In a few weeks (on August 28), a new movie based on Warner Brothers Animation and desert dwellers Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner hits movie theaters.
While well aware that Warner Brothers Animation and Road Runner stalwarts Chuck Jones, Mike Maltese, Lloyd Vaughan, Ken Harris, Phil Monroe and Ben Washam are long gone, this trailer looks pretty darn good. Nonetheless, the Coyote vs. ACME preview emphatically sparks an uncontrollable urge to watch Road Runner cartoons!
Will's over-the-top performance in the Fly High Duluth sketch is a personal favorite and the ultimate statement on bad bands, enhanced by Fred Armisen as the group's animated and overenthusiastic drummer. Love the fact that both host Scarlett Johansson and the entire SNL cast are involved.
When everyday life, the annoyances of old age and unrelentingly lousy 2026 get the gang here feeling down, a fantastic way to get to that better place involves vintage Warner Bros. cartoons from 1935-1955 and the both gloriously unhinged and intergalactic country singers Clancy T. Bachleratt and Jackie Snad.
And, in closing, we respectfully tip our Michigan J. Frog top hats to the desert dwellers and all involved in making Warner Brothers cartoons and the high-wire sketch comedy at Second City, Groundlings, Upright Citizens Brigade, etc. Thanks to all who bring the laughs!
Here at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog, today's holiday means Easter movies, rabbit-laden cartoons and TV show clips.
Kicking off the compendium of rabbit-packed Easter cartoons, here's the Easter egg-filled and downright rabbit-infested Silly Symphony Funny Little Bunnies.
That would be Easter Yeggs (1947), one of the very best cartoons ever helmed by director Robert McKimson.
We're delighted that METV has shown the Walter Lantz Studio's contribution to the Easter cartoon genre, Oswald The Lucky Rabbit in The Egg Cracker Suite (1943).
The Egg Cracker Suite is the last of the theatrical Oswald The Lucky Rabbit series.
Ozzy was subsequently purloined, along with all but a couple of the Disney animation staff, by Charles Mintz.
After a year of Winkler Oswalds, Mintz received the heave-ho from Carl Laemmle and Walter Lantz took over the character and made a gazillion Ozzy toons for Universal Pictures.
Happy Easter to all from Oswald, Bugs Bunny and Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog!
Staggering through March 2026 and noting that this year continues painfully and unrelentingly resembling the following. . .
Asking if anything can get one's mind off the dumpster fire even momentarily, the answer to that question remains an emphatic NO, although the next best thing is to celebrate NATIONAL FLAPJACK DAY!
That means it's flapjack time, starting with Mickey Mouse pancakes.
Even better and enthusiastically in the National Flapjack Day spirit: Cuphead!
Do we love pancakes too much? Could this blogger's long-suffering partner be featured in the Women Who Love Men Who Love Pancakes Too Much book?
Yes, guilty as charged.
Would $5 for all you can eat pancakes appeal to the gang at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog? Absolutely!
Not surprisingly, tons of expert advice on how to make flapjacks, from Epicurious to Bon Appétit to America's Test Kitchens to Michelin to New York Times can be found. We'll get it down to two videos: the ever-wisecracking Binging With Babish and Alton Brown's Good Eats.
Now we flip to flapjacks served by great movie comedians and animated cartoon characters. First and foremost: silent movie comedy queen Alice Howell, cavalierly flipping pancakes at 2:11 in the very funny 1920 opus Cinderella Cinders.
Next up: Los Tres Stupidos!
National Flapjack Day in Cartoonland commences with post-World War II Popeye serving green pancakes to his obnoxious nephews in Spinach Vs. Hamburgers. Noting the presence of an excerpt from the staggeringly racist Pop-Pie A La Mode in Spinach Vs Hamburgers, it remains flabbergasting that this cartoon was run constantly on TV in the 1960's. As far as National Flapjack Day goes, I personally would go to both Spinach Heaven and Wimpy's Hamburger Haven, with the sincere hope that Chef Popeye makes a spinach Spanish omelet to go with the green flapjacks!
The New Rochelle studio of Paul Terry produced several flapjack flippin' endeavors. Found the following two pancake-packed 1930's Terrytoons and it’s highly likely there are more.
While I like that in the following Terrytoon, the eatery Nick’s Coffee Pot is literally a coffee pot, it’s just a bit odd, even in the Cartoon Universe, that the clientele are insects.
