My favorite medium of Looney Tunes is, without a doubt, the original shorts, especially in the late 30s to early 50s golden age. Throughout this page, I make some recommendations for original shorts, some Looney Tunes Cartoons (2020-2024), and songs from the original shorts.
Some pieces of media I don't give individual recommendations for here but are fond of are The Looney Tunes Show (2011), which is very different from the originals, but as its own thing is hilarious, and Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003). The latter is controversial for having uninteresting human characters in the mix, but I do think that Joe Dante (dir) did excellent work with the toons-- he wrote Daffy very well, mixing the screwball elements with his greedy personality (he even got to woo-hoo!). There's also half an hour of cut content for those interested in that.
I have a strong preference towards Daffy Duck cartoons and Bugs Bunny cartoons still, but here are some select favorites from the new Looney Tunes Cartoons!
Coming to you from 2025: I haven’t been as engaged with Looney Tunes recently as I have been in the past—however, The Day the Earth Blew Up’s release in March 2025 was glorious.
For those unaware, the film is a sci-fi comedy starring Porky Pig and Daffy Duck. The gist is that, after taking a job at the gum factory, they end up in the middle of an alien's plan to control humanity. The film's visuals are absolutely incredible, and its soundtrack was recorded by a live orchestra. I'll embed the trailer below.
For those unaware of the development of the film, it was rocky on the part of the distributor. It was officially announced back in 2021 as an HBO Max and Cartoon Network release. It’s my understanding that production on LTC concluded in 2021 (the final episodes would not be released until 2024) to work on the movie.
As a result of the ill-fated WarnerMedia-Discovery merger and in preparation for merging HBO Max and Discovery+, the movie was dropped by its distributor in 2022, and it was unclear if WB would find anyone suitable to sell it to.
Production continued on the film, as the creative team held out hope that the movie would see a release. In September of 2022, some work-in-progress animation was shared at the Ottawa Animation Festival and on YouTube.
Two years later, the North American rights would be granted to Ketchup Entertainment, who surprised everyone by going for a theatrical release.
The film debuted at the Annecy Animation Festival in June 2024 and later to parts of Europe before releasing theatrically in America on March 14, 2025.
The thing about selling the film to a small distributor... is that nobody knew the film was out! Unless they were paying careful attention to it, that is.
On March 17, three days after the film's debut, Michael Ruocco (writer and board artist), posted on Bluesky that it was set to be pulled early from most theatres on Wednesday the 19th, which would have given the film a five day run. Hearing this, me and a friend (my second time seeing it, his first), booked tickets to our showing in the middle of the week and crossed our fingers it would still be there. Miraculously, fans of well-done 2D animation showed up in droves online to promote the film.
With the power of word-of-mouth, The Day the Earth Blew Up managed to succeed in the battle for 2D animation and recovered its budget ($15 mil. Compare this with 2025's Smurfs with a $58 million budget or Zootopia 2 with a $150 million budget).
On the backs of so many cancelled Looney Tunes projects this decade (Bye-Bye Bunny, assumedly Tooned Out) and the ones we're still hopeful for (Coyote vs Acme, something with Bugs Bunny), it's so exciting that the Day the Earth Blew Up beat the odds and saw the light of day!!
And again, it is a fantastic movie.
Here is a collection of my favorite music that was featured in the original Looney Tunes shorts. My top 3 are Merrily We Roll Along, Ain't We Got Fun?, and You Oughta Be In Pictures
Some quality TV Commercials from the 1960s Bugs Bunny Show. Several were directed by legends like Tex Avery (Kool-Aid commercials) and Bob McKimson (Tang commmericals)
(From 0:00 to 1:36) Cut content from The Gremlins 2 contianing a longer intro sequence with Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck.
A 2012 3D short made using Mel Blanc vocals from the record "Daffy Duck's Rhapsody" produced in the 1950s.
