Long live the “Looney Tunes.”
After years of anticipation and several near deaths, “Coyote vs. Acme” finally hit theaters this weekend, showing audiences an all-new mix of live-action and animation as Wile E. Coyote seeks justice for years of faulty Roadrunner-catching products.
Beyond the important and fascinating lore behind the film, “Coyote vs. Acme” is a genuine cinematic triumph, a hilarious comedy that celebrates nearly a century of “Looney Tunes” mythos.
But really, should anyone be surprised that the new “Looney Tunes” movie is good? This franchise features hundreds of cartoon adventures with Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and the “Merrie Melodies” gang, many of which are boundary-pushing, hilarious and endlessly rewatchable (with many of them streaming for free on Tubi now). So if you find yourself wanting to get a bit more looney after checking “Coyote vs. Acme” out, we’ve got you covered.
Here are the best “Looney Tunes” to watch after “Coyote vs. Acme.”
“Baseball Bugs”
Bugs Bunny is, simply put, one of the best characters of all time. He’s an animated agent of skillful chaos, one whose abilities are directly proportional to whatever’s funniest at a given moment. In this famous short, Bugs loudly heckles at a baseball team that he could “lick them in a ball game with one hand tied behind my back, all by myself” — causing him to put his carrots where his mouth is and play in a nine-on-one game. The short is one of the best showcases Bugs Bunny has ever gotten, a highlight of his nearly 90-year history. — Casey Loving
“Daffy Duck’s Quackbusters”
Before “Space Jam,” if you wanted to see the “Looney Tunes” on the big screen it was mostly through revivals of the old shorts, a smattering of new shorts (like 1991’s “Box-Office Bunny,” directed by the great Darrell Van Citters, which played before “The NeverEnding Story II: The Next Chapter”) and stuff like the opening of “Gremlins 2: The New Batch,” which saw Chuck Jones animating a new intro that featured Bugs Bunny and Daffy.
There were also, of course, a handful of “package films” that would group some of the very best shorts (many included on this list), wrapped in a loose framing device, and let loose in theaters and occasionally themed around a then-current pop culture obsession. (Like 1983’s “Daffy Duck’s Fantastic Island.”)
One of the best of these package films was 1988’s “Daffy Duck’s Quackbusters,” which was drifting on the appeal of “Ghostbusters” and contained a bunch of the spookier shorts (“Hyde and Go Tweet,” “The Night of the Living Duck,” “The Abominable Snow Rabbit”), plus clips of other shorts (“Jumpin’ Jupiter,” “The Prize Pest”) and a wraparound story that involved Daffy opening up a Ghostbusters-style paranormal detective agency.
This was a staple of the early days of HBO and has become a yearly Halloween-time favorite, recently released on Blu-ray thanks to the Warner Archive Collection. Boo! — Drew Taylor
“The Day the Earth Blew Up”
It’s astounding that, for as long as the “Merrie Melodies” gang has been around, they didn’t appear in a full-length theatrical animated feature until 2025. This fact becomes even more surprising once you watch “The Day the Earth Blew Up,” a totally delightful sci-fi flick placing Daffy Duck and Porky Pig in the roles of B-movie stars as they try to save their town from body-snatching alien gum. Like “Coyote vs. Acme,” this film was rescued from obscurity by Ketchup Entertainment after being dropped by Warner Bros. for distribution. Keeping a movie this fun from being seen would be just plain looney. — CL
“Duck Amuck”
Charles M. Jones and Michael Maltese’s “Duck Amuck” is inarguably one of the most popular “Looney Tunes” entries, an iconic cartoon where Daffy Duck begins fighting with his animator as the (for most of the short) unseen drawer changes reality around him. It’s one of the all-time best uses of Daffy’s rage and vindictiveness, with the cartoon duck lashing out against a force far beyond his scope. The animation, meanwhile, is inventive and constantly interesting.
What makes all this funnier is that Daffy’s anger comes from a grounded place: He simply wants to be an actor, to finish a picture in peace and call it a day. What first causes him to lose his mind isn’t the animator’s malice, but his inconsistency of vision. What a great gag. — CL
“Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century”
“There’s no one knows his way around outer space like Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century!”
