Buddy (Looney Tunes)

Buddy is an animated cartoon character in the Warner Bros. Looney Tunes series of cartoons.

Looney Tunes
Buddy has his origins in the chaos that followed the severing of relations between animators Hugh Harman and Rudy Ising from producer Leon Schlesinger. Without his animators and Bosko the Talk-Ink Kid, the star character they had taken with them, Schlesinger was desperate to build his own cartoon studio and maintain his contract with Warner Bros. He lured in several animators from other studios, among them Tom Palmer from Disney. Schlesinger told his new employees to create a star character for the studio, and Palmer created Buddy in 1933. The character had a troubled beginning, as Warner Bros. refused to accept his first two cartoons, resulting in Palmer being fired and Friz Freleng being called in to re-edit and condense them into a single short. In the book Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons, animator Bob Clampett is quoted as describing Buddy as "Bosko in whiteface". Despite these initial problems, Buddy would go on to be the studio's linchpin character for the next two years.

Music dominates in Buddy's world. The characters add visuals to the soundtrack and participate in gags. Buddy is usually accompanied in his films by his flapper girlfriend, Cookie, and his dog, Towser. The character would go on to star in 23 cartoons from 1933 to 1935 before he was retired to make way for new character called Beans the Cat, who became the third Looney Tunes star. Buddy's voice was most of the time performed by animator Jack Carr.

Mr. and Mrs. is the Name
The 1935 Merrie Melodies cartoon "Mr. and Mrs. Is the Name", in which mermaid characters resembling Buddy and Cookie find a treasure trove, was Buddy's first color appearance; however, that the short should be considered official is in doubt, as the characters are not named.

Modern appearances
Buddy's first (and so far only) new appearance after his original series ended came in the 1993 animated series Animaniacs, where he appeared in the episode "The Warners' 65th Anniversary Special," broadcast on May 23, 1994. In this episode, it was revealed (in the series' fictional history) that Yakko, Wakko, and Dot were created to spice up Buddy's dull cartoons; these series of Buddy-Warner shorts mainly consisted of the Warners smashing Buddy on the head with mallets. After Buddy was dropped by the studio in favor of the Warners, Buddy retired to become a nut farmer in Ojai, California, but hated the Warners for ruining his career, and made a failed attempt at the Anniversary Special to enact revenge on the Warner Siblings for ruining his career 65 years ago. Jim Cummings provided Buddy's voice here. The cartoons he starred in with the Warners shown were Outback Buddy, Postman Buddy, Gardening Buddy, Baker Buddy, and Busdriver Buddy.

On the PBS series History Detectives, a collection of Buddy cels was the focus of one episode of the series in 2010.