Beans (Looney Tunes)

Beans
Looney Tunes character
Porky Pig and Beans in Gold Diggers of '49.
First appearance	I Haven't Got a Hat (1935)
Last appearance	Westward Whoa (1936)
Created by	Leon Schlesinger
Voiced by	Billy Bletcher (1935–1936) Tommy Bond (1935–1936, occasional) Will Ryan (currently)
Information
Species	Cat

Beans the Cat is an animated cartoon character in the Warner Bros. Looney Tunes series of cartoons from 1935-1936. Beans was the third Looney Tunes cartoon character star after Bosko and Buddy. He is voiced by Billy Bletcher and occasionally by Tommy Bond.

When the cartoon animators/directors Hugh Harman and Rudy Ising left Leon Schlesinger's studios in 1933, they took their main creation, Bosko, with them. Schlesinger had to rebuild his animation studio for Warner Bros. without so much as a marketable character to draw audiences. Schlesinger set up his new studio on the Warner Bros. lot, on the Sunset Boulevard. He collected a new staff for the studio by hiring people who used to work for other animation studios. Among them was Jack King, a Disney animator. By June 1933, when the new studio started producing animated shorts, Tom Palmer had been appointed production manager and director, with Jack King as the head animator.

Schlesinger intended to effectively compete with the Disney studio, and he needed a continuing, star character to compete with Mickey Mouse. Palmer introduced Buddy to be that character. Like Bosko and Mickey, Buddy had a girlfriend and a pet dog as supporting characters. Palmer left the studio after completing only two animated short films. He was replaced by Earl Duvall, who himself left after completing five short films. Schlesinger was in need of new directors, and even composer Bernard B. Brown received credits for directing two Merrie Melodies shorts. According to animation historian Michael Barrier, all the animated short films produced by the Schlesinger studio under its early directors lacked in cuteness and charm of any kind. They were also frequently incoherent. The shorts of this period had much smaller production budgets than their main competitor, Disney.