko before them) had one money-making scheme after another. They have to avoid Officer Dibble, who is always trying to shut down their scams and rid Hoagy Alley of Top Cat and his gang of grafters once and for all. Rinse and repeat.

Of course, I just loved Top Cat because it was a cartoon and I was merely a 10-year old kid. Little did I suspect there was a much deeper meaning:

Animation historian Christopher P. Lehman says that the series can be seen as social commentary. The cats may represent disenfranchised people confined to living in a poor environment. Top Cat’s get-rich- quick schemes are efforts to escape to a better life. The gang faces a human police officer who frustrates their efforts and keeps them trapped in the alley.[5] This enforcement of the social order by police ensures that the cats will not escape their current living conditions.[5]

Just like the alley outside Trump Tower. But, I digress.

Top Cat was only in prime time for a year. It moved to Saturday mornings, where it played in perpetual reruns for years. In 1988 a full-length made-for-TV cartoon, Top Cat and the Beverly Hills Cats, which was a remake of the earlier “Missing Heir” and “Golden Fleecing” episodes of the original series. Arnold Stang and Marvin Kaplan (who died last year) reprised their roles from the classic Top Cat. Then came 2011’s Top Cat: The Movie, followed by the CGI effort Top Cat Begins, which was a prequel to the original series. Neither of which did I know about until just now.

It was the original series that captured my attention. Enjoy this Making Of documentary:

Krazy Kat ► Saturday Morning Cartoons

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A hundred years ago Krazy Kat was turning the battle between cartoon cats and cartoon mice on its head.

Krazy Kat and Ignatz the mouse came from the fevered imagination of George Herriman and first appeared in the comic strip The Dingbat Family. And, you thought Archie Bunker invented the word?

Krazy Kat jumped to [his? her? it’s never made clear and both sexes are used at times] their own strip in 1913 and lasted until Herriman’s death in 1944. What made this cartoon so unusual is that first, like Little Nemo in Slumberland, Krazy Kat takes place in a dreamscape of surreal imagery and plots. [Unlike Nemo, the art is minimalist.]

Next, Krazy Kat is a love story. Krazy is madly in love with Ignatz. Ignatz hates Krazy with a passion. That’s why Ignatz is always throwing bricks at Krazy’s head. Occasionally, Offisaa Bull Pupp, who is in love with Krazy Kat, prevents this and arrests Ignatz. However, when the brick connects, Krazy misinterprets this as demonstrative love (not unlike some abused women, now that I think about it). That only make Krazy love Ignatz all the more.

The George Joseph Herriman WikiWackyWoo says:

More influential than popular, Krazy Kat had an appreciative audience among those in the arts. Gilbert Seldes‘ article “The Krazy Kat Who Walks by Himself” was the earliest example of a critic from the high arts giving serious attention to a comic strip. The Comics Journal placed the strip first on its list of the greatest comics of the 20th century. Herriman’s work has been a primary influence on cartoonists such as Will Eisner, Charles M. Schulz, Robert Crumb, Art Spiegelman, Bill Watterson, and Chris Ware.

According to Comics Alliance:

But what makes Krazy Kat so noteworthy, and what makes a contender for the title of best comic strip ever made, is the way that Herriman worked within the confines of this repeated premise: the way he stretched it out over his beautifully drawn (and constantly shifting) Southwestern landscapes set in a fever dream version of Coconino County, Arizona. Herriman played with language, turning dialect and multilingual puns and malapropisms into a poetry that is purely American in the way that it forms a melting pot of Southern, Creole, Mexican, and Navajo cultures. He employed meta-fiction and self-effacement to create a constant sense of charm and whimsy. There is nothing else like it, though many have tried to replicate its achievements.

I fell in love with Krazy Kat back in my college days when I started researching the history of comic strips. However, I only recently learned that there were animated Krazy Kat cartoons. Enjoy:


View vintage Krazy Kat comic
strips at The Comic Strip Library.

Tom & Jerry ► Saturday Morning Cartoons

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Tom & Jerry are the prototypical cat and mouse cartoon characters: Mouse irritates cat. Cat chases mouse. Mouse bests cat. Repeat ad nauseum.