Meanwhile, Chuck Jones, who, unlike Joe Barbera, would scoff at Terrytoons, starred one of his second-tier headliners, the ever-nonplussed Conrad Cat (from The Bird Came C.O.D. and Conrad The Sailor), as cheerful pancake-flipper in Porky’s Cafe.
This black & white Looney Tune is from 1942, the year when Chuck and crew produced such hilarious classic cartoons as My Favorite Duck and The Dover Boys. Note to readers: enjoy the following cartoon and pardon the inexplicable 1937 opening theme music.
Closing this National Flapjack Day post, we shall beckon back to the 1950's. It's astounding, especally to young people, that not all that long ago there actually was an Aunt Jemima's Kitchen restaurant at Disneyland and a national fast food chain named Sambo's. Yes, boomers who are still here (and eating) in 2026 actually dined at those restaurants. Some eateries were better than others and some were downright lousy! In particular, yellow pancakes were a bad sign of bad food to come.
As grotesque as these companies' product logos remain and as cringe-worthy as the chain resturants could be, they remind us who invented American cuisine and developed, among highly creative cookery in many U.S. cities, the amazing food of New Orleans, where no doubt spicy flapjacks can still be enjoyed.
Have celebrated Valentine's Day either with cartoons or the classic comedy of Jack Benny (who was born on February 14, 1894). This year, it will be cartoons!
The most wonderfully caustic and cynical Valentine's Day cartoon is PORKY'S ROMANCE (1937), directed by Frank Tashlin. Did Tash have a romance that went terribly wrong while making this? Who knows - here's a detailed review of the Tashlin classic from Anthony's Animation Talk.
In HONEY’S MONEY (1962), the second most caustic and cynical of all Valentine's Day cartoons, ever-unscrupulous Yosemite Sam, only romantic about blowing things up, brazenly marries for riches. It doesn't work out well for Sam.
Pettin' In The Park (1934) is the seventh Warner Brothers cartoon produced by the new Leon Schlesinger studio. Sound engineer supreme Bernard Brown is the credited director. After Warner Brothers parted ways with the Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising studio, which produced Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes as independent contractors from 1930-1933, Leon Schlesinger opted to start an in-house cartoon production house.
This musical tale of Sunday afternoon romance, featuring a few enjoyable sight gags and pre-Code moments, looks good in comparison to Buddy's Day Out and I've Got To Sing A Torch Song, the dreadful debut films by the new Schlesinger crew. The most interesting thing about this goofy musical opus, besides the song from Gold Diggers Of 1933, is the swim race sequence. Bob Clampett, one of the very young guys who worked on this cartoon remembered this and liked it enough to bring it back a few years later in Porky's Naughty Nephew (1938).
What character gets black cats painted with white stripes into the mood for Valentine's Day? That would be what Chuck Jones called "the Charles Boyer skunk," he hopelessly romantic yet seriously delusional Pepe LePew.
How do we celebrate Happy Boxing Day in 2025? With the celebrated Runty Duck, star of the Van Beuren Studio's Aesop's Fables cartoons, in THE BULLY'S END (1933)!
The exceptionally goofy WB cartoon star Egghead, created by Tex Avery, got his chance to emulate radio star Joe Penner's voice (thanks to voice artist Danny Webb) while also making his debut as a pugilist in COUNT ME OUT (1938), directed by Ben "Bugs" Hardaway and Cal Dalton.
The one, the only Charlie Chaplin turns pugilist in a bunch of movies, the most famous being his 1931 classic CITY LIGHTS. Love how Charlie's opponent is none other than fellow Keystone comic Hank Mann!
This hilarious sequence from CITY LIGHTS is not the first time Chaplin boxed onscreen. Here he is in the 1915 Essanay 2-reeler THE CHAMPION.
Chaplin plays the referee in the 1914 Keystone Comedy, THE KNOCKOUT, starring Roscoe Arbuckle, whose opponent in the boxing match is none other than comedian, character actor, director and actual pugilist Edgar "Slow Burn" Kennedy. . . WITH HAIR!!!
It's no secret that the gang at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog consider Harry Langdon (1884-1944) one of the greatest, funniest, most imaginative and most unorthodox comedians of all time. It's also no secret that many knowledgeable film historians find Harry's perpetually out-to-lunch space cadet character inexplicably weird and incredibly unfunny. Indeed, many silent era comedy aficionados who love Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd don't find Harry Langdon funny at all.
