(Now as most Looney Tunes historians know, Warner Bros. Animation closed down in 1969 when the Kinney National Company bought out Warner Bros.-Seven Arts as a way to cut costs. But suppose that closure never happened...)
In 1969, the Kinney National Company bought out Warner Bros.- Seven Arts, and while they looked for a few ways to cut costs, but since they saw that the new theatrically-released Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons were still bringing in plenty of revenue (even if critics were still often panning them), they chose not to close Warner Bros. Animation, and instead invest in improving the studio somewhat and allowing them to make the rest of the productions they had planned.
Bill Hendricks remained on staff as the producer at Warner Bros. Animation, and when he and the new heads at Kinney saw that Robert McKimson was the only director on staff, and the workload WBA had planned certainly wouldn't be enough for one man to handle, they hired a few more veteran cartoon directors including Sid Marcus and Phil Monroe, along with promoting designer and layout man Jamie Diaz to a director as well, in addition to providing designs and layouts for other directors' works.
WBA's first ambitious new project under this new ownership was a prime-time animated TV series based on Al Capp's "Li'l Abner" comics, starring the voice talents of Jerry Dexter, Howard Morris, Alan Oppenheimer, Larry Storch and Janet Waldo. It ran for a single 24-episode season, from 1969 to 1970 on CBS, as despite good ratings, critics disliked the fairly cheap look and feel of the series, comparing it to Filmation or Hanna-Barbera's then-current Saturday morning output, and felt that it was insulting the original source material this way.
Meanwhile, the theatrical shorts department began to crank production into high gear. In addition to making more cartoons with Cool Cat, Merlin the Magic Mouse, and Rapid Rabbit and Quick Brown Fox, they also developed more new characters that got their own series, the prankster pirate Jolly Roger (who even got paired up with Cool Cat a couple of times and Merlin on one occasion), Maxwell Smart-esque bumbling secret agent Super Snooper (whose series only lasted four shorts), hobo and train engineer "Hobo Bo and Choo-Choo Jones" (a five-short series that combined two separate pitches made in 1968), the forgetful "Absent-Minded Mr. Memo" (whose series only lasted three shorts) and an animated adaptation of Mack Sennett's "Keystone Kops" characters. WBA voice veteran Mel Blanc provided voice work for the "Hobo Bo and Choo-Choo Jones" and "Keystone Kops" shorts, while Larry Storch voiced Jolly Roger, Super Snooper, Mr. Memo and any additional male characters (with Janet Waldo and Joan Gerber providing female voices on these series whenever necessary).
Additionally, Speedy Gonzales was revived, but after learning from their mistakes, Daffy Duck was retired as Speedy's adversary and a new foe was created, feline bandit Butch Catsidy, voiced by Mel Blanc. Sylvester was even brought back for a few shorts pitted against Speedy. Overall, the quality was a notch above the earlier Speedy vs. Daffy efforts from the studio. Tweety was also revived, now facing more antagonists rather than just cats. Bunny and Claude were added as antagonists for Tweety, always losing to the yellow bird.
The studio also produced some more one-shot cartoons, many of which were also failed pilots for potential recurring cartoon series that sounded better on paper. Such titles included "Lovey Doveys" (another attempt at a theatrical cartoon short geared toward mature audiences in the vein of "Norman Normal," discussing marriage troubles and alcoholism), "The Misadventures of Robin Hood", "Toyland" (somewhat reminiscent of the studio's 1930s Merrie Melodies about a toy shop come to life when closed during the night), "Jeanie the Genius" (a highly intelligent young girl voiced by June Foray), "Go Go Gulliver" (a modernized take on "Gulliver's Travels"), "Time Train" (a sci-fi -themed cartoon reminiscent of Tex Avery's "World of Tomorrow" shorts at MGM), and "Steamboat Phil" (starring a Mark Twain-esque steamboat captain).
For the 1969 holiday season, Warner Bros. Animation produced a 22-minute two-reeler "Warner Bros.- Seven Arts Christmas Special", simply titled "Christmas Stories" and split into two 10-minute segments. Animated on a noticeably higher budget than the regular 6-minute shorts, first came a serious and beautifully-rendered telling of the story of the Three Wise Men and their visit to baby Jesus Christ. The second half was a more comical "Looney Tunes"-esque story about Santa Claus at the North Pole (with voices by Mel Blanc and June Foray). The featurette also included singing by Rod McKuen, singing the lyrical narration for the first segment and also opening and closing the featurette with Christmas songs also featuring the Apollas as backup vocals. After its' theatrical run, starting in 1970 CBS started to air it almost every Christmas season up until 1985.
