DePatie-Freleng Enterprises

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DePatie-Freleng Enterprises, sometimes known as DFE, was an American production company, founded in 1963 and dissolved in 1981. It was best known for making cartoons such as The Pink Panther.

From 1964 to 1967, DFE produced cartoons for the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series after Warner Bros. had closed down its animation studio. Due to strict budgets and constrictions, the studio was only allowed to use certain characters such as Daffy Duck or Speedy Gonzales.

This era of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies is most known for the stylized opening and endings (reused from Chuck Jones' Now Hear This, without the sound effects) with a reinterpretation of the famous "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down" provided by William Lava.

After production of new Looney Tunes shorts shifted from outsourced production at DePatie-Freleng to in-house production at Warner Bros.-Seven Arts in 1967, 12 years later production of new Looney Tunes TV specials were outsourced to DePatie-Freleng once again for the last time; this time, the studio produced three original Looney Tunes TV specials; two focusing on Bugs Bunny and one focusing on Daffy Duck. Unlike the theatrical shorts which DePatie-Freleng produced between 1964-1967, the studio was allowed to use a larger selection of Looney Tunes characters, including characters that didn't appear in the DFE era such as Bugs Bunny, Tweety and Yosemite Sam.

DePatie-Freleng closed and was sold to Marvel in 1981. Marvel was bought out by Disney in 2009. Today, Disney owns some of the studio's works, with the exceptions of the Looney Tunes shorts from 1964-67, the Dr. Seuss specials, the The Pink Panther Show episodes and character trademarks, the Hasbro works, as well as a few others.

While most of the DFE-era Looney Tunes shorts from 1964-1967 were negatively received by critics and audiences alike, they were somewhat better-received than the shorts produced by its successor Warner Bros.-Seven Arts in the late-1960s.

Filmography

Theatrical shorts

• Pancho's Hideaway (1964)
• Road To Andalay (1964)
• Zip Zip Hooray! (1965, Adventures of the Road-Runner cut-down)
• It's Nice to Have a Mouse Around the House (1965)
• Cats and Bruises (1965)
• Roadrunner a Go-Go (1965, Adventures of the Road-Runner cut-down)
• The Wild Chase (1965)
• Moby Duck (1965)
• Assault and Peppered (1965)
• Well Worn Daffy (1965)
• Suppressed Duck (1965)
• Corn on the Cop (1965)
• Rushing Roulette (1965)
• Run, Run, Sweet Road Runner (1965, with Format Films)
• Tease for Two (1965)
• Tired and Feathered (1965, with Format Films)
• Boulder Wham! (1965, with Format Films)
• Chili Corn Corny (1965)
• Just Plane Beep (1965, with Format Films)
• Hairied and Hurried (1965, with Format Films)
• Go Go Amigo (1965)
• Highway Runnery (1965, with Format Films)
• Chaser on the Rocks (1965, with Format Films)
• The Astroduck (1966)
• Shot and Bothered (1966, with Format Films)
• Out and Out Rout (1966, with Format Films)
• Mucho Locos (1966)
• The Solid Tin Coyote (1966, with Format Films)
• Mexican Mousepiece (1966)
• Clippety Clobbered (1966, with Format Films)
• Daffy Rents (1966)
• A-Haunting We Will Go (1966)
• Snow Excuse (1966)
• A Squeak in the Deep (1966)
• Feather Finger (1966)
• Swing Ding Amigo (1966)
• Sugar and Spies (1966)
• A Taste of Catnip (1966)
• Daffy's Diner (1967)

TV specials

• Bugs Bunny's Looney Christmas Tales (1979)
• Bugs Bunny's Easter Special (1980)
• Daffy Duck's Easter Egg-citement (1980)

Gallery

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