Forgotten Favorites

Everyone knows Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and Wile E. Coyote. What some may not know are some of the more obscure Looney Tunes characters. Some of these are my very favorites, and I would like to introduce them to you. Of my 5 followers, I imagine Juli knows these characters; for everyone else, I have my doubts.

The first character worth noting is Gossamer. As you see here, he's just this big hairy thing with tennis shoes. In the older Looney Tunes episodes, I believe he only appeared in 2 episodes -- this one, where a mad scientist lured bugs here to serve as food for Gossamer, and another episode with most of the exact same plot where they called him Rudolph. He then became rehashed years later in the Duck Dodgers and the Return of the 24 1/2th Century short. In that, we find out he is, in fact, entirely made of hair.


Many people know this guy -- he's Michigan J. Frog, the mascot of the WB. But have they seen the one Looney Tunes episode from many many moons ago, in which a man finds this singing and dancing frog? This man happens to be very greedy, and as he invests a lot of time and money preparing to cash in on his talented frog, he ends up finding out the frog won't sing for anyone but this man. It's really a great episode.



But here is my absolute favorite of the obscure characters from Looney Tunes. When I was a kid, I'd watch Looney Tunes for hours just hoping one of these episodes would come on.

This is Cool Cat. Yes, he does bear some artistic similarities to the Pink Panther, but let's bypass that. The Pink Panther does not have an awesome scarf and beret! And, he's not voiced by the extremely talented Larry Storch. Storch was extremely funny as Corporal Agarn on F Troop (which most of my followers I'm sure have no idea of) and was The Groovy Guru in one of my favorite episodes of Get Smart. Cool Cat talked like a beatnik, and acted like a 60s hippie. He was hilarious.

Cool Cat, in most of his episodes, was being chased by the crazy Colonel Rimfire (who was also voiced by Storch). This big game hunter carried a blunderbuss and rode around in a mechanical elephant, truly one of the greatest inventions in the history of Looney Tunes.

Unfortunately this is the only Cool Cat episode I can find, and it comes with commentary. I don't think Colonel Rimfire is in this one.