We even enjoy Harry's much maligned 1929-1930 series for Hal Roach Studios.
Arguably, the best of Harry Langdon's Lot Of Fun 2-reelers is THE FIGHTING PARSON (1929), in which Harry's singing and dancing precedes a very clever and hilarious boxing sequence. Throughout and as usual, Harry's seriously addled brain appears to be flying around in the cosmos.
Count this dyed-in-the-wool film buff among the very few who love Langdon's marvelously bizarre Hal Roach Studios comedy shorts, the notable absence of Vernon Dent (Harry's pal offscreen and favorite foil onscreen) notwithstanding.
This is our last post for 2025. We hope for better times ahead in 2026 - see you then!
A day early, we wish our readers a Happy Thanksgiving!
And also seek advice for turkeys. . .
On Thanksgiving, are we super thankful for numerous blessings, including Swanson TV Dinners? YEAH, BABY!
And the fact the silent movies from 100 years ago still exist!
And that those Three Stooges comedies involving Thanksgiving themes are still around, too.
Ever the avid Jay Ward Productions fan, I am ever-thankful for giant Bullwinkle and Rocky balloons at Macy's Thanksgiving Parades.
Rather oddly, am also thankful for the many mishaps that have transpired at Macy's Thanksgiving Parades. As these epic balloon blunders were the cornerstones of our 2022 Thanksgiving blog post, we'll bring 'em back for an encore.
Do I take some measure of guilty pleasure in the unfortunate impalings of gargantuan and not terribly well thought-out parade inflatables? Absolutely, provided I was definitely NOT there in person to witness the balloon-bursting disasters and get clobbered with flying debris!
Thankful for first responders and others with the task of dealing with the aftermath of parade disasters? YES - more than can be expressed!
As always, the gang at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog remains thankful for classic cartoons!
The great Hugh Harman made a bunch of terrific cartoons for WB and MGM in the 1930's and 1940's.
Have posted the following, Tom Turkey & His Harmonica Humdingers, a homage to Borrah Minnevitch & The Harmonica Rascals, on several Thanksgiving posts - and shall do it again now!
Thanksgiving cartoons starring Daffy Duck (and Porky Pig) are always the right call.
Is there anyone in the animation business not named Charley Bowers, Tex Avery, Bob Clampett or Frank Tashlin who has crushed a wider range of genres than Bill Melendez (November 15, 1916 - September 2, 2008)?
Don't think so. Did any other artist or filmmaker excel in more avenues of storytelling than Bill Melendez? Nope.
Over a seven decade career, Bill Melendez was an ace animator, filmmaker and ultimately a producer/director supreme. His work was all over the map, including everything from WB and UPA cartoons to the Peanuts adaptations to a 1982 Stan Freberg PBS special to George Schlatter Productions' experimental and blackout-filled TV show Turn-On (1969) to a successful animated adaptation of C.S. Lewis.
After beginning his career at Walt Disney Productions, Bill Melendez worked on cartoons by Warner Brothers and UPA, before directing and producing numerous Peanuts specials. Matt Zoller Seitz from Roger Ebert.com elaborates here:
Here's documentary footage of Bill Melendez Productions.
Fortunately, as Bill lived to be 92, there are lots of interviews with him. Here, Jerry Beck of Cartoon Research and numerous books about animation interviews Mr. Melendez and fellow brilliant animator Bill Littlejohn.
While Bill Melendez is primarily remembered for the Peanuts specials he directed and produced, he was a key animator at Warner Brothers and worked on a slew of outstanding cartoons, including some spectacular ones directed by Bob Clampett.
In the intrepid crews helmed by the aforementioned Bob Clampett, Arthur Davis and Bob McKimson, Bill worked, credited as "J.C. Melendez," on quite a few of the greatest cartoons ever produced by Warner Brothers.
Bill Melendez was among the few to animate for both Warner Brothers Animation and UPA (United Productions of America), the creators of Mr. Magoo and the 1950's animation style known as "Cartoon Modern."
The gang here has a soft spot for Gerald McBoing-Boing.
Especially love the cool graphic design of Gerald McBoing-Boing's Symphony.
One of the lesser known but marvelous movies from the 1970's is the Melendez adaptation of C.S. Lewis' The Lion The Witch & The Wardrobe.
Bill Melendez Productions captured the essence of Charles M. Schulz' comic strip and successfully brought it to animation.
