Screenshot : YouTube

Who would do this? And why? Drew Magary would, was the thing, and was gonna, and I’d rather die than let his rankings speak for the site and wind up with history recording that the place where I work said “R&B/Soul” was the second-best Looney Tunes character of all time. So we turned it into a scientific-y group activity instead, to protect against Drew’s dumpster CHUD opinions.


We didn’t rank all of them, before you ask about Gossamer, the large red hair-monster made famous as Bugs Bunny’s antagonist in Hair-Raising Hare. That’s because expanding the list into every character who memorably appeared once or twice in a classic Looney Tunes or Merry Melodies cartoon could have resulted in an extremely long list, and many of the people who work here are not lunatics and therefore don’t necessarily know more than a handful of classic Warner Bros. cartoon characters without having to google them. (Also Barry kept claiming that, like, Jerry from Tom & Jerry and Scooby Doo and Morley Safer were Looney Tunes characters. He is from hell, and by God to hell I shall return him.) Also, in a couple of instances where characters are completely inseparable—Rocky and Mugsy, the mobster guys, and Hubie and Bertie, the extremely cute troublemaking mice—we ranked them as pairs.

Anyway, I made a spreadsheet with a bunch of characters from the golden age of Warner Bros. animation listed on it. Then a bunch of us went down the list and gave each character a score from zero (the lowest score) to 10 (the highest), or left the field blank for any characters they didn’t know. Then I totaled each character’s score, chopped off the lowest and highest, (to control for, for example, Drew rooting around in his asshole, pulling out a zero, and giving it to Porky Pig, who is adorable and hilarious and starred in some of the best cartoons ever made), averaged the result, and rounded it to the nearest hundredth.


What we ended up with is broadly fine, but also I have a hunch it functions as an index of how many of our house youths have watched Space Jam. (Sylvester got hosed.) It’s cucumber season, okay? I do not see a lot of urgent sports news around here to be blogged. Let’s just get this over with.

1. Bugs Bunny (10.0)



Sports. Screenshot : YouTube

T-2. Daffy Duck (9.50)



Screenshot : YouTube


T-2. Elmer Fudd (9.50)



Screenshot : YouTube


4. Foghorn Leghorn (9.25)



Sports. Screenshot : YouTube


5. Yosemite Sam (9.13)



Screenshot : YouTube


6. Wile E. Coyote (8.88)



Illustration : Jim Cooke ( GMG


7. Porky Pig (7.50)



When you’re outrageously cute and Drew tries to give you a zero. Screenshot : YouTube


8. George P. Dog (7.17)



Screenshot : YouTube


9. Rocky and Mugsy (7.0)



When Dave McKenna is standing just off-screen left, explaining why he gave Wile E. Coyote a zero. (Mugsy not pictured.) Screenshot : YouTube


T-10. Sylvester (6.75)



Screenshot : YouTube


T-10. Tasmanian Devil (6.75)



Screenshot : YouTube


12. Pepé Le Pew (6.38)



Screenshot : YouTube


13. Sam Sheepdog (6.17)



This is a screenshot of a YouTube video of somebody pointing a camera at their television screen. Screenshot : YouTube


14. Hector the Bulldog (6.0)



Screenshot : YouTube


15. Ralph Wolf (5.75)



Screenshot : YouTube


T-16. Henery Hawk (5.67)



When you’re a lesser Warner Bros. cartoon character and therefore all the YouTubes with you in them are of very low quality, and you’re asking for a match so you can light Drew on fire for giving Porky Pig a zero. Screenshot : YouTube


T-16. Witch Hazel (5.67)



Screenshot : YouTube


18. Hubie and Bertie (5.60)



Screenshot : YouTube


19. Michigan J. Frog (5.40)



Screenshot : YouTube


20. Road Runner (5.25)



Screenshot : This old post


21. Marvin the Martian (5.0)



This rating is just objectively wrong. Marvin the Martian is hilarious. Screenshot : YouTube


22. Tweety Bird (4.50)



Screenshot : YouTube


23. Granny (4.17)




24. Speedy Gonzales (1.25)




This blog is over.