Warner Bros. Animation

Warner Bros. Animation Inc. is an American animation studio which is part of the Warner Bros. Television Studios division of Warner Bros., a flagship of Warner Bros. Discovery. As the successor to Warner Bros. Cartoons, which was active from 1933 to 1969, the studio is closely associated with the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies characters, among others. Warner Bros. re-established its animation division in 1980 to produce Looney Tunes–related works, and Turner Broadcasting System merged with WBD predecessor Time Warner in 1996. In March 2001, Hanna-Barbera was absorbed into the studio, and in 1996, Ruby-Spears was as well. In recent years, Warner Bros. Animation has specialized in producing television and direct-to-video animation featuring characters from other properties owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, including Turner Entertainment (which owns the rights to properties originally created by the MGM cartoon studio), Hanna-Barbera, Ruby-Spears, and DC Entertainment. History 1970–1986: Restarting the studio The original Warner Bros. Cartoons studio, as well as all of Warner Bros.'s short subject production divisions, closed its doors on October 10, 1969, due to the rising costs and declining returns of short subject production. Outside animation companies were hired to produce new Looney Tunes-related animation for TV specials and commercials at irregular intervals. In 1975, Warner Bros. Cartoon alumnus Chuck Jones began producing a series of Looney Tunes specials at his Chuck Jones Productions animation studio, the first of which was Carnival of the Animals. These specials, and a 1975 Looney Tunes retrospective feature film titled Bugs Bunny: Superstar (distributed by United Artists, the previous owner of the pre-1950 Warner Bros. library), led Jones to produce The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Movie for Warner Bros. in 1979. This film blended classic Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies shorts with newly produced wraparounds of Bugs Bunny introducing each cartoon. Warner Bros. responded to the success of this film by reestablishing its own cartoon studio.