Halloween means the annual viewing of Alexandre Alexeieff's Night On Bald Mountain (1933)!
Halloween means. . . it's time for Frankie!
The Late Night with Conan O’Brien show created a very funny bit involving Frankenstein, in this case played by Brian Stack - and also featuring Tom Hanks.
Love the idea of Bill Hader as a snarky Frankenstein.
Here's our all-time favorite Frankenstein tune, performed by The Edgar Winter Group with Rick Derringer.
Did Frankie appear in any animated cartoons? Yes, he did! The 1935 Looney Tune HOLLYWOOD CAPERS, directed by Jack King, ran on one of our local television stations in the San Francisco Bay Area all the time back in the early-to-mid 1960’s. It featured the “Our Gang” inspired cast from Friz Freleng’s Merrie Melodie cartoon I Haven't Got A Hat (1935).
HOLLYWOOD CAPERS starred Beans the cat, ersatz but somewhat livelier substitute for Looney Tunes headliner Buddy, otherwise known in Cartoonland as "Mr. Excitement." One would assume that Porky Pig, clearly the standout from the cast of I Haven't Got A Hat, was already renegotiating his contract with Leon Schlesinger.
Most noteworthy, along with the Hollywood star caricatures (Charlie Chaplin, W.C. Fields, Oliver Hardy): the appearance by none other than Frankenstein, starting at 4:05.
Among the transitional cartoons between "Buddy" and the beginnings of Termite Terrace sparked by Leon Schlesinger hiring former Lantz animator Tex Avery, is the Jack King Looney Tune A CARTOONISTS NIGHTMARE. Have a hunch the hard-working animator at the drawing board who experiences the nightmare of getting brutalized by multiple bad guys from Warner Bros. cartoons is Robert McKimson!
Before Jack King was hired by Leon Schlesinger to make Looney Tunes, he worked for Walt Disney Productions, who subsequently re-hired Jack to direct Donald Duck cartoons. Taking nothing away from the Silly Symphony The Skeleton Dance, two particularly clever and spooky Mickey Mouse cartoons are The Haunted House (1929) and The Mad Doctor (1933).
Next up: Old Manor House (1948), a terrific and eccentric haunted house cartoon by George Moreno and British Animated Productions, creators of the Bubble & Squeek series.
Finishing this Happy Halloween post: Jay Ward's Tom Slick and a Monte Karloff monster rally straight from Transylvania!
We're pleased as pomegranates to see a slew of classic cartoons turn up on websites other than YouTube. First off, there's Internet Archive, which we have relied on recently for posts about our favorite silent movie comedians. Among our favorites remains the comic who was also a stop-motion animation innovator, Charley Bowers.
Of course, these comedy heroes include the one, the only Felix The Cat!
While on the topic of silent era cartoons, must note the growing selection of Fleischer Studio, including entries from the original Out Of The Inkwell series.
There are also a bunch of Fleischer Screen Songs on Internet Archive. This is good, as neither the Fleischer nor Famous Studios Screen Songs have been released on Blu-ray as of yet. Some turn up periodically on Steve Stanchfield's Cartoon Research Thursdays.
As the gang at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog ponders the San Francisco Giants' hiring of Tony Vitello, longtime head coach of the 341-131 Tennesee Vols juggernaut, as the new manager, we doff our fedoras worn by Tex Avery to Internet Archive, Vimeo, Cartoon Research and Devon Baxter and close today's post with two very funny Looney Tunes directed by Norman McCabe. Both never fail to crack me up - it's this cartoon fan's fervent hope that historians Mike Barrier and Milt Gray interviewed Mr. McCabe at length regarding his 50+ year animation career.
In this blog's numerous postings about Warner Brothers cartoons, it's amazing that this is the first post devoted to the one, the only, the peerless animator and director Robert McKimson (October 13, 1910 - September 27, 1977).
McKimson worked with Warner Brothers Animation directors Tex Avery, Bob Clampett, Frank Tashlin, Friz Freleng and Chuck Jones and had much to do with the transition of Bugs Bunny from the chortling buck-toothed grotesque of Porky's Hare Hunt (1938) to the Oscar-winning rabbit and comedy powerhouse that debuted in A Wild Hare (1940).
Robert McKimson goes back to the first Warner Brothers cartoons. His animation is all over those early Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies. Bob is the guy who was there at Warner Brothers Animation for the entire run, as Friz Freleng left for a brief time to direct Captain & The Kids cartoons for MGM.
