Looney Tunes

Abe began his stint at the Leon Schlesinger studio as an inbetweener in 1940 working on the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts and moved up to assistant animator the following year. Further promotion was interrupted by his joining the U.S. Army in 1942 and his assignment to the Signal Corps Motion Picture Division, the branch where many of the animation industry’s talent pool landed. Upon his return from military service, it appears that Abe continued to work as an assistant animator for Ken Harris while being handed scenes to animate as a junior animator. He was also enlisted to handle the publicity drawings for the Chuck Jones unit, a position he held for a number of years. His first screen credit as an animator was in 1953 on the last short of the classic Bugs/Daffy/Elmer trilogy, Duck! Rabbit! Duck! although he certainly animated on the second in the series, Rabbit Seasoning. As the fifties progressed, Abe became one of the mainstays of Chuck Jones’ unit, animating on dozens of classic cartoons. In fact, Chuck later stated, "I had four of the greatest animators that ever lived: Ben Washam; Phil Monroe; Ken Harris and Abe Levitow." Chuck Jones remembers Abe as having animated the powerful opening scenes in What’s Opera, Doc? and Porky Pig laughing at Daffy Duck in Robin Hood Daffy. Jones relied on Levitow’s strong drawing abilities and in fact, Abe became Chuck’s protégé; so much so that Abe was able to ape Chuck’s trademark drawing style. As a result, Jones probably felt comfortable handing over the directing reins to Abe on several occasions as he began to assume writing and producing chores. Abe Levitow left Warner Bros. after directing several shorts to serve as animation director on UPA’s first feature, 1001 Arabian Nights. The layout drawings on this page are from one of Abe’s first solo directing efforts, A Witch’s Tangled Hare. The other drawings are an assortment of some of his publicity drawings for the Jones unit.