Tom & Jerry were created in 1940 by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, who went on to invent some of the most memorable cartoon characters under the name Hanna-Barbera Productions. These include The Flintstones, their historical opposites The Jetsons, Yogi and Boo Boo Bear, Huckleberry Hound, Top Cat, Smurfs, Scooby-Doo, and Josie and the Pussycats, among man others.

Tom & Jerry were also among those early cartoons created specifically for the big screen in the days before tee vee. They were short films distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to be run between its feature films. As the WikiWackyWoo explains:

[Tom & Jerry] cartoons are known for some of the most violent cartoon gags ever devised in theatrical animation such as Tom using everything from axes, hammers, firearms, firecrackers, explosives, traps and poison to kill Jerry. On the other hand, Jerry’s methods of retaliation are far more violent due to their frequent success, including slicing Tom in half, decapitating him, shutting his head or fingers in a window or a door, stuffing Tom’s tail in a waffle iron or a mangle, kicking him into a refrigerator, getting him electrocuted, pounding him with a mace, club or mallet, causing trees or electric poles to drive him into the ground, sticking matches into his feet and lighting them, tying him to a firework and setting it off, and so on.[1] Because of this, Tom and Jerry has often been criticized as excessively violent. Despite the frequent violence, there is no blood or gore in any scene.[2]:42[3]:134

And, of course, Tom & Jerry were the inspiration for Itchy & Scratchy, who took it one step further.

TRIVIA ALERT: Tom and Jerry were originally called Jasper and Jinx, in their first appearance, Puss Gets the Boot:

Tom And Jerry – 001 – Puss Gets The Boot (1940) from Girish Kumar on Vimeo.

It was not all fun and games. Like so much in the mainstream media in the ’40s and ’50s, Tom & Jerry reflected the times in which they were made. In later years some of these cartoons would deemed racially offensive. I’ll let the WikiWackyWoo tell the unpleasant tale of Mammy Two-Shoes, who appeared in the cartoon above.

Like a number of other animated cartoons from the 1930’s to the early 1950’s, Tom and Jerry featured racial stereotypes.[6] After explosions, for example, characters with blasted faces would resemble stereotypical blacks, with large lips and bow-tied hair. Perhaps the most controversial element of the show is the character Mammy Two Shoes,[39] a poor black maid who speaks in a stereotypical “black accent” and has a rodent problem. Joseph Barbera, who was responsible for these gags, claimed that the racial gags in Tom and Jerry did not reflect his racial opinion; they were just reflecting what was common in society and cartoons at the time and were meant to be humorous.[9] Nevertheless, such stereotypes are considered by some[who?] to be racist today, and the blackface gags are often censored when these shots are aired.

Saturday Evening Puss – Mammy Two-Shoes rarely showed her face

From Mammy Two-Shoe’s very own Wiki:

In the 1960s, the MGM animation studio, by then under the supervision of Chuck Jones, created censored versions of the Tom & Jerry cartoons featuring Mammy for television. These versions used rotoscoping techniques to replace Mammy on-screen with a similarly stocky white woman (in most shorts) or a thin white woman (in Saturday Evening Puss); Randolph’s voice on the soundtracks was replaced by an Irish-accented (or, in Puss, generic young adult) voice performed by actress June Foray.[3][5] Paul Mular, head of Broadcast Standards and Practices (BS&P) at KOFY-TV (Channel 20) in San Francisco in the late 1990s, believes this was an overreaction to calls for racial sensitivity as the original Mammy was inoffensive.[3]

However, Tom & Jerry cartoons are meant to be enjoyed. Sadly, the Not Now Silly Newsroom cannot share with you any examples of entire vintage Tom & Jerry cartoons. Those Warner Bros. must be pretty powerful brothers.

All I discovered had either been sliced and diced, had awful wrap-a-rounds added from later tee vee incarnations, or more recent overdubbing of voices and, I believe, music. But, every video found were nothing but truncated versions or mere snippets.

Apologies in advance, but some of this is still vintage Tom & Jerry:









Heckle and Jeckle ► Saturday Morning Cartoons

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Heckle and Jeckle are 2 wisecracking magpies from Paul Terry, whose Terrytoons also produced Mighty Mouse and Deputy Dawg, among a host of other cartoon characters.

