Merrie Melodies is an American animated comedy short film series distributed by Warner Bros. It is the companion series to Looney Tunes, and featured many of the same characters as the former series. It originally ran from August 2, 1931 to September 20, 1969, during the golden age of American animation, though it had been revived in 1979, with new shorts sporadically released until June 13, 1997. Originally, Merrie Melodies placed emphasis on one-shot color films in comparison to the black and white Looney Tunes films. After Bugs Bunny became the breakout character of Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes transitioned to color production in the early 1940s, the two series gradually lost their distinctions and shorts were assigned to each series randomly.