Looney Tunes started as a series of short cartoons that played in cinemas before feature films. Warner Bros. launched it in 1930, added the sister series Merrie Melodies a year later, and over the next three decades its small studio, nicknamed Termite Terrace, produced some of the funniest animation ever made. The characters were built for those seven-minute shorts: fast, rude, sharply defined and nearly always in conflict with someone.
That's why this guide groups them by pairing. Most Looney Tunes stars are defined by who they're up against. Bugs needs a hunter, Sylvester needs Tweety, the Coyote needs the Road Runner. The guide covers each family, then the directors who shaped them and the extraordinary voice work of Mel Blanc, and ends with a full A–Z list.
- Studio
- Warner Bros. Cartoons
- First shorts
- Looney Tunes (1930), Merrie Melodies (1931)
- Original producer
- Leon Schlesinger
- Key directors
- Tex Avery, Bob Clampett, Chuck Jones, Friz Freleng, Robert McKimson
- Main voice
- Mel Blanc
- Music
- Carl Stalling, later Milt Franklyn
Bugs Bunny and his rivals
Bugs is the studio's biggest star and the model for the whole Looney Tunes attitude. He's rarely the one who starts a fight. Someone hunts him, cheats him or annoys him, and then he responds with total, gleeful superiority. His rivals are designed to lose to him in different ways.
Bugs Bunny
Grey hare · Warner Bros.' mascot
Bugs is cool, quick-witted and almost never in real danger. He chews a carrot, asks "What's up, Doc?" and runs rings around whoever is after him, often in drag, often while breaking the fourth wall. The directors gave him a simple rule: he has to be provoked first. That keeps him on the audience's side even when he's merciless. His official debut was A Wild Hare in 1940, and by the end of the decade he was the most popular cartoon character in America.
- Voice
- Mel Blanc
Elmer Fudd
Hunter · Bugs's most famous foil
Elmer is a mild, bald hunter with a shotgun and a speech pattern that turns his Rs and Ls into Ws ("be vewy, vewy quiet"). He's not malicious, just easily fooled, which is why Bugs's victories over him feel playful. He's the target in many of the best-loved shorts, including the opera parody What's Opera, Doc? (1957).
- Voice
- Arthur Q. Bryan
Yosemite Sam
Pint-sized gunslinger
Sam is a tiny, red-moustached cowboy with two pistols and no patience at all. Friz Freleng created him in the mid-1940s as a louder, angrier opponent for Bugs than Elmer could be. He reappears as a pirate, a knight and a Roman soldier, but his explosive temper is always the same.
- Voice
- Mel Blanc
Marvin the Martian
Would-be destroyer of Earth
Marvin is a soft-spoken alien in a Roman-style helmet who wants to blow up the Earth because it blocks his view of Venus. He's polite, quietly irritated and endlessly outwitted. Chuck Jones introduced him in 1948, and he became a favourite with science-fiction fans.
- Voice
- Mel Blanc
Tasmanian Devil
Spinning, snarling eating machine
Taz is a whirlwind of teeth and appetite who speaks mostly in growls. He appeared in only a handful of classic shorts, starting in 1954, but became hugely popular through merchandise and later TV series, including his own 1990s show.
- Voice
- Mel Blanc
Lola Bunny
Bugs's girlfriend · Added in 1996
Lola was created for Space Jam as a confident, athletic love interest for Bugs. She has since appeared in most Looney Tunes projects, and The Looney Tunes Show reworked her into a cheerful, chatty oddball.
Gossamer
Big red hairy monster
A huge orange-red monster in sneakers who chases Bugs through a mad scientist's castle. Bugs beats him by, among other things, giving him a manicure.
Daffy Duck and Porky Pig
Before Bugs, Porky and Daffy were the studio's leads. They work best together, with Porky as the patient straight man and Daffy as the attention-hungry wreck.