Terry — credited with over 1300 cartoons in 40 years — started in media in 1904 as a newspaper cameraman, where he also drew comic strips. Inspired to go into animation by Winsor McCay’s Gertie the Dinosaur, he drew his first cartoon Little Herman, which he sold. After a 2nd cartoon he was hired in 1916 by the J. R. Bray Studios, where he created and made 11 cartoons starring Farmer Al Falfa. He was able to take that character with him when he left in 1917 to start his own studio. Paul Terry Studios lasted for 9 more cartoons, only one with Farmer Al, before he joined the army to fight in WWI.

On his return he partnered up with the improably named Amedee J. Van Beuren to form Fables Studios, where they produced a successful series of cartoons based on Aesop’s Fables. In 1928 they released Dinner Time, the first cartoon with synchronized sound. It was released several weeks before Disney’s Steamboat Willie, often incorrectly credited as the first cartoon with sound. Watch:

Ironically, Terry and Van Beuren split up over the issue of sound, so Terrytoons was launched in New Rochelle, New York, where Terry had sold his first cartoon to Thanhouser film. That’s where Heckle and Jeckle were hatched just after WWII.

No less an authority than the Wiki tells us:

Paul Terry was quick to adopt techniques that simplified the animation process, but resisted “improvements” that complicated the production. He was one of the first to make use of “cel animation” including animation of separate body parts. His studio was slow to switch to synchronized sound tracks and to color. While this may have sometimes prevented his films from achieving the technical excellence of Disney or Fleischer Studios, he did manage to keep his studio profitable, while others went out of business. Terry was once quoted as saying, “Disney is the Tiffany of animation. I’m the Woolworth.”

Keep in mind that these were the days when cartoons were made to be shown between the movies in theaters. Television had been invented, but was not yet a commonplace household item. It would still be a decade before most homes had a tee vee.

However, Paul Terry cashed in when television came calling, but that didn’t go so well at first. As the Wiki also tells us:

Terry became the first major cartoon producer to package his old films for television. In 1955, Terry sold his animation studio and film library to CBS for $3.5 million and retired.[2] CBS appointed Gene Deitch, who replaced the old characters with new ones such as Sidney the Elephant, Gaston LeCrayon, Foofle, Clint Clobber, and John Doormat. Deitch departed after three years. After Deitch’s departure, Mighty Mouse and Heckle & Jeckle returned, as well as new characters such as Deputy Dawg. CBS made the Terrytoons library of films a mainstay of its Saturday morning programming and continued operating the studio making both new theatrical films and series for television until the late 1960s. -Today Terrytoons are most fondly remembered by Baby Boomers who grew up watching them on TV.

That’s my generation and I loved Heckle and Jeckle. I even had two gal pals, who were sisters, that Pops called Heckle and Jeckle. I saw both at his funeral in December.

Here are some more Heckle and Jeckle cartoons, starting with this dubious subject matter from ’47:







Little Nemo In Slumberland ► Saturday Morning Cartoons

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Click HERE for larger size

Little Nemo In Slumberland is not really a Saturday morning cartoon, but a weekly comic strip created by famed artist Winsor McCay, sometimes called The Father of American Animation.

If Nemo were his only creation, McCay would still go down in history. However, Zenas Winsor McCay was also the artist behind 1914’s Gertie the Dinosaur, considered the first example of true character animation. The WikiWackyWoo also tells us:

Although Gertie is popularly thought to be the earliest animated film, McCay had earlier made Little Nemo (1911) and How a Mosquito Operates (1912). The American J. Stuart Blackton and the French Émile Cohl had experimented with animation even earlier; Gertie being a character with an appealing personality distinguished McCay’s film from these earlier “trick films”. Gertie was the first film to use animation techniques such as keyframes, registration marks, tracing paper, the Mutoscope action viewer, and animation loops. It influenced the next generation of animators such as the Fleischer brothers, Otto Messmer, Paul Terry, and Walt Disney. John Randolph Bray unsuccessfully tried to patent many of McCay’s animation techniques and is said to have been behind a plagiarized version of Gertie that appeared a year or two after the original. Gertie is the best preserved of McCay’s films—some of which have been lost or survive only in fragments—and has been preserved in the US National Film Registry.