Daffy Duck’s Buck Rogers-esque character exclaims this declaration in Jones and Maltese’s original “Duck Dodgers” film, a short that would spawn a series of further far-future sci-fi adventures. Starring Daffy, Porky Pig as his “eager young space cadet” and Marvin the Martian as himself, this toon is a total laugh riot, with jokes about an anti-disintegration vest and an ultimatum deliverer standing out as two of the best in the catalog. — CL
The Hunting Trilogy
Jones and Maltese’s “Hunting Trilogy” — comprised of the shorts “Rabbit Fire,” “Rabbit Seasoning” and “Duck! Rabbit, Duck!” — are filled to the brim with iconic “Looney Tunes” gags as Bugs and Daffy attempt to sic Elmer Fudd on each other to survive hunting season. Of course, that generally goes better for Bugs than it does for Daffy (and really, is Daffy getting shot in the face so hard that it blows his bill back ever not funny?).
Among a great many other standouts, this trilogy of cartoons features some career-best work from Mel Blanc, who delivers some of his finest performances of Bugs and Daffy. “Rabbit Fire,” in particular, features an oft-praised bit where Blanc plays Bugs doing a Daffy impression and Daffy doing a Bugs impression — somehow managing to make both impersonations sound distinct and character-accurate. It’s a magic trick. — CL
“Looney Tunes: Back in Action”
There were a few live-action/animated “Looney Tunes” hybrids before “Coyote vs. Acme,” though “Back in Action” feels relatively overlooked compared to its sports-fueled siblings. And it’s at least better than one of those.
Directed by Joe Dante and written by Larry Doyle, “Looney Tunes: Back in Action” sees Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny (actors in a toon-filled live-action universe) team up with a stunt man (Brendan Fraser) and a WB exec (Jenna Elfman) in an epic globe-trotting quest. While the other “Looney Tunes” flicks send up sports movies, sci-fi flicks and, now, courtroom dramas, “Back in Action” riffs on action comedies and the spy subgenre — and have a fun time doing it. — CL
“One Froggy Evening”
One of the best things about “Looney Tunes,” separating it from some of Disney’s most iconic animated characters, is that it can be outright mean. There’s an edge to it that, while never becoming unfriendly to children, can catch viewers off guard.
Among the greatest examples of this is Jones and Maltese’s “One Froggy Evening.” The short centers around a man who discovers a frog in a shoebox that dons a top hat and cane before breaking into ragtime. The man attempts several times to make money off of the frog’s natural talent, only for his amphibious companion to clam up every time. Eventually, the man ends up committed to a psychiatric hospital only to decide, his life now ruined, to return the frog to the place he found it — only for a new man to discover the frog in the far future and hatch the same scheme.
“One Froggy Evening” is one of those shorts that makes you feel like you’ve lived a life in seven minutes. It tells a perfect narrative arc, economically shoved in a brief runtime without sacrificing a single beat or laugh. It’s a masterpiece. — CL
“Space Jam”
Everybody get up, it’s time to slam now. We got a real jam goin’ down. Welcome to the “Space Jam.”
Beyond a ridiculously catchy title song, “Space Jam” features a fun and wacky premise to bring the Looney Tunes into live action: What if Bugs and the gang had to win a game of basketball to save themselves from a life of theme park service? Of course, the Tunes recruit Michael Jordan (who seems barely surprised that the cartoons he watches on TV are real people) to help them win the big game.
And win it they do in the only way they know how: loonily. It’s a blast; a very ’90s blast from the past, at that. — CL
“What’s Opera, Doc?”
How could we leave this list without “What’s Opera, Doc?” This short ups the ante on the normal Bugs Bunny/Elmer Fudd formula by evoking a series of Wagner operas, starting with the hunter endeavoring to “kill the wabbit” to the tune of “Ride of the Valkyries.” Things escalate from there, with Elmer using godly powers in an attempt to smite Bugs and Bugs disguising himself as the Valkyrie Brünnhilde to woo his foe (which, as is often the case, works quite easily).
The music in “What’s Opera, Doc?” is, of course, wonderful. But the visuals in this short are painterly and breathtaking. It is one of the most gorgeous “Looney Tunes” cartoons ever, and a true feat of short-form animation in every way. — CL