Daffy Duck
Black duck · Bugs's frenemy
Daffy changed more than any other Looney Tunes star. In his 1937 debut, Porky's Duck Hunt, he's a manic screwball who bounces off the walls. In Chuck Jones's 1950s shorts he becomes a vain, greedy and jealous loser who always tries to steal Bugs's spotlight and always ends up with his beak spun round his head. His lisped "You're desspicable!" is his best-known line. Duck Amuck (1953), in which an unseen animator torments him, is often called one of the best cartoons ever made.
- Voice
- Mel Blanc
Porky Pig
The studio's first star
Porky is a shy, decent pig with a stammer who first appeared in 1935. He was Warner's first real breakout character and closes many cartoons with "Th-th-th-that's all, folks!" Later he became the reliable sidekick to Daffy, most famously as the cadet in Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century (1953).
- Voice
- Mel Blanc (from 1937)
Petunia Pig
Porky's girlfriend
Petunia is a bossy, prim pig introduced in the late 1930s as Porky's sweetheart. She had a short classic career but has returned in later series and merchandise.
Beaky Buzzard
Dim, gangly buzzard
A slow-witted young buzzard sent out by his mother to catch something for dinner. Bob Clampett introduced him in a Bugs short, and he's a cult favourite for his droopy delivery.
Tweety and Sylvester
Friz Freleng paired a hungry cat with a tiny canary in Tweetie Pie (1947), which won the studio its first Academy Award. The team made dozens of shorts together and became one of the most dependable formulas Warner had.
Tweety
Small yellow canary
Tweety looks innocent and sounds like a toddler ("I tawt I taw a puddy tat!"), but he's quietly ruthless when Sylvester gets too close. He debuted as a pink, featherless bird in Bob Clampett's A Tale of Two Kitties (1942) and got his yellow feathers when Freleng took him over.
- Voice
- Mel Blanc
Sylvester
Black-and-white cat
Sylvester is a sloppy, lisping tomcat ("Sufferin' succotash!") whose plans to eat Tweety always fail, usually thanks to Granny or her bulldog. He also stars opposite Speedy Gonzales and the boxing kangaroo Hippety Hopper, and in a run of shorts with his embarrassed son, Sylvester Jr.
- Voice
- Mel Blanc
Granny
Tweety's owner
Granny is a sweet little old lady who is fiercely protective of Tweety and very handy with an umbrella. She's the reason most of Sylvester's schemes end in pain.
- Voice
- Bea Benaderet, later June Foray
Hector the Bulldog
Granny's guard dog
A big, stern bulldog who protects Tweety and flattens Sylvester whenever he catches him in the act.
Speedy Gonzales
"The fastest mouse in all Mexico"
Speedy is a tiny, lightning-fast mouse who outruns Sylvester and, later, Daffy. Robert McKimson created him and Freleng redesigned him for Speedy Gonzales (1955), which won an Academy Award.
- Voice
- Mel Blanc
The Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote
Chuck Jones and writer Michael Maltese stripped the chase cartoon to its bones in Fast and Furry-ous (1949). There's no dialogue, just a desert, a cliff edge, a bird and a coyote with a catalogue.
Wile E. Coyote
Determined, doomed predator
The Coyote orders rockets, magnets, giant slingshots and earthquake pills from the Acme Corporation, and every one of them backfires. He almost never speaks in his Road Runner cartoons, communicating through signs and a long pained look at the camera before he falls. He's one of the great tragic figures in comedy: smart, inventive and doomed by his own persistence. In a few Bugs Bunny shorts he talks, introducing himself as a "super genius".
The Road Runner
Very fast bird
The Road Runner barely has a personality. He runs, he stops, he says "Beep, beep!" and he runs again. That's deliberate: the cartoons are about the Coyote, and the bird is simply the force of nature he can't overcome.
Ralph Wolf and Sam Sheepdog
Co-workers on opposite sides
A Chuck Jones spin on the same idea: a wolf who looks just like the Coyote tries to steal sheep from a sheepdog. They clock in and out like factory workers and are friendly off the clock.
The rest of the troupe
Warner made hundreds of shorts, and many characters had smaller runs or a single classic appearance.
Foghorn Leghorn
Loud Southern rooster
A booming, long-winded rooster who can't finish a sentence without "I say, I say, boy." Robert McKimson's creation spends most of his time pranking the Barnyard Dawg.