Little Nemo began his life as a comic strip, running in the New York Herald from 1905 to 1911. Hired away by William Randolph Hearst — in an early dispute about Intellectual Property — the Herald won the rights to the Little Nemo name, but McCay was able to move the characters he created to the New York American, where they reappeared under the name “In the Land of Wonderful Dreams.”

McCay led a fascinating life. During his time with the Hearst papers, he also debuted a vaudeville act, where he would produce drawings at a rapid pace. He would also appear with his animated creation Gertie in an interactive show. A live McCay would command the animated figure, who would comply.

It was a box office hit in much simpler times.

Eventually, Gertie toured the country in the form seen above, without the live segments, using intertitles instead.

Hearst, who seemed to think he owned McCay, objected to his vaudeville career because he thought the strip suffered. When he couldn’t reach McCay because he was on stage, Hearst ordered his papers not to run advertising for the stage show. Eventually the artist was forced to limit his stage appearances and, in the end, Hearst got McCay off the stage almost completely. However, he also agreed to pay McCay more to make up for the loss of the box office income.

In the ’70s I became interested in comic strips that came before my time. Starting with what’s considered the Golden Age of Superheroes, I worked backwards.

I fell in love with Little Nemo the second I found him. He’s been my favourite comic strip character ever since. I’ve bought large coffee table books filled with Slumberland comics and return to them often.

Little Nemo is simply gorgeous to look at. Each viewing brings out details not noticed before. While McCay created much of the later vocabulary of the graphic artist, no other comic strip before, or since, looks this way. Cartoonists ever since have tried to imitate him, but nobody has ever come close.

However, it’s appeal to me is based on more than that. Little Nemo has always appealed to both the child and the cynic in me: Dreaming big but waking up in the same mundane world day after day no matter how exciting a night I may have had.

Apparently there was a crappy animated movie made in 1989 called Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland. From all reports I’m glad I missed it.

The images for this post came from (were swiped at) The Comic Strip Library, a wonderful source. Here are a couple more full size:

 

Felix The Cat ► Saturday Morning Cartoons

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Forget Mickey Mouse. The earliest cartoon I can remember is Felix The Cat, which premiered on tee vee when I was just a year old.

However, Felix The Cat is a lot older than that. In fact, he’s one of the very first stars of the silver screen, going all the way back to the Silent Era in 1919. Among his mysterious beginnings is that way back then Felix went by the nom de mouse of Master Tom. Why? What was he trying to hide?:

Master Tom left behind his former life with a name change for his 3rd movie, “The Adventures of Felix.”

Another mystery: From which back alley did he come from. The WikiWackyWoo has that story:

Felix’s origins remain disputed. Australian cartoonist/film entrepreneur Pat Sullivan, owner of the Felix character, claimed during his lifetime to be its creator. American animator Otto Messmer, Sullivan’s lead animator, has also been credited as such.[3] What is certain is that Felix emerged from Sullivan’s studio, and cartoons featuring the character enjoyed success and popularity in the popular culture. Aside from the animated shorts, Felix starred in a comic strip (drawn by Sullivan, Messmer and later Joe Oriolo) beginning in 1923,[4] and his image soon adorned merchandise such as ceramics, toys and postcards. Several manufacturers made stuffed Felix toys. Jazz bands such as Paul Whiteman‘s played songs about him (1923’s “Felix Kept On Walking” and others).

By the late 1920s, with the arrival of sound cartoons, Felix’s success was fading. The new Disney shorts of Mickey Mouse made the silent offerings of Sullivan and Messmer, who were then unwilling to move to sound production, seem outdated. In 1929, Sullivan decided to make the transition and began distributing Felix sound cartoons through Copley Pictures. The sound Felix shorts proved to be a failure and the operation ended in 1932. Felix saw a brief three-cartoon resurrection in 1936 by the Van Beuren Studios.

Felix cartoons began airing on American TV in 1953. Joe Oriolo introduced a redesigned, “long-legged” Felix, added new characters, and gave Felix a “Magic Bag of Tricks” that could assume an infinite variety of shapes at Felix’s behest.

This is the Felix I remember from my childhood and this may have been the first song I knew by heart:

I loved the cartoons that featured Poindexter and The Master Cylinder.

