I always liked Panther and the Roadrunner. I think they were more creative because they didn’t have the dialogue. Also, they didn’t very in quality as much as Bugs Bunny did. A typical 30 minute Bugs show would have a good episode, a blah one, and then another good one.
Woody Woodpecker was also great. He was even more obnoxious than Bugs. Still, I never liked when you’d get stuck with his “friends” for one of the cartoons during the Woody Woodpecker show. Walter Lantz’s other cartoons were horrible.
Pink Panther counts as “Classic?” I would reserve that designation for cartoons which were originally made for theatrical release, and not made-for-TV.
I terms of craftsmanship, Disney owns the title. For humor and character, the Chuck Jones Warner Bros output is difficult to match.
(Although I do have a soft spot for the outrageous Tex Avery.)
Although Tom & Jerry, Road Runner, Droopy, and random installments of the others of that era, were entertaining, Rocky and Bullwinkle could always be counted on to provide clever hilarity. The whole show was excellent.
Walt Disney’s stuff was just silly and the Walter Lantz things were too cookie cutter for me. The WB cartoons were most enjoyable of the ones you saw at the movies.
Apparently, many Pink Panther cartoons were released theatrically between 1964 and 1981.* It may have been a very limited release since I was a movie-going kid during the latter part of that range but I always thought of him as a TV character.
I hated Woody Woodpecker (but not enough to actually turn off the TV, addict that I was) with his obnoxious laughing at his own lame jokes and behavior. Mickey and friends are boring (and were not a major TV presence in my childhood). Bugs and Daffy were my favorites, especially when they were paired up.
If we can count TV originals, then Bullwinkle and friends beat them all, relying less on slapstick (probably because of the cheap barely-animation) and more on sophisticated verbal wit (OK, mostly lame puns, but that stuff still cracks me up).
Looks like two of the early ones even got Oscar nods, so I guess a strong case for “classic” could be made.
For my money, the Chuck Jones cartoons of the early 1950s, especially the “Hunter Trilogy” that starred Bugs, Elmer, and Daffy (and were written by Michael Maltese). Incredibly sophisticated wordplay (“I insist that you shoot me now!”) and situations.
I don’t know what happened – Chuck Jones’ ear;ly stuff could be pretty awful – I could live without Sniffles the Mouse or Inky and the Mynah Bird (which seems borderline racist today), but somewhere in the mid-1940s Jones underwent a metamorphosis, and his stuff from the Roadrunner cartoons of the late forties through the early 1950s (including One Froggy Evening and What’s Opera, Doc? – although my personal tastes don’t exactly match that Wiki list that Reality Chuck cites) is pure Cartoon Gold. His older stuff , although good, wasn’t quite the same, and his cartoon characters got too CUTE when he got older. That hard, sharp Edge of wit and drawing wasn’t quite there any more. But it was great while it lasted.
I’ll go with Rocky and Bullwinkle for writing. They obviously knew that they couldn’t compete on the basis of their low-budget cartooning, and made the best of what they had, making a virtue of their poor cartoon quality. But, for the whole shebang, words and actions, I gotta go with Jones.
I’m confused by your statement. Pink Panther was created for theatrical release. It was the opening credits for a number of non-animated “Pink Panther” movies. Its popularity allowed it to later migrate from Movies to TV.
No, Jones’ stuff was still good in the 1960s and beyond, just not AS good. (I’d love to see someone make cartoons from the “Comic Ball” Baseball cards he did in the 1990s – they were like storyboards for his classic characters). He did a few cartoons late in life, including Carrotblanca and the Road-runner cartoon Chariots of Fur, but they were’t quite as good as his 1950s stuff. I’m referring to his sketches
