Looney Tunes recap: the story so far

No. 01 · 1930 · Series

Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies recap

The theatrical cartoons Warner Bros. released before features from 1930 to 1969, under two series names, Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies. The early shorts, made for producer Leon Schlesinger, starred Bosko, while the Merrie Melodies were built around popular songs. The studio found its voice in the mid-1930s, when directors Tex Avery, Frank Tashlin, Bob Clampett and Chuck Jones, working in a run-down building nicknamed Termite Terrace, pushed the gags faster and stranger. Porky Pig arrived in 1935, Daffy Duck in 1937 and Bugs Bunny in A Wild Hare (1940), facing the hunter Elmer Fudd and asking "What's up, Doc?". Mel Blanc voiced nearly all of them, and Carl Stalling scored them. Through the 1940s and 1950s the cast grew: Tweety and Sylvester, Yosemite Sam, Foghorn Leghorn, Pepe Le Pew, Marvin the Martian, Speedy Gonzales, the Tasmanian Devil, and Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner. Friz Freleng, Robert McKimson and Chuck Jones led the postwar units. Famous shorts include Jones's Duck Amuck (1953), where an unseen animator torments Daffy, the Bugs, Daffy and Elmer hunting trilogy, One Froggy Evening (1955) and What's Opera, Doc? (1957), in which Elmer hunts Bugs through a Wagner opera. Several won Academy Awards, including Tweetie Pie (1947), Speedy Gonzales (1955) and Knighty Knight Bugs (1958).

How Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies ends

The classic shorts ended without a finale. Warner Bros. closed its cartoon studio in 1963, outsourced new shorts to DePatie-Freleng Enterprises, then reopened a smaller studio, and the last of the original run, Robert McKimson's Injun Trouble, was released in 1969. By then the shorts had found a second life on television, starting with The Bugs Bunny Show in 1960, and they were repackaged for decades, including in The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour.

No. 02 · 1968 · Series

The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour recap

An hour-long Saturday morning show on CBS built from the classic theatrical shorts, hosted by Bugs Bunny with Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote cartoons alongside his own. It grew out of The Bugs Bunny Show, which began in prime time on ABC in 1960 with three shorts per episode joined by newly animated linking scenes of Bugs and the cast introducing them, and The Road Runner Show, which CBS had aired since 1966. CBS merged the two in 1968. Over the next three decades the package moved between CBS and ABC and kept changing names and lengths: The Bugs Bunny Show again, The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Show, The Bugs Bunny/Looney Tunes Comedy Hour and The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show. For many viewers it was where they first saw the shorts. Networks trimmed violent gags and scenes considered offensive, and some cartoons were left out entirely, so the versions shown on TV often differed from the theatrical originals.

How The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour ends

The show had no finale. Its final form, The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show on ABC, ended on September 2, 2000, after Warner Bros. made the Looney Tunes library exclusive to its own cable channels, Cartoon Network and later Boomerang. That closed a run of about forty years for Bugs Bunny on network TV. The classic shorts did not return to American broadcast TV until 2021, when MeTV began airing them.

No. 03 · 1979 · Film

The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Movie recap

A 1979 feature-length compilation of Chuck Jones's classic Warner Bros. shorts, with new linking scenes animated for the film. Bugs Bunny gives a tour of his home, a modern house built over a waterfall of carrot juice, and reminisces about the history of comedy and his career while introducing the cartoons. The first half is mostly Bugs and Daffy Duck: Hare-Way to the Stars with Marvin the Martian, Duck Dodgers in the 24th and a Half Century, Duck Amuck, Bully for Bugs, Ali Baba Bunny, Rabbit Fire, Long-Haired Hare and What's Opera, Doc?, along with Pepe Le Pew in For Scent-imental Reasons and Wile E. Coyote in Operation: Rabbit. Several are shortened. The second half is a single extended Road Runner chase, cut together from seventeen Road Runner and Coyote shorts into one continuous pursuit. Jones directed the new material with Phil Monroe, and Mel Blanc voiced the cast.