Sadly, most of the Felix The Cat cartoons now found on the innertubes have these horrible wraparound segments. However, if you can last out that first 60 seconds, there’s still a classic Felix The Cat cartoon at the chewy center:

This year the big news from Tinsel Town was that all is forgiven and Felix The Cat — one of the very first balloons — would return to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Just enjoy:

Rocky & Bullwinkle ► Saturday Morning Cartoons

The dirty little secret of The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show is that the animation was outsourced to Mexico.

Originally conceived as a cute little group of woodland animals that run a tee vee station [shades of SCTV?], by the time The Frostbite Falls Revue went on the air in 1959, it was called Rocky and His Friends. After the first 2 seasons it got the name The Bullwinkle Show. Then it became known as The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show and Friends.

Before it went on the air it needed a sponsor and cereal killer General Mills stepped up. It wanted the show to air in the afternoon to better target kids. Also, according to The Encyclopedia of Cartoon Superstars:

“In an effort to reduce costs, the advertising agency that had the General Mills account invested in an animation studio in Mexico,” recalled director Bill Hurtz. “Then they made a contract with Jay which agreed that we’d write the stories, direct them, design them, and assemble them, but that the animation was the backgrounds and inks would be done in Mexico… This was nothing that Jay was particularly fond of.”

Even though some of the Ward staff, including Hurtz, were periodically sent down to Mexico for quality control, problems arose. “We found out very quickly that we could not depend on Mexican studios to produce anything of quality,” remembered Bill Scott. “They were turning out the work very quickly and there were all kinds of mistakes and flaws and boo-boos… They would never check… Moustaches popped on and off Boris, Bullwinkle’s antlers would change, colors would change, costumes would disappear… By the time we finally saw it, it was on the air. It went directly from Mexico to airing… As a result, we tried to pull as much of the work as possible up North.” Reportedly, at one point to avoid customs problems, people would bring some of the completed episodes back across the border in their suitcases as home movies.

Whether that was why the writers bit the hand that fed them, but:

The second story that first season was “Box Top Robbery” which only lasted a dozen installments. The global economy is threatened by counterfeit cereal box tops. It was a satirical jab at General Mills and its cereals who were sponsoring the show.

One of the things kids loved about Rocky and Bullwinkle were the reoccurring gags that changed over time, so you were never sure what to expect. Such as:

The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show was about a lot more than a flying squirrel and dim-witted moose. There was also Fractured Fairy Tales:

Peabody’s Improbable History:

 Aesop and Son, which was so similar to Peabody’s Improbable History that it used the same opening theme music.

And, Dudley Do-Right of the Mounties:

But, it was Moose and Squirrel that held our interest.




Subversive Cartoons ► Saturday Morning Cartoons

Not every cartoon is safe for Saturday morning kiddie shows.  Here’s a terrific documentary called Cartoons Kick Ass; A History of Subversive Animation. Ironically this doc is NSFW.

It’s followed by one of my favourite subversive cartoons.

Sadly Part 3 seems unembedable,
but you can WATCH IT HERE.

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The Flintstones ► Saturday Morning Cartoons

Strictly speaking the modern stone-age family was not a Saturday morning cartoon.

The Flintstones has the distiction of being the very first cartoon to run in prime time. It last 6 years. It moved to Saturday mornings thereafter in constant syndication and reruns. Yet, The Flintstones was never intended for children, as the WikiWackyWoo reveals:  

Despite the animation and fantasy setting, the series was initially aimed at adult audiences, which was reflected in the comedy writing, which, as noted, resembled the average primetime sitcoms of the era, with the usual family issues resolved with a laugh at the end of each episode, as well as the inclusion of a laugh track. Hanna and Barbera hired many writers from the world of live action, including two of Jackie Gleason’s writers, Herbert Finn and Sydney Zelinka, as well as relative newcomer Joanna Lee while still using traditional animation story men such as Warren Foster and Michael Maltese.