After short stints with Walt Disney Productions and Romer Grey, Bob was cranking out animation for Hugh Harman and Rudy Ising when they were producing cartoons for Leon Schlesinger as independent producers in 1930-1933.
Shall, of course, be posting a slew of cartoons directed by Robert McKimson in today's post.
After all, he directed several of this writer's all-time favorite cartoons!
These include Hillbilly Hare, French Rarebit, What's Up, Doc? and Gorilla My Dreams.
The two Robert McKimson cartoons directed featuring Bobo the elephant rank high atop the list of favorites.
Love the lesser known albeit genuinely charming Hobo Bobo (1947).
Another classic cartoon we are particularly fond of is The Hole Idea (1955), which was animated as well as directed by Robert McKimson - and much enjoy Anthony's Animation Talk's take on this inventive Looney Tune.
The book by Robert McKimson, Jr. about Bob and his brothers Charles and Tom looks FANTASTIC, as well as a fitting tribute to the many contributions the McKimson brothers made to Warner Brothers cartoons.
Robert and ace film historians Michael Barrier, Jerry Beck, Mark Kausler and Mark Evanier all turn up in the documentary Behind The Tunes - Drawn to Life: The Art Of Robert McKimson.
Since he was on the same staff with Tex Avery, Frank Tashlin, Bob Clampett, Chuck Jones, Friz Freleng - and at one point animated for all of them, to some extent Robert McKimson's directorial efforts receive short shrift, as do the WB cartoons helmed by Arthur Davis; both developed an original spin on the Termite Terrace style. The Robert McKimson cartoons emphasize personality animation in a unique way, different from his contemporaries, Jones and Freleng.
No doubt Bob Clampett knew very well the incredible, creative and original animation Robert McKimson, Rod Scribner, Manny Gould, Bill Melendez, Izzy Ellis, John Carey, Norm McCabe, etc. contributed to his directorial efforts.
Robert hit the ground running when he started directing cartoons with Daffy Doodles (1946).
He followed this classic with a series of very funny cartoons featuring Daffy, Bugs Bunny, the Tasmanian Devil and other WB characters.
In particular, we are big time aficionados of Grover Groundhog in One Meat Brawl (1946). He has tons of personality!
Bugs Bunny subbing for a sourpuss rabbit as the Easter Bunny always gets big laughs.
As does the Peter Lorre caricature in the following Daffy Duck cartoon, Birth of a Notion (1947).
And McKimson's spoof of The Honeymooners!
Loud-mouthed rooster Foghorn Leghorn, Bob's favorite Warner Bros. cartoon character, made his silver screen debut in Walky Talky Hawky (1946).
Always in a tit-for-tat reciprocal destruction bargain with a dumb barnyard hound (with a wiseguy voice by Mel Blanc), Foghorn Leghorn would be the popular character favored most by Robert McKimson's production crew. Here are a few of the loud-mouthed rooster's 30 starring vehicles.
One of the funniest of the Robert McKimson directorial efforts from the studio's final year was Banty Raids (1963). The beatnik rooster is a hoot!
Thanks for the laughs, Bob, Chuck and Tom McKimson!
Also extend respectful Fred Astaire top hat tips to key McKimson brothers collaborators Manny Gould, Herman Cohen, Rod Scribner, Bill Melendez, Phil DeLara, John Carey, Izzy Ellis, Emery Hawkins, Ted Bonnicksen, Keith Darling, George Grandpre, Cornett Wood, Richard H. Thomas, Warren Foster, Tedd Pierce, Sid Marcus, Mel Blanc, Sara Berner, Bea Benaderet, Arthur Q. Bryan, June Foray, Stan Freberg, Carl Stalling, Milt Franklyn, Treg Brown, etc.
And, last but not least, must thank Vimeo, Devon Baxter, Archive.org, Cartoon Research and the very knowledgeable Warner Bros. cartoon buffs at Anthony's Animation Talk for making this post possible. In closing, here's Rebel Rabbit, our favorite of the cartoons Robert McKimson directed and among the all-time best from Warner Brothers. And, yes, Daily Motion's policy of embedding ads before videos, while also not letting posters tweak with the embed code (NO AUTOPLAY, thank you very much), is annoying - just click through and then enjoy this fabulous cartoon.