How The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Movie ends

The film ends with its long Road Runner and Coyote sequence, the Coyote failing with one Acme device after another. Afterward Bugs steps outside and looks up at the night sky, where the constellations of the Road Runner and the Coyote are still running. It was followed by more compilation films built the same way, starting with The Looney Looney Looney Bugs Bunny Movie (1981), assembled by Friz Freleng.

No. 04 · 1990 · Series

Tiny Toon Adventures recap

A new generation of cartoon characters attends Acme Looniversity, a school in Acme Acres where the classic Looney Tunes stars teach them how to be funny. The students are not relatives of the originals but are modelled on them: Buster and Babs Bunny ("no relation"), who share Bugs's wit; Plucky Duck, a scheming glory hound in Daffy's mould; Hamton J. Pig, a neat, nervous pig like Porky; and Montana Max, a spoiled rich kid, and Elmyra Duff, a girl who loves animals to death, as their main antagonists. Others include Dizzy Devil, Furrball, Fifi La Fume, Shirley the Loon, Calamity Coyote, Little Beeper and Gogo Dodo, who lives in Wackyland. Episodes mix chases, parodies of films and TV, music videos and jokes aimed at adults. Steven Spielberg produced it through Amblin with Warner Bros. Animation, and Tom Ruegger created it. The show premiered in 1990, ran mainly in syndication for two seasons, moved to Fox Kids for a third in 1992, and won several Daytime Emmy Awards over its 98 episodes.

How Tiny Toon Adventures ends

The last regular episode, "It's a Wonderful Tiny Toons Christmas Special" (December 1992), parodies It's a Wonderful Life: Buster, pushed out as the star of the show by Montana Max, is shown by an angel what it would be like without him, and decides to come back. Two Fox specials followed, Tiny Toons Spring Break (1994) and Tiny Toons' Night Ghoulery (1995). Its team went on to make Animaniacs, and a reboot, Tiny Toons Looniversity, arrived in 2023.

No. 05 · 1991 · Series

Taz-Mania recap

The Tasmanian Devil, who in the classic shorts was a spinning, grunting eating machine, gets his own sitcom in a version of Tasmania where the sky is always yellow. Taz still spins, eats everything and barely talks, but now he has a family: his calm father Hugh, his mother Jean, his teenage sister Molly and his little brother Jake. Taz has a job as a bellhop at a hotel. The supporting cast is full of Australian animals and oddballs: the scheming Digeri Dingo; the Platypus Brothers, a pair of bickering handymen; Francis X. Bushlad; Buddy Boar; Wendal T. Wolf; and Bull Gator and his sidekick Axl, a pair of hunters forever trying to catch Taz. The humour is fast and silly, with fourth-wall jokes and occasional musical numbers. Jim Cummings voiced Taz. The show ran on Fox Kids from 1991 to 1995, for 65 episodes over four seasons.

How Taz-Mania ends

Taz-Mania ended without a finale. The last episode, "One Saturday in Taz-Mania", aired on May 22, 1995: Taz tries to have a lazy Saturday and keeps getting interrupted by Jake, while the Platypus Brothers review their favourite films. The show was not renewed after four seasons. Taz carried on in later Looney Tunes projects, including Space Jam (1996), but the Taz-Mania family was not revisited.

No. 06 · 1995 · Series

The Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries recap

Granny, the sweet old lady who owns Tweety in the classic shorts, is now a famous amateur detective who travels the world solving mysteries, with Tweety, Sylvester and her bulldog Hector along for the trip. Each case takes them to a new country, from Europe to Asia and beyond, where Granny is asked to look into a theft, a disappearance or a haunting. While she investigates, Sylvester spends every episode trying to catch and eat Tweety, and Hector, acting as Tweety's bodyguard, flattens him every time. Sylvester often stumbles onto the real clues by accident, but nobody understands him. June Foray voiced Granny, and Joe Alaskey voiced Sylvester and Tweety. The first season told one mystery per half hour; from the second, each episode had two shorter cases. It aired on Kids' WB from 1995 to 2000, for 52 episodes over five seasons.

