That’s Not All, Folks: Nearly 800 Classic Looney Tunes Shorts Land On Tubi

This week, nearly 800 classic Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts landed on the ad-supported streaming platform Tubi, offering fans free access to one of the crown jewels of American animation. The shorts, produced between 1930 and 1969, are bundled into 262 half-hour episodes, arranged under a single “season” for quick browsing.

The arrival comes only months after Warner Bros. Discovery’s controversial decision to pull the entire library from HBO Max in March. The move was framed as part of a broader effort to sharpen the platform’s focus on adult-oriented content or more recent kids and family properties, but the strategy baffled animation fans and historians, including here at Cartoon Brew. For many, it was yet another example of the studio treating its most valuable legacy IP as disposable, even as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and Porky Pig remain among the most recognizable cartoon characters in the world.

The migration to Tubi isn’t seamless. The service groups the shorts into three-short bundles and buries them in a side-scrolling menu that makes navigation cumbersome. There’s no easy way to search for a specific title like Duck Amuck or What’s Opera, Doc? Still, for those who feared these films might vanish behind corporate vault doors or be relegated to costly and rare physical media releases, the sheer volume of material now available is a reprieve worth celebrating.

For Tubi, the acquisition is a coup. The AVOD platform will now boast one of the most significant collections of classic animation available online from one of the medium’s most recognizable properties, free of charge save for the occasional ad break. Presentation issues aside, that level of access is something to celebrate in today’s increasingly fragmented streaming landscape.