It's Turning Into a 'Toon Town Again : New characters are joining Mickey, Bugs, Daffy and friends on-screen as the world of cartoon shorts gets reanimated.

By Connie Benesch

Sept. 3, 1995 12 AM PT

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B eep-Beep!

All of a sudden it’s rush hour on the animation super highway.

With theatrical shorts starring Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck already in theaters, and cartoons featuring everyone from Woody Woodpecker to Michigan J. Frog in the works, animated short subjects are back in favor with studios to a degree not seen perhaps since the animation heyday of the 1950s.

“I think character animation is making a comeback, whether they’re in shorts or [movies],” says Oscar-winner Chuck Jones, one of the fathers of Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. At 82, the energetic Jones has a deal to produce shorts for Warner Bros., where he worked from 1931 to 1962. His “Chariots of Fur,” the first Road Runner short released in 30 years, premiered last December with “Richie Rich.”

“Shorts bring humor into a program that might be a little deadly otherwise,” says Jones, whose litmus test for success is whether both adults and children will laugh. “A short is like an appetizer; it clears your mind a little.”

This weekend, Jones’ latest ‘toon, “Another Froggy Evening,” premieres at the Telluride Film Festival. The short continues the story of Michigan J. Frog, a mysterious amphibian with a beautiful voice who refuses to sing in public. His only previous appearance (other than serving as the icon for the WB Network) was in 1955, in Jones’ “One Froggy Evening,” a favorite among animation buffs. (Jeff McCarthy, now on Broadway as the Beast in “Beauty and the Beast,” does the crooning.)

In addition, Jones is completing “Superior Duck,” in which Daffy Duck tries to be a superhero. After that is “From Hare to Eternity,” a Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam vehicle dedicated to animation pioneer Isadore (Friz) Freleng, who died in May.

Jones and his animators can produce six shorts a year at his studio near the Warner Bros. lot, where he’s trying to re-create the carefree atmosphere that dominated Termite Terrace, once home to the prolific Jones, Freleng, Tex Avery, Bob Clampett and Bob McKimson.

Last weekend, the wisecracking Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck hit movie theaters in “Carrotblanca,” which is playing with “The Amazing Panda Adventure.” The Looney Tunes version of “Casablanca,” which was produced not by Jones but by Warner Bros. Classic Animation, stars the rabbit as the nightclub proprietor (Humphrey Bogart’s role), and his duck sidekick as the piano-playing confidant Sam. Recently, the carrot-chomping critter chatted with cyberworld fans through America Online to promote the new short, his first since his 50th birthday five years ago.

“Everyone’s very eager to get all of our characters back up on the big screen. . . . It’s kind of like going back to our roots historically,” says Kathleen Helppie, “Carrotblanca” senior producer and vice president of production and administration for Warner Bros. Classic Animation, which has about a dozen other shorts in development, including a 3-D piece now scheduled for theme parks.

Although Mickey Mouse has starred in two 30-minute featurettes in recent years, the Disney icon made his first short-form appearance in 42 years with the mid-August premiere of “Runaway Brain.” Initially offered exclusively with “A Kid in King Arthur’s Court,” theaters are now showing it with other Disney and non-Disney features.

Earlier this year, MGM/UA released “Driving Mr. Pink,” a Pink Panther short, shown theatrically with “The Pebble and the Penguin.”

MCA/Universal hopes to create shorts with its new character Earthworm Jim, who premieres on the WB Network this month. And the studio also plans to produce shorts to reintroduce Woody Woodpecker.

“We’re . . . trying to reinvent for the ‘90s a new look and sensibility for Woody and retain much of what was important about him, [especially] his irreverent and iconoclastic nature,” says Universal Cartoon Studios President Jeff Segal.

Hanna-Barbera Productions also has been active on the shorts front by creating 48 “World Premiere Toons” for the Cartoon Network. Although the Turner-owned company hasn’t released shorts theatrically in the United States, its “Dino” short was shown with “Andre” in London cinemas. A “Johnny Bravo” short also is being released with the New Line video “Dumb and Dumber.”

“Ren & Stimpy Show” creator John Kricfalusi says he is talking with the production company Goldman Dippe Williams about doing a Brik Blastoff cartoon to go with the Mark Dippe-directed New Line feature “Spawn,” based on Todd McFarland’s comic strip.

Kricfalusi also says he has storyboarded and is ready to produce three “Jimmy the Idiot Boy” shorts. (He’s still seeking a studio partner.)

A lthough animated pre-show diversions are costly--from $500,000 to $1.5 million, and even as high $6 million (the figure Disney is rumored to have spent on “Runaway Brain”)--studios are finding that shorts can be valuable in launching or maintaining franchise characters.

Exhibitors observe that cartoons can help sell features. “These shorts are an integral part of the marketing campaigns for these movies,” says Dick Westerling, corporate marketing vice president of AMC Theatres. “They definitely provide added value to . . . films targeted at family audiences.”

Animation historian Jerry Beck predicts that studios will continue to make cartoons if related products sell well. “Shorts are seven-minute commercials for your merchandising and licensing departments,” says Beck, author of “The Fifty Greatest Cartoons” and vice president of animation for Nickelodeon Movies.

“But it bothers me that they only put shorts with kids’ pictures. That’s stereotypical thinking. They also should be placing them with films like ‘Batman Forever’ and ‘Apollo 13.’ ”

Animator Kricfalusi contends that “a funny short is like a guarantee of some happiness. People love prizes. Cereals with the best prizes sell the most. That’s what cartoon shorts are--the prize in the movie.”