How The Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries ends

The Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries ended without a story finale. Its last episode, with the segments "The Tail End?" and "This Is the End", never aired on Kids' WB and was first shown on Cartoon Network in December 2002. Sylvester, Tweety and Granny returned in later projects, including Baby Looney Tunes (2002), where Granny looks after the characters as toddlers, and The Looney Tunes Show (2011).

No. 07 · 1996 · Film

Space Jam recap

Michael Jordan has retired from basketball to play baseball. In outer space, Mr. Swackhammer, owner of a failing amusement park called Moron Mountain, sends his tiny alien henchmen, the Nerdlucks, to kidnap the Looney Tunes as new attractions. Bugs Bunny talks them into deciding the matter with a basketball game, and the Nerdlucks steal the talent of five NBA players, including Charles Barkley and Patrick Ewing, becoming the giant Monstars. The Tunes pull Jordan down a golf hole into their world to lead the Tune Squad, along with Lola Bunny, a new character, and Jordan's assistant Stan. The Monstars dominate the first half, then Swackhammer raises the stakes: if the Tunes lose, Jordan becomes a prisoner at Moron Mountain. Joe Pytka directed the live-action and animated film, with Bill Murray as himself.

How Space Jam ends

The Monstars knock out most of the Tune Squad, and Bill Murray joins to make up the numbers. In the final seconds Jordan stretches his arm across the court with cartoon physics for the winning dunk. Jordan points out that the Monstars only serve Swackhammer because they were small; they turn on him and launch him to the moon. The Nerdlucks return the stolen talent and stay with the Tunes, and Jordan returns to the NBA. Space Jam: A New Legacy followed in 2021.

No. 08 · 2002 · Series · optional

Baby Looney Tunes recap

A preschool series in which the Looney Tunes characters are toddlers. Granny looks after them in her house and garden: Baby Bugs, Lola, Daffy, Taz, Sylvester and Tweety, with other characters appearing as babies too. Instead of chases and violence, each episode deals with the small problems of early childhood, such as sharing or understanding feelings, and the babies learn something by the end. Episodes are split into short story segments and include original songs, often with cameos by other characters. The characters keep their familiar personalities in small form: Bugs is clever, Daffy is jealous and Taz is always hungry. The show began on WB stations in 2002 and moved to Cartoon Network, running until 2005 over four seasons. A direct-to-video film, Baby Looney Tunes' Eggs-traordinary Adventure, followed in 2003.

How Baby Looney Tunes ends

Baby Looney Tunes ended without a finale; its last episodes aired on Cartoon Network in April 2005, after four seasons, and the babies never grow up within the show. It stayed the franchise's only preschool series until Bugs Bunny Builders in 2022, which puts the characters, at their usual ages, in charge of a construction crew in a gentle show for the same young audience.

No. 09 · 2003 · Film

Looney Tunes: Back in Action recap

Daffy Duck, tired of being Bugs Bunny's sidekick, demands better treatment, and Warner Bros. executive Kate Houghton fires him. Studio security guard DJ Drake, an aspiring stuntman, is fired too after chasing Daffy through the lot. DJ's father, the action star Damian Drake, turns out to be a real secret agent, and he has been captured by the Acme Corporation, run by the childish, villainous Mr. Chairman. Damian needs DJ to find the Blue Monkey, a diamond that can turn people into monkeys. Daffy tags along, and Kate is ordered to bring Daffy back, with Bugs coming along. The chase goes from Las Vegas to Area 52, where Mother, a spy chief, equips them, to the Louvre in Paris, where they jump through famous paintings, and then to Africa. Joe Dante directed, with Brendan Fraser as DJ, Jenna Elfman as Kate, Steve Martin as Mr. Chairman and Timothy Dalton as Damian.