- Voice
- Mel Blanc
Barnyard Dawg
Foghorn's rival
A gruff dog who trades escalating pranks with Foghorn and usually ends up chained to his doghouse at the wrong moment.
Henery Hawk
Tiny chicken hawk
A very small hawk determined to catch a chicken. He keeps picking Foghorn Leghorn, who is happy to mislead him.
Pepé Le Pew
Amorous French skunk
A skunk who relentlessly pursues a black cat he mistakes for one of his own. One of his shorts, For Scent-imental Reasons, won an Academy Award, but the character's premise has aged poorly and he has been largely retired from new projects.
Michigan J. Frog
The singing frog
Star of One Froggy Evening (1955): a frog who performs show tunes for the man who finds him and refuses to do so for anyone else. It's a single cartoon, and one of the most admired.
Witch Hazel
Cackling witch
A gleeful witch who wants to cook Bugs in her cauldron. June Foray's voice made her a favourite.
Cecil Turtle
The tortoise who beats the hare
One of the very few characters who gets the better of Bugs, in a series of race cartoons.
Bosko
The first Looney Tunes star
Bosko starred in the earliest Looney Tunes shorts from 1930 before the studio replaced him with its own characters. He's mostly of historical interest today.
The classic directors
Looney Tunes characters were shaped by a handful of directors with very different styles, and you can often tell who made a short within a minute.
| Director | Style | Key contributions |
|---|---|---|
| Tex Avery | Fast, wild, fourth-wall breaking | Directed Daffy's debut and A Wild Hare, Bugs's first official short |
| Bob Clampett | Rubbery, frantic animation | Created Tweety; his 1940s shorts are the most surreal of the era |
| Chuck Jones | Precise timing, expressive faces | Road Runner and Coyote, Marvin the Martian, Duck Amuck, What's Opera, Doc? |
| Friz Freleng | Musical timing, polished slapstick | Yosemite Sam, the Tweety and Sylvester series, several Academy Award winners |
| Robert McKimson | Solid, energetic animation | Foghorn Leghorn, the Tasmanian Devil |
| Frank Tashlin | Cinematic, live-action-style cutting | Several strong Porky Pig shorts in the 1930s and 1940s |
Writer Michael Maltese and composer Carl Stalling were just as important. Stalling's scores, built from snippets of popular songs and perfectly timed to the action, are a big reason the cartoons still feel so quick.
Mel Blanc and the voice cast
Mel Blanc is the most important voice actor in Looney Tunes history, and one of the most influential in animation. He started at the studio in the late 1930s and voiced nearly every male lead for the next fifty years, giving each a completely distinct sound. Warner credited him on screen at a time when most voice actors went unnamed. Blanc died in 1989, and since then the roles have been shared among performers including Jeff Bergman, Joe Alaskey, Billy West, Bob Bergen and Eric Bauza. Our voice actors page has more on the craft.
| Character | Classic voice |
|---|---|
| Bugs Bunny | Mel Blanc |
| Daffy Duck | Mel Blanc |
| Porky Pig | Joe Dougherty (1935–1937), then Mel Blanc |
| Elmer Fudd | Arthur Q. Bryan |
| Tweety and Sylvester | Mel Blanc |
| Granny | Bea Benaderet, later June Foray |
| Yosemite Sam, Foghorn Leghorn, Marvin, Taz, Speedy | Mel Blanc |
| Witch Hazel | June Foray |
History and where to start
- 1930 The first Looney Tunes short, starring Bosko. Merrie Melodies follows in 1931.
- 1935–1937 Porky Pig arrives, followed by Daffy Duck. Mel Blanc joins the studio.
- 1940 A Wild Hare introduces Bugs Bunny.
- 1940s–1950s The golden age: Tweety and Sylvester, the Road Runner, Foghorn Leghorn, Marvin and Speedy all debut.
- 1960s The original studio winds down its theatrical shorts, and the cartoons find a new life on television.
- 1990 Tiny Toon Adventures introduces younger student versions of the characters.
