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Buddy
Buddy
Leon Schlesinger Productions character
	The opening card from November 1933 until late 1934, with Buddy introducing one of his cartoons
First appearance	Buddy's Day Out (Looney Tunes, 1933)
Last appearance	"The Warners' 65th Anniversary Special" (Animaniacs, 1994)
Created by	Tom Palmer
Voiced by	Bernard B. Brown (1933–1934); Jack Carr (1934–1935); Jackie Morrow (1934–1935); Tommy Bond (1935); Jim Cummings (1994)
In-universe information
Species	Human
Gender	Male
Nationality	American

Buddy is an animated cartoon character in the Looney Tunes series by Leon Schlesinger Productions. He was the second star of the series, after Bosko.

History

Buddy has his origins in the chaos that followed after animators Hugh Harman and Rudy Ising severed their relations with 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, with his first film Buddy's Day Out released on September 9.^[3]

The character had a troubled beginning, as Warner Bros. refused to accept his first two cartoons, resulting in Friz Freleng being called in to re-edit and condense them into a single short.^{[citation needed]} 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".^[4] Despite these initial problems, Buddy would go on to be the studio's linchpin character for the next two years.^[5]

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^{[broken anchor]}, and his dog, Towser. The character would go on to star in 23 short films from 1933 to 1935, before he was retired to make way for a new character called Beans the Cat. Beans became the third Looney Tunes star, though later on replaced by the more popular Porky Pig. Buddy's voice was most of the time performed by animator Jack Carr.

Buddy had various designs throughout the course of his career. Initially, the character was a younger boy with trousers, a polo shirt, and a large cap, as seen in Buddy's Day Out. In Buddy's Beer Garden, he was redesigned by Earl Duvall into a young man wearing a jacket with a small bow tie and long pants. Friz Freleng gave the character another design, which was nearly identical to Duvall's except he is smaller and does not wear a jacket. Ben Hardaway later redesigned Buddy to look more like his predecessor, Bosko.

Reception

Buddy is widely considered to be the worst character in the Looney Tunes franchise. In That's All, Folks! The Art of Warner Bros. Animation, Steve Schneider describes Buddy as "a creature of limitless blandness," and calls Buddy's Day Out "a nondescript adventure spree." Schneider says that "probably the best of the run is his farewell film, Buddy the Gee Man", but "about the most that can be said for Buddy is that he is distinctly forgettable."^[6]

Filmography

Film	Release date
Buddy's Day Out	September 9, 1933
Buddy's Beer Garden	November 18, 1933
Buddy's Show Boat	December 9, 1933
Buddy the Gob	January 5, 1934
Buddy and Towser	February 24, 1934
Buddy's Garage	April 14, 1934
Buddy's Trolley Troubles	May 5, 1934
Buddy of the Apes	May 26, 1934
Buddy's Bearcats	June 16, 1934
Buddy's Circus	August 25, 1934
Buddy the Detective	September 15, 1934
Viva Buddy	September 29, 1934
Buddy the Woodsman	October 20, 1934
Buddy's Adventures	November 17, 1934
Buddy the Dentist	December 15, 1934
Buddy of the Legion	January 9, 1935
Buddy's Theater	February 8, 1935
Buddy's Pony Express	March 9, 1935
Buddy in Africa	April 13, 1935
Buddy's Lost World	May 18, 1935
Buddy's Bug Hunt	June 6, 1935
Buddy Steps Out	July 6, 1935
Buddy the Gee Man	August 24, 1935

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 and only color appearance; however, whether 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 in 1935 came in the 1993 animated series Animaniacs, where he appeared in the episode "The Warners' 65th Anniversary Special" as the main antagonist of that episode. It was 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 (all were dated from the main Bosko until the early Buddy years).

On the PBS series History Detectives, a collection of Buddy cels from Buddy's first appearance Buddy's Day Out is the focus of a 2010 episode.^[7]

References

^ ^a ^b Scott, Keith (2022). Cartoon Voices from the Golden Age, 1930-70. BearManor Media. ISBN 979-8-88771-010-5.
^ "Radio Round-Up: 'Wanna Buy A Duck?' JOE PENNER" Archived 2020-09-25 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved 2020-07-05.
^ Beck, Jerry; Friedwald, Will (1989). Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies: A Complete Illustrated Guide to the Warner Bros. Cartoons. Henry Holt and Co. p. 21. ISBN 0-8050-0894-2.
^ Maltin, Leonard (1987). Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons (Revised ed.). Plume. p. 228. ISBN 0-452-25993-2.
^ Lenburg, Jeff (1999). The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons. Checkmark Books. p. 58. ISBN 0-8160-3831-7. Retrieved 6 June 2020.
^ Schneider, Steve (1988). That's All, Folks! : The Art of Warner Bros. Animation. Henry Holt and Co. pp. 40–41. ISBN 0-8050-0889-6.
^ "Looney Tunes on PBS History Detectives | Cartoon Brew". Archived from the original on 2012-03-23. Retrieved 2011-11-20.