Here’s a Theme Song Sing-A-Long:

It’s interesting the show used some of Jackie Gleason’s writers. Again, I’m going to let the Wiki tell you all about it:

The show imitated and spoofed The Honeymooners, although the early voice characterization for Barney was that of Lou Costello.[22] William Hanna admitted that “At that time, The Honeymooners was the most popular show on the air, and for my bill, it was the funniest show on the air. The characters, I thought, were terrific. Now, that influenced greatly what we did with The Flintstones … The Honeymooners was there, and we used that as a kind of basis for the concept.”[citation needed] However, Joseph Barbera disavowed these claims in a separate interview, stating that, “I don’t remember mentioning The Honeymooners when I sold the show. But if people want to compare The Flintstones to The Honeymooners, then great. It’s a total compliment. The Honeymooners was one of the greatest shows ever written.”[23] Jackie Gleason, creator of The Honeymooners, considered suing Hanna-Barbera Productions, but decided that he did not want to be known as “the guy who yanked Fred Flintstone off the air”.[24][25]

However, at 8 years old, none of that mattered to me. I just loved all the rock jokes and anachronisms, even if I didn’t know what that word meant back then.

Here’s another Sing-A-Long:

One surprise I had in adulthood was the cigarette commercials embedded in the shows. I hadn’t noticed them when I was a kid. It would be another 10 years (the beginning of 1971) before cigarette commercials were banned on television altogether.

The following edit includes the original theme song (which I also don’t remember) used for the first 2 seasons but changed to the familiar one above because it was the same tune as the Bugs Bunny “Overture, hit the lights” theme song.

Something else I didn’t learn until I was old enough for it to matter: The famed Mel Blanc voiced Barney Rubble. He also voiced (according to the Wiki): Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Tweety Bird, Sylvester the Cat, Yosemite Sam, Foghorn Leghorn, Marvin the Martian, Pepé Le Pew, Speedy Gonzales, Wile E. Coyote, Road Runner, the Tasmanian Devil, and many of the other characters from the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies theatrical cartoons during the golden age of American animation. He was, in fact, the voice for all of the major male Warner Bros. cartoon characters except for Elmer Fudd, whose voice was provided by radio actor Arthur Q. Bryan (although Blanc later voiced Fudd, as well, after Bryan’s death).[1]

Playing Trixie to his Norton was Bea Benadaret, as his wife Betty. These days you can see Bea Benaderet early Saturday (and Sunday) mornings on Antenna TV on the George Burns and Gracie Allen Show. However, I first became aware of her, and fell in love with her, as Kate Bradley, the owner of the Shady Rest Hotel in both Petticoat Junction and Green Acres. She also played Cousin Pearl Bodine on The Beverly Hillbillies, giving her the Corn Pone Hat Trick.

Enough analysis. Let’s just go to the game films:

Elmer, Bugs, Daffy, & Friends ► Saturday Morning Cartoons

Let’s turn our attention to the various antagonists in the Looney Tunes/Merrie Melody cartoons from by Warner Bros.

The Warner brothers were Harry, Albert, Sam and Jack, whose parents left a repressive regime in Poland before the turn of the last century.

First locating in Baltimore, then London, Ontario, Canada, before settling back in Baltimore. Then, a few years later, the family moved to Youngstown, Ohio. That’s where the brothers Warner first entered Show Business near the bottom rung of the ladder in the early 1900s.

Sam and Albert got their hands on a movie projector, paid $150 for prints of Life of an American Fireman and The Great Train Robbery, and took their show on the road. They started in the small towns of western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio. These were mining towns starved for entertainment. As it turned out showing movies to rapt audiences was like printing cash. As the other brothers joined, it wasn’t long before they bought their first movie theater, and then another. Then they moved into film distribution, until they eventually branched out into producing movies at their own studio in Hollywood before the first World War.

By 1930 Warner Bros. was a powerhouse in the movie biz and decided to branch out into cartoons, by buying them from Leon Schlesinger, who got them from Harman and Ising Studios. The Looney Toons and Merrie Melodies cartoons became shorts for movie theaters playing between Warner Bros. movie double bills.

These cartoons eventually made it to Saturday morning tee vee, which was starved for content in the late ’50s and ’60s. That where those of my generation watched them endlessly.

Enough history. Here are some cartoons to Make ‘Merka Laugh Again, especially the last one with a wascally wabbit teaching a Donald Trump wannabe what’s what: