Warner Bros.-Seven Arts Animation

Background

In 1967, Warner Bros. Cartoons was reopened under the management of studio head David H. DePatie and director Friz Freleng, who previously formed DePatie-Freleng Enterprises to continue production on Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies. The studio was named Warner Bros.-Seven Arts Animation after its then-current parent company. Initially, they produced more Daffy and Speedy cartoons, but soon moved to create new characters and even occasional experimental works. After a year, Alex Lovy left and returned to Hanna-Barbera, and Robert McKimson was brought back to the studio. The studio shut down in 1969, although it would later reopen as Warner Bros. Animation in 1980, remaining in operation to this day.

Logo (October 14, 1967-September 20, 1969)

Visuals:

Opening: Same as the final Warner Bros. Cartoons logo, but the background is now blue, while the three purple lines are now yellow and the orange one is now more pinkish-red. The three yellow lines disappear at the same time, as the W7 logo "draws" itself (see the W7 film logo), and the shield appears around it. The horizontal line animation is the same, though “PRESENTS” is now more pinkish-red as well.
Closing: The "A WARNER BROS. CARTOON" line is changed to add in the Seven Arts information and the abstract WB is replaced by the W7 logo, which merely "appears" at the beginning of the end title without any forming animation. The "OO" goes up and down three times fast now.

Variants:

During the 1967 release season, it reuses the color scheme of the “Abstract WB” logo, with a black background and purple W7 shield.
Shorts produced in 1969 remove the copyright info from the studio logo (instead moving it to the short's opening title card), and instead of the blue background remaining on before cutting to black at the end before the cartoon's opening titles appear, the logo now fades to black after the lines swirl away.
On Norman Normal and on Hocus Pocus Pow-wow, the "W7" graphic is off-centered inside the shield during the studio logo.
A rare still variant was seen on The Door (an independent animated short not produced by Warner Bros. Animation), which merely consisted of the yellow W7 shield on a blue background. This was at the beginning of the short before the opening credits. No music was used here.
Beginning some time in 1968, the Vitaphone/Vitagraph legend is switched around: Looney Tunes are now branded as "A VITAPHONE RELEASE," while Merrie Melodies get the Vitagraph equivalent. This was likely done to maintain the long-defunct trademarks.
The redrawn print of Porky's Romance using these logos starts with the full 1936-37 "Porky Signature" theme music playing, initially against a black background, until four seconds in when the "Abstract W7" opening sequence begins. The "rotating lines" animation before the series logo is played twice, to accommodate the running time for the theme music.
On at least one public domain print of the redrawn version of The Timid Toreador, only the second half of the opening logo is seen (with the 1937-38 Looney Tunes opening theme playing underneath), due to a sloppy plastering attempt with the 9th logo lifted from Tom Turk and Daffy (a few frames of said cartoon's title can be seen before cutting to the "Abstract W7" series logo).
A black-and-white version of the logo exists, with the background being grey and the W7 shield and "PRESENTS" in black. The ending has most of the text in white, with the bouncing "OO"s in black.
Another black-and-white variant of the opening variant exists where the background is black and the W7 shield and "PRESENTS" in white.

Technique: Traditional and motion-controlled animation.

Audio: A newer version of the Warner Bros. Cartoons music by William Lava.

October 1967-September 1969: A lower-budget arrangement with a smaller band and electric guitar "twangs" during the line animation.
June 1968-August 1968: Heavily modified, louder opening theme with electric guitar, brass horn and piano combo on the zooming line animations.
March 1969: Opening theme sparsely modified, sounding like a hybrid of the October 1967 and June 1968 themes, only used on Fistic Mystic.
The closing music is the same as the 1964 version.
On the 1968 short Norman Normal (based off the Paul Stookey song of the same name), the opening to the cartoon's theme music (Paul Stookey's "Norman Normal") plays under this logo instead of having its own music, and at the end, the "Norman Normal" song also plays over the standard closing animation.
Some copies of the late-1960s redrawn-colorized Looney Tunes shorts from the late 1930s/early 1940s have this logo with the second half of one of the 1935-1943 Looney Tunes opening themes playing under it, which does not fit with the logo at all. The ending has the Seven Arts closing plastered on, with either the ending of the cartoon's theme playing underneath (1935-1937) or the 1937-1943 closing themes, with Porky's "Th-the-th-the-th-the-that's all folks!" line coincidentally timed almost impeccably to match the bouncing of the "OO"s in the word "CARTOON".
- Some redrawn prints of Porky's Road Race with these logos are said to have used the 1967 opening theme music with the opening and the 1964 closing theme during the end titles.
The first black-and-white variant features the opening theme of the cartoon, which is "Whistle and Blow Your Blues Away".
The other black-and-white variant strangely has the 1955 arrangement of "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down" playing over it.

Availability: Seen on every Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoon from Cool Cat to Injun Trouble (the one directed by Robert McKimson).

As Warner Bros. became Warner Bros-Seven Arts in 1967, the Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies cartoon output was coming to a stop by this time. It is still saved on shorts of the period, but because many of them do not feature main/recurring Looney Tunes characters (such as Sylvester or the Road Runner) and are often considered to be inferior compared to the 1940s and 1950s shorts, they aren't shown often on MeTV and are not shown on Boomerang at all.
The Norman Normal variant is available, fully restored, on the Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 6 DVD release, the standard variant can be seen on the two Bunny and Claude shorts on the Looney Tunes Super Stars Porky & Friends DVD, and the early variant (unrestored) can be found on the 1967 short Merlin the Magic Mouse on the Looney Tunes Mouse Chronicles DVD/Blu-ray set.
The Door variant has been restored on the Looney Tunes Platinum Collection: Volume One Blu-ray set.
The black-and-white version resurfaced on a print of the 1933 short Bosko's Dizzy Date within the collection of Tommy Stathes. It's possible they appeared on prints of Bosko and Buddy shorts made after Warner Bros. merged with Seven Arts, who held the TV license for most of WB's black-and-white cartoons.
Another black-and-white version was spotted on a print of the 1940 short Ali-Baba Bound.

Legacy: This logo has a bad reputation for appearing on another unpopular era for Warner Bros. cartoons (in this case, the Seven Arts-era).

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Warner Bros.-Seven Arts Animation

Warner Bros. Animation
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