How Looney Tunes: Back in Action ends

Mr. Chairman gets the diamond and plans to turn everyone on Earth into monkeys who will buy Acme products, using a satellite. In space, Bugs beats Marvin the Martian and Daffy, as Duck Dodgers, splits the beam, which turns Mr. Chairman into a monkey. Damian is saved and DJ and Kate get together. Bugs promises Daffy an equal partnership, and the Looney Tunes end rings close in and squash Daffy. Porky tries to say "That's all, folks!" but the studio shuts down before he can finish.

No. 10 · 2005 · Series · optional

Loonatics Unleashed recap

In the year 2772, a meteor strikes the city-planet Acmetropolis, knocking it off its axis and giving six of its residents superpowers. They are descendants of the classic Looney Tunes characters: Ace Bunny, the sword-wielding leader descended from Bugs; Lexi Bunny, with super hearing, from Lola; Danger Duck, who teleports, from Daffy; Slam Tasmanian, a powerhouse, from Taz; Tech E. Coyote, an inventor who can rebuild his body, from Wile E.; and Rev Runner, super fast and talkative, from Road Runner. A mysterious figure called Zadavia gathers them into a team, the Loonatics, to protect the city from villains, many of them futuristic versions of other classic characters. Season 1 was serious superhero action, with Zadavia's brother Optimatus as the hidden main enemy. Season 2 was lighter, with Zadavia taking a direct role and a new villain, Deuce. The show aired on Kids' WB from 2005 to 2007, for 26 episodes over two seasons.

How Loonatics Unleashed ends

The last episode is the two-part "The Fall of Blanc" and "In Search of Tweetums". Optimatus, Deuce and Rupes Oberon try to use a wormhole generator on the planet Blanc to conquer the universe. Deuce betrays Optimatus, and Ace sends Deuce into another universe. The Loonatics then move their headquarters to Blanc and become protectors of the whole universe. The series was not continued, and the franchise's next TV show was The Looney Tunes Show in 2011.

No. 11 · 2011 · Series

The Looney Tunes Show recap

A sitcom version of the Looney Tunes in a suburban neighbourhood. Bugs Bunny, rich from royalties on a carrot peeler he invented, shares his house with Daffy Duck, a lazy, vain and broke roommate who never moves out. Their neighbours are Yosemite Sam, Granny with Sylvester and Tweety, and Gossamer. Bugs dates Lola Bunny, here a hyperactive and scatterbrained girlfriend, Daffy dates the no-nonsense Tina Russo, Porky Pig is the friend Daffy takes for granted, and Speedy Gonzales runs a pizza place called Pizzarriba. The stories are character comedy about friendship and everyday problems rather than slapstick chases. Most episodes include a Merrie Melodies music video with an original song, and the first season also has computer-animated Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner shorts. The show aired on Cartoon Network from 2011 to 2013, with a few episodes held back until 2014, for 52 episodes over two seasons.

How The Looney Tunes Show ends

The Looney Tunes Show ended without a finale and was not renewed for a third season. The last episode in production order, "Best Friends Redux", has Daffy, jealous of an old friend of Bugs's, change the past so they never meet, and then have to fix it when he erases his own friendship with Bugs. The franchise's next series, Wabbit, later renamed New Looney Tunes, began in 2015.

No. 12 · 2015 · Series

New Looney Tunes recap

A series of short, fast gag cartoons, two to an episode, closer to the original theatrical shorts than The Looney Tunes Show had been. It launched as Wabbit: A Looney Tunes Production, centred on Bugs Bunny outwitting opponents who disturb his peace, with a new supporting cast: Squeaks, a red squirrel who is Bugs's best friend and speaks only in squeaks, and Bigfoot, a childlike sasquatch who follows Bugs around and calls him "lady". Yosemite Sam, Wile E. Coyote and Porky Pig also appear, along with new foes. From the second season the show was renamed New Looney Tunes and opened up to the rest of the cast, giving segments to Daffy Duck, Porky, Sylvester and Tweety, Lola Bunny and others. It premiered on Cartoon Network and Boomerang in 2015 and ran until 2020, for 156 episodes over three seasons.

