Max removes original Looney Tunes shorts — for real this time

Even though Warner Bros. unceremoniously shelved Coyote vs. Acme, it looked like they were ready to recommit to the Looney Tunes property with the release of The Day the Earth Blew Up, the first fully animated original movie from the franchise to be released theatrically. And yet here we are yet again, as Max has removed the original Looney Tunes cartoons from the streaming service. In short: That’s all, folks!

At this point, we all have to recognize that Warner Bros. has no idea what to do with Looney Tunes and essentially refuses to try. They can give us a fantastic movie but that will only get them so far – we want the original cartoons! Gone are the representations of legendary animators like Tex Avery, Chuck Jones, Friz Freleng, and countless others.

It’s worth noting at this point that not every Looney Tunes series has been tossed into The Dip, as Deadline noted that a number of series still remain on Max, including Looney Tunes Cartoons, Tiny Toons Looniversity, The Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries, and more. But the die-hard Looney Tunes fans deserve to have the original cartoons available. (From a personal perspective, I was actually going through the Looney Tunes shorts that were available on Max and only got up to 1936’s Fish Tales.) And while the collection Max had was far from complete (we’re talking 1,000 shorts, so we can forgive Max for not including all of them), it was still a thorough series that offered hours upon hours of entertainment and served as a true lesson on animation history. And to paraphrase Marvin the Martian, this makes us very angry – very angry indeed.​​

This move by Max to ditch the original Looney Tunes shorts – including the famed Merrie Melodies series – is the exact move that fans were assured would not happen after a similar scare happened in 2023. A statement at the time recognized the error of removing the shorts and read: “Looney Tunes was included in error as a title leaving the platform. This is not the case and the show will continue streaming on Max.” At this point, I feel like this was just a tunnel painted on the side of a mountain.

Just last year, Max also removed Sesame Street, a similar move to put more focus on programming geared towards adults and families.