Warner Bros. Animation also collaborated with N. Paul Stookey of Peter, Paul and Mary on two more "Norman Normal" Cartoon Special shorts, and also collaborated with Peter Yarrow on three "Puff the Magic Dragon" Cartoon Specials, all featuring the titular song performed by the trio for its' opening and closing sequences, and somewhat retooling the titular character into a comical dragon who finds himself in a modern world past the middle ages and having difficulty adjusting to the new life, especially with his fire breath, to the annoyance of an antagonistic fire chief. Joe Besser was hired to voice Puff, while Peter Yarrow and Paul Stookey both performed additional character voices, along with Peter Yarrow scoring the music (contractually credited to Bill Lava.)
When Kinney National dropped Seven Arts from the Warner Bros. moniker in 1970 and introduced a new WB shield logo design to go with it, the "Abstract" Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies opening and closing sequences were modified accordingly, bringing back Chuck Jones and Maurice Noble's abstract WB graphic while retaining the yellow-on-blue color scheme and Bill Lava's newer rearrangements of "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down," and also including the new shield design on the LT/MM card.
Seeing that television was still a potential spawning ground for new animated productions, Warner Bros. Animation was still looking to produce new content for the small screen while keeping it distinct and separate from their theatrical output. For the 1970-71 TV season, Warner Bros. Animation produced their first action-adventure cartoon series, "Captain Bravo and the Lost Atlantis," airing on CBS's Saturday morning block. The series involved Captain Bravo (voiced by Olan Soule) and his young lieutenant Billy (voiced by Dallas McKennon) embarking on underwater adventures through the Atlantis ruins in their fancy modernized submarine dubbed The Neptune. Although ratings were good, reviews were favorable, and tie-in merchandise sold fairly well, CBS opted not to renew the show for a second season due to budget cuts at the network, but continued to rerun the show until fall 1972.
Also in 1970, Warner Bros. produced a 22-minute two-reeler cartoon featurette, "Road Runner Cavalcade with the Bird Watcher," in which Jonathan Winters played a live-action comedic birdwatcher eyeing on the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote's antics via redubbed footage from old cartoons, with his commentary added in some clips. This Cartoon Special was successful enough for it to be rerun on CBS as a prime-time TV special in spring 1971, and Robert McKimson was able to successfully convince the studio to begin making new theatrical Road Runner cartoon shorts, with some directed by McKimson and some directed by Phil Monroe, with the intent of eventually adding them to the lineup of CBS's "The Bugs Bunny Road Runner Hour." As part of this, McKimson was finally able to end the Rapid Rabbit and Quick Brown Fox series.
Composer Bill Lava died in 1971, and so Walter Greene was hired to take his place as the studio's main music composer. This resulted in the cartoon shorts' music taking on a much twangier, and often far less atonal, sound. Additionally during this time, Warner Bros. Animation began recruiting new artists and animators to gradually replacing the aging team, and veteran WB animator Virgil Ross would also moonlight for the studio, cherishing taking time away from Filmation to work for his former bosses. Hal Geer was also promoted to an associate producer, and so Jim Champin took his place as the new film editor. Donald A. Douglas now only sporadically worked with the studio, as in most cases Jim Graziano was the new sound effects editor, bringing in many more classic familiar Warner Bros. cartoon sound effects, in addition to expanding their selection of Hanna-Barbera sounds somewhat (albeit beginning to use them lesser than Geer and Douglas did.)
The revised Warner Communications version of the "Abstract" opening sequence
In 1972, Kinney spun off its' non-publishing assets into Warner Communications, including Warner Bros. This soon allowed Warner Bros. Animation to work with noticeably bigger budgets than before, allowing a significant rise in animation quality. For a while, the opening and closing sequences went back to having the classic WB shield accompany the Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies card in the "Abstract" opening sequence, but when Saul Bass introduced a new stylized abstract "W" graphic for Warner Communications, the cartoon logo sequences were updated once again to implement this new design, returning to the purple-on-black color scheme used on the 1963-1967 logo sequences and still featuring the WB shield on the LT/MM card. Even after his death, Warner continued to use Bill Lava's late 60s rearrangements of "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down." The now dated "A VITAPHONE/VITAGRAPH RELEASE" byline was now retired in favor of "A WARNER COMMUNICATIONS RELEASE" to present the new company ownership.