How New Looney Tunes ends

New Looney Tunes ended without a finale; its final episodes were released in January 2020, after three seasons and 156 episodes, with no closing story for Bugs, Squeaks or Bigfoot. It was followed directly by Looney Tunes Cartoons, which premiered on HBO Max in May 2020 and went back further still, to the look and pacing of the 1940s shorts.

No. 13 · 2020 · Series

Looney Tunes Cartoons recap

New shorts that deliberately imitate the classic theatrical cartoons, developed by Pete Browngardt. Each is a short, self-contained gag story with a classic pairing: Bugs Bunny against Elmer Fudd or Yosemite Sam, Daffy Duck and Porky Pig as a failing double act, Sylvester after Tweety, Wile E. Coyote after the Road Runner, plus Foghorn Leghorn, Marvin the Martian, Pepe Le Pew, Taz and others. The style takes its rubbery animation and violent slapstick from the shorts of Bob Clampett and Tex Avery, with hand-drawn character designs close to the 1940s originals. In the early shorts Elmer hunts with a scythe or axe instead of a gun, a restriction later dropped. Along with the shorts there were longer holiday specials, Bugs Bunny's 24-Carrot Holiday Special (2020) and Bugs Bunny's Howl-O-Skreem Spooktacula (2022). The series premiered on HBO Max in 2020, and the team made more than 200 shorts.

How Looney Tunes Cartoons ends

Looney Tunes Cartoons ended without a finale. Pete Browngardt announced in late 2022 that production had finished, the last batch of shorts was released in 2023, and a stop-motion bonus short, Daffy in Wackyland, followed on Max in 2024. The same team made The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie, released in US cinemas in March 2025, after Warner Bros. sold it.

No. 14 · 2021 · Film

Space Jam: A New Legacy recap

LeBron James pushes his younger son Dom toward basketball when Dom would rather design video games. At Warner Bros., a rogue artificial intelligence called Al-G Rhythm pulls LeBron and Dom into the Serververse, a digital world made of every Warner Bros. film and show, and takes Dom captive. To win Dom back, LeBron must beat Al-G's team in a basketball game. Exiled to the empty Tune World, LeBron meets Bugs Bunny, who travels through other Warner worlds, from DC to Game of Thrones to The Matrix, to bring the Looney Tunes back together for the Tune Squad. Al-G turns Dom against his father, and Dom builds the opposing Goon Squad, superpowered avatars based on real NBA and WNBA players, inside his own game. Malcolm D. Lee directed, with Don Cheadle as Al-G.

How Space Jam: A New Legacy ends

LeBron lets the Tunes play their own way, apologises to Dom, and Dom switches sides. With the Tunes trailing by one, Bugs uses a glitch in Dom's game, sacrificing himself so LeBron can score the winning basket, and Al-G is deleted. Back in the real world, Bugs fades away. A week later LeBron lets Dom go to a game design camp, and Bugs reappears, restored by cartoon physics, with the other Looney Tunes now living in the real world.

No. 15 · 2022 · Series · optional

Bugs Bunny Builders recap

A preschool series in which Bugs Bunny runs the Looney Builders, a construction crew that takes on jobs for friends and neighbours in the town of Looneyburg. Each crew member has a vehicle and a role: Bugs drives a backhoe, Lola Bunny plans the jobs and drives a bulldozer, Daffy Duck drives a dump truck, Porky Pig drives a steamroller and Tweety works the crane. Clients include other Looney Tunes characters, such as Taz, Sylvester, Foghorn Leghorn, Wile E. Coyote, Marvin the Martian and Petunia Pig, who need something built or fixed. Each episode follows one job from planning to finish, and the lessons are about teamwork, problem solving and fixing mistakes, with some of the classic slapstick kept in a softer form. It premiered on Cartoon Network's Cartoonito block and HBO Max in 2022, and a second season followed on Max from 2024.

How Bugs Bunny Builders ends

Bugs Bunny Builders has not had a finale. Its second season was released on Max from 2024, with the last episodes so far arriving in late 2025, and like most preschool shows it has no running story to wrap up: each episode ends with the job done. It is the franchise's second preschool series, after Baby Looney Tunes (2002 to 2005).

