'Looney Tunes' finds new success on Tubi after being booted from HBO Max
For such a beloved franchise, Looney Tunes has had a bizarrely rough go of it over the past few years.
In 2023, Warner Bros. Discovery scrapped the already completed Looney Tunes film Coyote vs. Acme for a tax cut. That disheartening move managed to have a happy ending, though, as Ketchup Entertainment acquired the film in 2025, slating it for a 2026 release. Ketchup Entertainment also released The Day The Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes movie, another film Warner Bros. chose to shop around instead of releasing itself.
Warner Bros. continued its efforts to distance itself from Looney Tunes in March of 2025, when it yanked the entire classic Looney Tunes shorts library from HBO Max. However, in August, the free, ad-supported streamer Tubi acquired 789 of those pulled Looney Tunes shorts. (Warner Bros. Discovery chose to keep about 200 in the vault due to depictions of offensive stereotypes.) In the two months since the Looney Tunes acquisition, Tubi has reaped the rewards.
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As Tubi's head of acquisitions, Samuel Harowitz, told Vulture, "On its own, Looney Tunes is a huge win for us."
Since its arrival on Tubi, Looney Tunes has landed in the streamer's top 10 best-performing series by viewing time. Originally released theatrically, the classic shorts have been repackaged into 30-minute episodes, with Tubi's ad breaks occurring between each short. The goal? Recreating the experience of watching classic cartoons on TV.
"In my mind, AVOD [ad-supported video on demand] and FAST [free ad-supported streaming TV] is ad-supported TV in a different candy wrapper," Harowitz told Vulture. "I get to experience it through the eyes of my kids but also evoke the same emotional response I remember as an 8-year-old sitting in front of a CRT Toshiba TV."
Tubi hopes to keep up the momentum of Looney Tunes' success. "We are in active negotiations to ensure that Tubi can be the home of Looney Tunes for quite a while. Likely years," Harowitz told Vulture.
Tubi's attention to Looney Tunes is just one part of its focus on classic cartoons. Its library also includes Tom and Jerry, The Pink Panther, Popeye the Sailor, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, making it the closest streaming equivalent to the Saturday morning cartoon feel.
Looney Tunes is now streaming on Tubi.
Topics Streaming
Belen Edwards is an Entertainment Reporter at Mashable. She covers movies and TV with a focus on fantasy and science fiction, adaptations, animation, and more nerdy goodness. She is a member of the Critics Choice Association and the Television Critics Association, as well as a Tomatometer-approved critic.
