Buddy

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 serving 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 trouble 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 the studio's lichpin 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 accompained 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 become the third Looney Tunes star before being replaced by Porky Pig. Buddy's voice was performed by animator Jack Carr.

Buddy's shorts like many of early Warner cartoons were all forgotten until the era of the television begin in the 1950s. Program directors searching for something inexpensive to fill time broadcast cartoons from the 1930s. Buddy has remained on television somewhere in the world almost constantly since then.

Modern appearances
Buddy had his first appearance in the Merrie Melodies cartoon Mr. and Mrs. is the Name released on Janurury 19 1935. In this cartoon he appeared as a mermaid boy and his girlfriend who slightly resembles Cookie appeared (as an unnamed mermaid girl) where she and Buddy discovers a treasure full of gold. However this is confirmed that this is just a character who resembles buddy.

Buddy's first (and so far) new appearance after his original series ended came in the 1993 animated series Animaniacs where he appeared in the episode The Warner's 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-Warners shorts mainly consisted 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 running 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. It was confirm that this character is based off on buddy as the original buddy debuted in 1932 rather than 1929. Jim Cummings provided Buddy's voice here.

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

Voice actors

 * Jack Carr
 * Jim Cummings (1994 in Animaniacs)