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Steven Spielberg Presents Tiny Toon Adventures (also known as Tiny Toon Adventures or Tiny Toons) is an American animated television series created and produced as a collaborative effort between Steven Spielberg and Warner Bros. Animation.
Tiny Toons originated as an idea by Terry Semel, then president of Warner Bros. Wishing to capitalize on the success of TV shows featuring younger versions of famous characters (such as Ultraman Kids, Muppet Babies and Flintstones Kids), Semel proposed a similar show based on Looney Tunes, where the characters were young versions of the original Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies characters. A similar idea would have introduced the new characters as the offspring of the original characters.
Warner Bros. had reinstated its animation studio following the success of Who Framed Roger Rabbit, which featured appearances by many of its famous cartoon characters, and which had been co-produced by Spielberg's company Amblin Entertainment. The studio approached Spielberg (maker of many famous family movies, including An American Tail and The Land Before Time) to collaborate on Semel's ideas. Spielberg suggested that the new characters be spiritual, not literal, descendants of the Looney Tunes, and that the original characters make appearances as their mentors. This idea became the basis for Tiny Toon Adventures, which at first was to become a theatrical feature-length film, but was later changed to a television series format in December of 1988.
The series premiered in 1990. It revolved around a group of young cartoon characters training at Acme Looniversity to be the next generation of Looney Tunes characters. As a result most of the characters were designed to resemble younger versions of classic Warner Bros.' most popular cartoon stars.
Major characters include:
The original inspiration for two of the characters was somewhat obscure compared to the others: Li'l Sneezer was a revival of Sniffles the mouse, and Gogo Dodo was based on the original Dodo from Porky in Wackyland, a theatrical Looney Tunes release directed by Bob Clampett in 1938. In fact, the latter became the only visible Acme Looniversity alumnus to be an offspring of a classic Looney Tunes character.
Other minor characters based on classic characters were:
Minor original characters included a family of Italians fleas who lived on Furrball based off the animated movie An American Tail, a trio of singing girl roaches (modelled after and voiced by The Roches), Byron Basset, and the two Ralphs. One was a fat security guard who later migrated to Animaniacs, while the other was a slobbish Ralph Bakshi caricature.
Most of the series's original characters attended Acme Looniversity, a high school/university in the fictional city of Acme Acres (where most of the Tiny Toons and Looney Tunes characters lived), whose faculty primarily consisted of the mainstays of the classic Warner cartoons. In the series' internal continuity, the university was founded to teach cartoon characters how to become funny, with graduates receiving a "Diploma of Lunacy", giving them the opportunity to become full-time cartoon characters. Bugs Bunny taught the Outsmarting Antagonists class, Daffy Duck taught Puns and Catchphrases, Yosemite Sam taught both Firearms and Anvilology (the study of falling anvils for comic effect), and Elmer Fudd taught Booby Traps. The principal of the Acme Looniversity was a giant floating head like the one in The Wizard of Oz, voiced by Noel Blanc (son of Mel Blanc); the principal was later revealed to be Bugs Bunny in disguise. Wile E. Coyote was the dean at the Looniversity's School of Hard Knocks.
Guest stars included Henny Youngman as a chicken version of himself; Edie McClurg as Hamton's mother; Julie Brown as Julie Bruin; and the Roches as cockroach versions of themselves.
The series and the show's characters were developed by series producer and head writer Tom Ruegger, division leader Jean MacCurdy, and story editors Wayne Kaatz, Paul Dini, and Sherri Stoner. Among the first writers on the series were Jim Reardon, Tom Minton, and Eddie Fitzgerald. The character and scenery designers included Alfred Gimeno, Ken Boyer, Dan Haskett, Karen Haskett, Jeff Pidgeon and many other artists and directors.
The show often contained "gross out" humor dealing with bodily functions as well as political and entertainment satire. Caricature versions of celebrities made frequent appearances, though were almost always voiced by imitators, and often appeared under parody names ("Tom Snooze" instead of Tom Cruise, "Michael Molten-Lava"/Michael Bolton, etc). The show also parodied other TV shows and cartoons of the day, including The Simpsons. A recurring parody was that of the Immature Radioactive Samurai Slugs, which poked fun at the popular cartoon Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Both tactics would later be copied by the show's successor, Animaniacs.
Critics of the series considered the Tiny Toons characters to be little more than knock-offs of the original Termite Terrace creations. [1]
In order to complete 65 episodes for the first season, Warner and Amblin contracted several different animation houses to share the workload (now a common practice in modern television animation studios). These animation studios included Tokyo Movie Shinsha, Wang Film Productions, AKOM, Freelance Animators New Zealand, Encore Cartoons, StarToons, and Kennedy Cartoons. (Kennedy Cartoons left the project while working on the 37th episode of production, which became the pilot episode, "The Looney Beginning".[2] )
During production of the third season, Charlie Adler, the voice of Buster Bunny, left the show due to a conflict with the producers. At the time, Animaniacs (the follow-up to Tiny Toons) was being cast, and Adler was upset that he hadn't landed a role in the new show. Additionally, he took offense to the fact that small-role voice actors like Rob Paulsen and Maurice LaMarche (who went on to become the voices of Pinky and the Brain) were given starring roles.[2] Adler was replaced by John Kassir for the remainder of the show's run. Joe Alaskey, the voice of Plucky Duck, also left Tiny Toons for financial reasons, but returned when an agreement was reached with the studio (today, he is the current voice of Daffy Duck).
One feature-length Tiny Toon Adventures movie was released direct-to-video in 1991, entitled Tiny Toon Adventures: How I Spent My Vacation.[3] Its psychotic, chainsaw-wielding villain, "Mr. Hitcher," even appeared in several other shorts, including one with Plucky remembering himself as a baby. Other features released for Tiny Toon Adventures include Spring Break Special, It's a Wonderful Tiny Toons Christmas Special, and Night Ghoulery. Spring Break Special was shown on FOX during primetime on March 27, 1994. Christmas Special aired on December 6, 1992.
In 1992, The Plucky Duck Show was produced as a spin-off of Tiny Toon Adventures, focusing attention on the daffy young star. Except for the premiere (The Return of Batduck), the show was entirely made up of recycled Plucky-centric episodes from the original series. After just one thirteen-episode season, the show was canceled.
In 1998, another spin-off was produced, this one starring Elmyra alongside Animaniacs stars Pinky and the Brain, and was titled Pinky, Elmyra, and the Brain. It was a significant re-tooling of the 1995 spin-off Pinky and the Brain which contradicted several elements of Elmyra's tenure back on Tiny Toons, and it too was canceled after thirteen episodes.
Suffering from high costs and low profit margins from its animated feature films, Warner Bros. cut back on the size of its animation studio, and production ceased for future animated series. Animaniacs and Tiny Toon Adventures reran in syndication through the 1990s into the early-2000s. In 2005, it was removed from the NickToons Network and is not currently airing on United States television. In the United Kingdom, however, it is currently airing on Boomerang.
The series is scheduled to re-run on Warner Bros. and AOL's new broadband internet channel Toontopia TV.
Since its debut, numerous video games based on Tiny Toons have been released. Many companies have held the development and publishing rights for the games, including Konami (during the 90s), Atari, NewKidCo, Conspiracy Games, Warthog, Terraglyph Interactive Studios, and Treasure.
Currently, no DVD set for Tiny Toon Adventures has yet been officially announced, but Warner Home Video said in a chat on Home Theatre Forum that the show would be released to DVD "hopefully in 2008". [4]