The beloved “Looney Tunes” franchise has finally found a home at TCM.
Beginning in February, the Warner Bros. Discovery-owned cable network will begin airing the animated films as part of a six-year deal that “ensures these cartoons are celebrated, contextualized and accessible to audiences of all ages,” per TCM.
The agreement comes as welcome news for fans of the franchise after the original animated shorts, which ran from 1930-1969, were removed by HBO Max (then Max) back in March in an effort for the streamer to shift its strategy to prioritize adult and family programming.
The channel will kick off its new ownership by introducing the franchise’s seminal character Bugs Bunny, who has been named as TCM’s Star of the Month. To celebrated the beloved rabbit, TCM will air 45 classic Bugs Bunny cartoons during a week-long tribute intended to highlight the character’s “enduring legacy, comic brilliance and influence on generations of filmmakers and animators.”
That celebrate will begin with 1940’s “A Wild Hare,” which is considered to be the first movie in the franchise — before shifting to a curation of feature-length films.
TCM’s film lineup includes “Rabbit of Seville,” “What’s Opera Doc,” “A Night at the Opera,” “Tortoise Beats Hare,” “Tortoise Wins by a Hare,” “Rabbit Transit,” “Walk, Don’t Run,” “Apes of Wrath,” “King Kong,” “Buccaneer Bunny,” “Mutiny on the Bounty,” “Captain Hareblower,” “Captain Horatio Hornblower,” “Bugsy and Mugsy,” “The Unmentionables,” “The Roaring Twenties,” “A Witch’s Tangled Hare” and “Hamlet.”
Additional shorts featuring the rest of the “Looney Tunes” crew — including Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam, Wile E. Coyote — will continue to air on the network beyond February on an ongoing basis, with the network determined to establish itself as a “consistent destination.”
“TCM is excited to become the ongoing television home of the Looney Tunes library,” TCM SVP of programming and content strategy Charlie Tabesh said in a statement to media. “By making TCM an ongoing home for this iconic library, we’re able to present these cartoons with the care they deserve, alongside the classic films they helped influence.”
