Merrie Melodies

Merrie Melodies is the name of a series of animated cartoons distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures between 1931 and 1969. The series was produced by Leon Schlesinger Productions until 1944, when Schlesinger sold his studio to the Warners. The newly renamed Warner Bros. Cartoons, Inc. continued producing the series until 1964.

History

Producer Leon Schlesinger had already produced one cartoon in the Looney Tunes series, and its success prompted him to try to sell a sister series to Warner Bros. His selling point was that the new cartoons would feature music from the soundtracks of Warner Bros. films and would thus serve as advertisements for Warner Bros. recordings. The studio agreed, and Schlesinger dubbed the series Merrie Melodies.

Walt Disney Productions had already scored with their Silly Symphonies. Since cartoon production usually began with a soundtrack, animating a piece of music made it easier to devise plot elements and even characters.

The origins of the Merrie Melodies series begin with the failure of a live action series of musical shorts called Spooney Melodies which featured popular songs of the day. These shorts were basically an early type of music video that included segments with a popular artist singing along with appropriate background sequences. The Warner Bros. wanted to promote this music because they had recently acquired (in 1930) the ownership of Brunswick Records along with four music publishers for US $28 million. Because of the success of their Looney Tunes series, Warner Bros. decided to develop a new series animated musical shorts which were to be called: Merrie Melodies. The series was developed and taken on by Rudy Ising and Hugh Harman. It was meant to be a series of musical cartoons that would feature hit songs of the day, especially those which were then owned by Warner Bros. and those featured in their musical films. In 1931, many of the shorts featured the orchestra of Abe Lyman, one of the most famous band leaders of his day.

The first cartoon of the new Merrie Melodies series was entitled Lady, Play Your Mandolin!, released in 1931. Ising attempted to introduce several characters in his Merrie Melodies films, such as Piggy, Foxy, and Goopy Geer. Eventually however, the series continued without any recurring characters. When viewed today, many find the plotless early Merrie Melodies to be somewhat strange because they are not like modern cartoons. They should be viewed as basically early music videos (with comedy thrown in) that were intended to sell sheet music and phonograph records. The shorts proved to be enormously popular with the public. In 1932, a Merrie Melodie, entitled: It's Got Me Again!, was nominated for the first Academy Award to be given for animation.

When Harman and Ising left the Warner Bros. in 1933, they took with them all the rights of the characters and cartoons which they had created. Leon Schlesinger had to negotiate with them in order to keep the rights to the name Merrie Melodies as well as for the right to use the slogan So Long Folks at the end of the cartoons. In 1934, Schlesinger produced his first color Merrie Melodies shorts, Honeymoon Hotel and Beauty and the Beast, which were produced in Cinecolor (Disney had exclusive rights to the richer Technicolor process). Their success convinced Schlesinger to produce all future Merrie Melodies shorts in color as well. Looney Tunes continued in black and white until 1943.

In 1935, the cartoons began to end with the slogan "That's all Folks!" which had previously only been used on the Looney Tunes series. The old slogan "So Long, Folks!" was completely abandoned at this time.

Contractually, Merrie Melodies cartoons were obligated to include at least one full chorus from a Warner Bros. song. Warner Bros. requested that these songs be performed by name bands whenever possible, but this lasted only through the first few shorts. The policy annoyed the animators of Merrie Melodies, since the songs often interrupted the cartoons' momentum and pacing.

In the late 1930s, the animators were released from this obligation, and the Merrie Melodies shorts came to resemble more closely the black-and-white Looney Tunes series. In 1943, Schlesinger began producing Looney Tunes in color as well, and the two series became virtually indistinguishable except by their theme music and opening titles. By this time the theme music for Looney Tunes was "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down" by Cliff Friend and Dave Franklin and the theme music for Merrie Melodies was an adaptation of "Merrily We Roll Along" by Charles Tobias, Murray Mencher & Eddie Cantor.

When the studio went to full color, even the animators themselves didn't make any creative distinction between the two series, as evidenced in an interview quote from crusty director Friz Freleng:

"I never knew if a film I was making would be a Looney Tunes or a Merrie Melodie, and what the hell difference would it make, anyway?" [1]

Blue Ribbon Merrie Melodies

Beginning in the 1940s, WB, in a cost-conserving effort, began to reissue its backlog of color cartoons under a new program which they called Merrie Melodies "Blue Ribbon" classics. For the reissue, the original front-and-end title sequences were altered. The revised main title card began with the "zooming" WB logo, followed by the title logo set against a background featuring a "blue ribbon" (hence the re-release program's title) and a Grand Shorts Award trophy, followed by the name of the cartoon. This revised title sequence eliminated the opening technical credits. The end title card was also revised, replacing the original versions. The revised title sequences were edited right into the original negative, thus the original title sequences were cut away and possibly scrapped. Some of these same revised "blue ribbon" reissues can still be seen on television today. For example, the "blue ribbon" version of the Bugs Bunny short A Wild Hare was erroneously retitled The Wild Hare for reissue, along with some slight subtle edits (the original unaltered version has been released on both LaserDisc and DVD). Former Looney Tunes cartoons that were reissued as Blue Ribbon Merrie Melodies usually started with the "Merrily We Roll Along" opening music, but ended with "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down" theme, revealing the fact that the cartoon was originally a Looney Tune. This persisted until around 1956; after that year, "Blue Ribbon" reissues (of cartoons originally released from 1948–1949 onwards) retained the original opening titles and technical credits, with some of the cartoons (such as 1951's Rabbit Fire) indicating their original Looney Tunes issue by the opening theme "The Merry Go-Round Broke Down."

For the Looney Tunes Golden Collection DVD releases, WB went through great lengths to track down whatever elements of the original title credits still exist in an effort to re-create as best they could the original versions of the altered 'blue ribbon' shorts. Some pristine prints of the original issues were obtained from the UCLA Film and Television Archive. As a result, such cartoons as I Love to Singa and Book Revue can once again be seen as they were originally intended. Unfortunately, there are some "blue ribbon" reissue versions of cartoons that are represented on the Golden Collection DVDs as they are the only versions that were made available for exhibition. In any event, to this day there is controversy among animation fans and historians on the alteration of the "blue ribbon" releases.

References

• Schneider, Steve (1990). That's All Folks!: The Art of Warner Bros. Animation. Henry Holt & Co.
• Beck, Jerry and Friedwald, Will (1989): Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies: A Complete Illustrated Guide to the Warner Bros. Cartoons. Henry Holt and Company.

See also

• Looney Tunes
• Termite Terrace
• Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies filmography
• Mel Blanc
• Friz Freleng
• Chuck Jones

Wikipedia information about Merrie Melodies This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Merrie Melodies". It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer). Help contribute to Americola and edit this article.