The Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of animated shorts released by Warner Bros. feature a range of characters which are listed and briefly detailed here.
Major characters from the franchise include Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, Foghorn Leghorn, Marvin the Martian, Porky Pig, Speedy Gonzales, Sylvester the Cat, the Tasmanian Devil, Tweety, Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner, and Yosemite Sam.
He was created by Robert McKimson and Tedd Pierce, and first appeared in the 1959 Merrie Melodies short Bonanza Bunny set in the Klondike of 1896.
[3] While similar in many ways to Yosemite Sam—both are short in stature and temper—Blacque Jacque possesses his own unique characteristics, not the least of which is his comically thick French Canadian accent, performed by Mel Blanc.
Also, like Yosemite Sam and many other villains, Blacque Jacque Shellacque does not have a high level of intelligence, preferring to use force instead of strategy to fight Bugs.
Bunny and Claude are pursued by a stereotypical Southern sheriff (also voiced by Blanc in a fashion similar to his other characters, Foghorn Leghorn and Yosemite Sam).
He referred to himself specifically by name in Mississippi Hare (1949), following a game of poker in which he lost (three queens to four kings) and proceeded to let off a barrage of gunfire.
[6] A Colonel Shuffle-lookalike appears in the Tiny Toon Adventures episodes "Gang Busters" and "Fairy Tales for the 90's", voiced by Joe Alaskey.
In Loonatics Unleashed, the character Sergeant Sirius is a robot dog based on him, being the pet of Melvin the Matian, a descendant of Marvin.
When a jealous Daffy feeds the duckling growth pills, he is surprised to see it age into a white, female duck with blonde hair.
[13] Melissa Duck first officially appeared by name in adult form in the 1950 short The Scarlet Pumpernickel which was, in 1994, voted number 31 of the 50 Greatest Cartoons of all time by members of the animation field.
The plot followed Daffy attempting to save "the Fair Lady Melissa" from having to marry the evil Grand Duke Sylvester with whom she is not in love.
[13] She next appears (referred here as Femme Fatale (aka "The Body", also referred to as Fowl Fatale or Shapely Lady Duck)), in the 1952 short The Super Snooper, where she was a tall voluptuous bright blue-eyed, redheaded duck wearing red lipstick going madly in love with Daffy as a detective.
[13] A character based on Melissa named Mary appears in the 1957 short Boston Quackie, where she's Daffy's girlfriend on vacation in Paris.
Although Pete Puma was a one-shot character in Rabbit's Kin, he is often vividly remembered by cartoon fans, especially for his bizarre, inhaled, almost choking laugh (based on comedian Frank Fontaine's "Crazy Guggenheim" and "John L.C.
Pete Puma has made occasional appearances on Tiny Toon Adventures (as the Acme Looniversity janitor), some episodes of The Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries, co-starred with Foghorn Leghorn in Pullet Surprise (voiced again by Freberg in all of these appearances),[17] made a cameo appearance in the crowd scenes of Space Jam, Carrotblanca (as a waiter), Tweety's High-Flying Adventure (as one of the felines around the world whose pawprints Tweety collects, voiced again by Freberg), Bah, Humduck!
Pete (voiced by John Kassir) is a recurring character in The Looney Tunes Show as Daffy Duck's dimwitted friend, and working various jobs around town.
[21] As an animator, Friz Freleng enjoyed creating new adversaries for Warners' star Bugs Bunny, since he felt that Bugs' other nemeses, such as Beaky Buzzard and Elmer Fudd (who actually appeared in many more Freleng shorts than is commonly realized), were too stupid to give the rabbit any real challenge.
Though considered revolutionary for almost all of the late 1940s, Freleng's own Yosemite Sam had not yet been proven capable of fully fulfilling his creator's intentions.
Freleng introduced two of these more formidable opponents as a pair of gangsters in the 1946 film Racketeer Rabbit, written by Michael Maltese.
The characters here are called "Rocky" (drawn like movie gangster Edward G. Robinson) and "Hugo" (a caricatured Peter Lorre).
[24] Freleng used several of the same techniques that would make Sam, his other Bugs villain, such a humorous character: despite Rocky's tough-guy demeanor, everlasting cigar (or cigarette) and foppish gangster dress, he really is little more than a dwarf in a much-too-large hat.
Around the end of the song, Rocky and Mugsy joined in on the final verse with Nasty Canasta, an angry bride, a female cannibal, a grizzly bear, and Toro the Bull.
[27] In the television series Loonatics Unleashed, the characters Stoney and Bugsy are two gangster descendants of Rocky and Mugsy, being very similar to them in appearance.
Throughout the episode's storylines, with various campers being parodies of other Looney Tunes characters, Nathan (Rocky) attempts to arrange fatal accidents for Jimmy Valmer (a counterpart to Bugs Bunny) which get ruined by Mimsy (Mugsy)'s stupidity.
[28] Jose and Manuel are Looney Tunes characters created by Friz Freleng, debuting in the short "Two Crows from Tacos".
Due to being slow he is generally, unlike Speedy, unable to outrun the pursuing cats who try to capture the both of them, but he is shown to have alternative (more effective) methods of resistance, such as his possession and use of a gun.
The first, "Mexicali Shmoes" (1959), ends with two lazy cats, José and Manuel, the former learning the hard way that Slowpoke carries a gun.