No. 16 · 2023 · Series

Tiny Toons Looniversity recap

A reboot of Tiny Toon Adventures that turns its characters into first-year students at Acme Looniversity, a college where the classic Looney Tunes are the faculty. The biggest change is that Buster and Babs Bunny, who were unrelated in the original, are now twin siblings, and they arrive at college together hoping to become great comedians. Their friends are Plucky Duck, Hamton J. Pig and Sweetie Bird, and Montana Max and Elmyra Duff return. The stories mix campus life, college classes taught by Bugs, Daffy and the others, and the friends' plans to make it in show business, with the meta jokes of the original. Erin Gibson and Nate Cash developed the show, with Steven Spielberg back as an executive producer. It premiered on Max and Cartoon Network in 2023.

How Tiny Toons Looniversity ends

Tiny Toons Looniversity ended without a finale. It ran for the two seasons it was ordered, with the second released in halves in 2024 and 2025, plus holiday specials; the last regular episode, "I Got a New Aptitude", aired on Cartoon Network in July 2025. The show stopped there, with no closing story arc for Buster, Babs and their friends, and no third season has been announced.

No. 17 · 2025 · Film

The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie recap

Porky Pig and Daffy Duck grew up together on a farm raised by a kindly farmer, and now, as adults, they need money to fix the crumbling house before it is condemned. They take jobs at a bubble gum factory, where Porky falls for Petunia Pig, a flavour scientist. Meanwhile a UFO has landed nearby, and an alien called the Invader is secretly adding a substance to a new gum flavour that turns anyone who chews it into a mind-controlled zombie. Daffy notices, nobody believes him, and he and Porky lose their jobs. Petunia discovers he was right, and the three try to stop the alien as the gum spreads through the town and then the world. Pete Browngardt directed this 2D hand-drawn feature, which premiered at the Annecy festival in 2024. Warner Bros. sold it, and Ketchup Entertainment released it in US cinemas in March 2025.

How The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie ends

The Invader gets the world's population to blow one giant bubble around the planet, but Daffy and Porky pop it, and the Invader turns out to be trying to save Earth from an incoming asteroid. The heroes stuff the gum inside the asteroid, which explodes harmlessly. Daffy and Porky are presumed dead but survive, and an insurance policy left by their guardian pays for a new mansion. Coyote vs. Acme, also released by Ketchup, followed in August 2026.

No. 18 · 2026 · Film

Coyote vs. Acme recap

In 1992, an Acme scientist, Dr. Lorre, leaks company secrets and is locked inside a portable hole. Thirty years later, Wile E. Coyote, worn down by every Acme product that has failed him in his chase of the Road Runner, hires Kevin Avery, a struggling lawyer known for billboard ads, to sue the company. Kevin usually settles, but Wile E.'s persistence pushes him to take the case to trial against Acme's lawyer, Buddy Crane. An anonymous whistleblower, who turns out to be Bugs Bunny, exposes Project Sisyphus, an Acme scheme that used cartoon violence to test products on unsuspecting people. The trial collapses, but Kevin takes the story to the press, and it reaches a congressional hearing in Washington. Kevin and Wile E. fall out before the hearing, and Tweety, forced to work as an Acme mercenary, nearly kills Wile E.

How Coyote vs. Acme ends

At the hearing, Acme's CEO Foghorn Leghorn admits to Project Sisyphus but dismisses cartoon characters as unimportant, and the Road Runner testifies for Wile E. as his friend, so Wile E. spares him. When the senator declines to bring federal charges, Wile E. springs the trap he set for the Road Runner on the Acme team instead. A federal investigation follows, Foghorn and Buddy Crane are arrested, Dr. Lorre is freed, and Wile E. goes back to chasing the Road Runner.

Post-credits scenes

No. There is no post-credits scene; the end of the credits carries a dedication to the fans who campaigned for the film's release.