That same year, Warner Bros. Animation worked together with Filmation to produce an installment for "The ABC Saturday Superstar Movie" Saturday morning anthology series, "Daffy Duck Meets the Groovie Goolies", which brought back not only WB cartoon star Daffy Duck after a four-year absence from new material, but also Porky and Petunia Pig, Elmer Fudd, Sylvester, Foghorn Leghorn, Yosemite Sam, Charlie Dog, and Pepe Le Pew, along with adding Wile E. Coyote, Tweety, Speedy Gonzales, Cool Cat, Bunny and Claude for good measure and served as a crossover with Filmation's Groovie Goolies. The plot involved Daffy Duck being a famous film director working on a film about King Arthur, whose production was put in difficulties by a mysterious figure known as the Phantom of the Flickers, which the Groovie Goolies went to Hollywood to stop him. The special was co-directed by Robert McKimson and Sid Marcus, and featured voice work by Mel Blanc, Larry Storch and Jane Webb.
The TV special proved successful enough for Warner Bros. to commission some new Daffy Duck cartoons from the cartoon studio for theatrical release, some with Daffy solo, a few where he was paired with Porky Pig (returning Porky to the big screen after a seven-year absence) and an experimental title where Daffy was paired with Sylvester; the latter being the most interesting out of Daffy's comeback career. That same year, after completing "Daffy Duck is Back Amok," Robert McKimson left Warner Bros. Animation, feeling that they had recovered enough to survive without him, to go work with DePatie-Freleng Enterprises, where he remained until his death in 1977. Additionally, Warner Bros. Television put together a newly-syndicated package of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts, including all the new titles Warner Bros. Animation produced from 1967 to 1971, along with selected shorts from 1948 to 1966, several of which made their television debut in the package. Titled "The Merrie Melodies Show" and largely focusing on Daffy Duck, Cool Cat, Speedy Gonzales, Tweety and Sylvester as its core characters, Warner Bros. Animation also produced a newly-animated opening and closing sequence to go with the series.
The Keystone Kops series ended in 1972, Merlin the Magic Mouse and Jolly Roger's final cartoon shorts were released in 1973, and Cool Cat was retired in 1974, by which time Chuck Jones expressed interest in providing work for Warner Bros. again, after having produced some animated segments featuring the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote for PBS and the Children's Television Workshop education series "The Electric Company" two years earlier. But rather than return to the Warner lot, Jones and his crew took over production of the Road Runner cartoons at his own studio, along with some new Daffy Duck and Pepe Le Pew shorts, to be released by Warner Bros. Phil Monroe had also left Warner Bros. Animation to return to his former boss at Chuck Jones Productions. These shorts also introduced a recreation of the classic "bullseye" opening and closing logos, complete with the zooming WB shield and "That's all, Folks!" script (though a "Distributed by Warner Bros" logo with the contemporary Saul Bass "W" graphic would follow the closing "bullseye" logo). Concurrently, the Warner Bros. Animation in-house shorts would continue to use the "Abstract" logo sequences, perhaps as a way to differentiate the two studios' work.
In 1974, Warner Bros. released its first fully-produced in-house animated feature film, Oliver Twist, a film adaptation to Charles Dickens' novel. It was a critical and commercial success and is considered as one of the best non-Disney animated films.
Unfortunately, the theatrical cartoon market was greatly drying up by the mid-1970s. Walter Lantz Productions at Universal had ceased operations in 1972, and even Walt Disney Productions was now only occasionally making an animated short or featurette to go with one of their movies. In 1976, Warner Bros. chose to stop distributing theatrical cartoon shorts, and re-direct the animation studio's efforts largely toward television. Bill Hendricks retired as executive producer at Warner Bros. Animation, with Hal Geer filling his position. Warner commissioned Chuck Jones Productions to produce two new half-hour TV specials starring Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck ("Carnival of the Animals" and "A Connecticut Rabbit in King Arthur's Court"), while at the same time Warner Bros. Animation began producing compilation specials combining new animation with older footage.
To be continued...