- 1996 Space Jam pairs Bugs with Michael Jordan and introduces Lola Bunny. Space Jam: A New Legacy follows in 2021.
- 2011 The Looney Tunes Show recasts the gang as neighbours in a sitcom.
- 2020 Looney Tunes Cartoons returns to short slapstick in the classic style.
What makes these characters last
Looney Tunes characters are built on conflict and character, not plot. A short is usually one simple situation, a hunter and a rabbit, a cat and a bird, a coyote and a cliff, pushed as far as it will go. Who wins depends on personality: Bugs wins because he's calm, Daffy loses because he's greedy, the Coyote loses because he won't give up. That's the same logic behind many of our iconic rivalries.
They were also made for adults as much as children, which is why the jokes about opera, Hollywood and the film industry still land. The influence is everywhere, from the timing of The Simpsons to the slapstick of SpongeBob and the chase gags in Scooby-Doo. For a contrast with the other great American studio of the era, see our Disney characters guide.
All Looney Tunes character names A–Z
B
- Barnyard Dawg — Foghorn's rival
- Beaky Buzzard — Buzzard
- Bosko — First star
- Bugs Bunny — Hare
C–F
- Cecil Turtle — Bugs's rival
- Daffy Duck — Duck
- Elmer Fudd — Hunter
- Foghorn Leghorn — Rooster
G–L
- Gossamer — Monster
- Granny — Tweety's owner
- Hector the Bulldog — Granny's dog
- Henery Hawk — Chicken hawk
- Hippety Hopper — Kangaroo
- Lola Bunny — Bugs's girlfriend
M–P
- Marvin the Martian — Alien
- Michigan J. Frog — Singing frog
- Pepé Le Pew — Skunk
- Petunia Pig — Porky's girlfriend
- Porky Pig — Pig
R–S
- Ralph Wolf — Wolf
- Road Runner — Bird
- Sam Sheepdog — Sheepdog
- Speedy Gonzales — Mouse
- Sylvester — Cat
- Sylvester Jr. — Sylvester's son
T–Y
- Tasmanian Devil — Taz
- Tweety — Canary
- Wile E. Coyote — Coyote
- Witch Hazel — Witch
- Yosemite Sam — Cowboy
Frequently asked questions
Who are the main Looney Tunes characters?
Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and Porky Pig are the core trio. Around them are Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam, Tweety, Sylvester, Granny, the Road Runner, Wile E. Coyote, Foghorn Leghorn, Speedy Gonzales, Marvin the Martian and the Tasmanian Devil. Lola Bunny joined much later, in Space Jam (1996).
Who voiced most of the Looney Tunes characters?
Mel Blanc. He voiced Bugs, Daffy, Porky, Tweety, Sylvester, Yosemite Sam, Foghorn Leghorn, Marvin the Martian, Speedy Gonzales and the Tasmanian Devil, among many others. The big exception was Elmer Fudd, voiced by Arthur Q. Bryan. Granny was mainly voiced by Bea Benaderet and later June Foray.
What was the first Bugs Bunny cartoon?
Bugs's official debut is A Wild Hare (1940), directed by Tex Avery, in which he first asks Elmer Fudd "What's up, Doc?" Earlier cartoons featured a similar rabbit, but A Wild Hare is the one where the character as we know him appears.
What is the difference between Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies?
They were two separate series of Warner Bros. theatrical shorts. Looney Tunes began in 1930 and Merrie Melodies in 1931; at first Merrie Melodies were built around songs from the Warner music catalogue. Over time the difference faded until both used the same characters, and today "Looney Tunes" is the name for the whole franchise.
Does the Road Runner ever get caught?
Not in the classic Chuck Jones cartoons. Jones worked to a set of rules for the series, one of which was that the Coyote could never catch the Road Runner and was always undone by his own plans or his Acme gadgets. A handful of later cartoons played with the idea, but the chase is the point.
Is Lola Bunny an original Looney Tunes character?
No. Lola was created for Space Jam in 1996 as a love interest for Bugs. An older character, Honey Bunny, filled a similar role in some merchandise, but Lola is the one who has stayed in the films and series since.