If you are of a certain age, a large part of your Saturday morning routine was watching “Looney Tunes.” The adventures of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig and their friends have been entertaining kids and adults since 1930. The cartoon series has not only come to be one of the most beloved examples of American animation in the world, but each of the cartoon’s characters has become global cultural icons.

SEE ALSO: Top 10 Hidden Images Found In Cartoons

Fans of the show have come to accept that the cartoon is sometimes screwy in the perceptions about the animals the show’s characters are based on. We are not here to point out the problems with anthropomorphic animals, loose interpretations on the laws of physics, or why a rabbit would appear in drag. Instead, we will be looking at how “Looney Tunes” created misconceptions about how real-world animals act.

10 Rabbits Love Carrots

The most identifiable image of Bugs Bunny shows the rabbit munching on a carrot, asking “What’s up, doc?” The problem with this is that rabbits and hares in the wild would avoid the carrot. Carrots and other root vegetables are full of sugar, which rabbits are unequipped to digest. Rabbits typically eat grass, hay and dark leafy greens.

While a domesticated rabbit can eat a carrot, it is a bad idea to feed carrots to your pet bunny regularly. It is akin to you being force-fed candy daily; you may appreciate the treat, but it is doing nothing positive for your health.^[1]

9 A Roadrunner Can Outrace a Coyote

A running gag on the show is Wile E. Coyote chasing the Roadrunner, only for the Roadrunner to leave the hapless coyote in the dust. In real life, the chase would go differently. The greater roadrunner—the species of roadrunner likely to live in the American Southwest—is a long-legged member of the cuckoo family. The bird tends to weigh about a half-pound as an adult and is between 20 to 24 inches in length. Greater roadrunners typically run 20 miles per hour, but has been reported to reach 26 mph.

A coyote averages between 32 to 37 inches long—not counting its tail—and weighs between 20 and 50 pounds as an adult. A coyote prefers to stalk but can run as fast as 43 miles per hour if needed.

So, unless the roadrunner had a large head start or can somehow trick the coyote into slamming headfirst into a tunnel the coyote itself painted on a canyon wall, a coyote can easily catch a roadrunner.^[2]

8 Cats ‘n’ Skunks

This myth may be more due to animation design laziness than anything zoological. Some of the most memorable “Looney Tunes” episode show Penelope the Cat (or some other unfortunate feline) having a white stripe painted down her back. The cat is then thought to be a female skunk by the Casanova skunk Pepe Le Pew.

In real life, a cat cannot be confused with a skunk. Striped skunks are related to badgers and weasels. While about the size of a cat, stripped skunks have pointed snouts, rounded ears, and wide, flat tails.

Cats have flat faces, pointed ears, and narrow tails. Cats also have stout but flexible bodies, compared to a stripped skunk’s elongated torso. So, a cat with a white painted stripe down its back would look like a painted cat, and not a skunk.^[3]

7 Dogs Hate Cats

Evolutionary zoologists have found that there is nothing about a cat that makes a dog hate it. To the contrary, if the two animals are raised together, cats and dogs can see each other as part of their pride/pack. A dog may chase a cat as part of the animal’s hunting instinct, but this is not animosity. Cats are fast, and dogs like to chase fast things.

If a cat or a dog feels that its territory is being intruded on, it may attack. This is not limited to its so-called mortal enemy, though. Squirrels, mice, fellow cats or dogs, and even humans are likely to get this treatment if the animal feels threatened. While cats and dogs communicate differently, peace is as likely between cats and dogs as war.^[4]

6 Cats Kill Birds and Mice for Food

Speaking of cats, the cat and mouse/cat and bird archetype is also a vast simplification. Let’s be clear, though, before we start, cats do kill mice and birds. House cats are responsible for the extinction of 63 species of birds, small mammals and reptiles. It is estimated that the American cat population kills between 1.3 billion-4.0 billion birds and 6 billion-22.3 billion mammals every year.

The problem is that house cats do not just kill for food. While we can emphasize with Sylvester chasing Tweety while hungry, it is just as likely that Sylvester would go after Tweety regardless of his food situation. A cat’s predatory instinct is so strong that even a well-fed cat would ambush and kill a smaller animal. The situation has led the domesticated house cat to be classified as one of the 100 World’s Worst Invasive Alien Species.^[5]

5 A Tasmanian Devil Eats Anything

This is another oversimplification. Given the opportunity, a Tasmanian devil would eat anything. As scary as it may seem, “Looney Tunes” Taz is a spot-on depiction of the Tasmanian devil. Ornery to the point of being psychotic (by human standards), the Tasmanian devil was so named after early settlers of Tasmania saw the marsupial’s behavior.

With jaws strong enough to deliver a bite that can cut steel cable, a Tasmanian devil would kill or eat anything they comes across. A Tasmanian devil has been known to kill animals many times its size, including a sheep.

Considering this, Tasmanian devils usually prefer to eat carrion or already dead animals. Tasmanian devils are roughly the size of medium-sized dogs. An adult devil can reach lengths of 30 inches and weigh up to 26 pounds. Tasmanian devils are also slow, only capable of reaching speeds of eight miles per hour. Tasmanian devils will also eat insects, fish, small birds and snakes.^[6]

4 There is No Such a Thing as a Chicken Hawk

While Henery the Chickenhawk’s endless fight to “get a chicken” is a funny theme in the series, it is inaccurate. From a zoological point-of-view, there is no such thing officially as a chickenhawk or chicken hawk. The term chickenhawk has been used in some parts of the United States to describe three different birds: the red-tailed hawk, the sharp-skinned hawk, and Cooper’s hawk. Only the red-tailed hawk is brownish, like Henerey.

These birds do not generally eat chicken. While a red-tailed hawk may go after a free-range or wild chicken, the hawk usually eats rabbits (sorry Bugs) and rodents. Cooper’s hawks and sharp-skinned hawks are bird eaters but would not go after a chicken. A chicken may be the same size or larger than the hawks.

3 Ducks Must Fly South for Winter

Ducks, like most migratory birds, do not always travel south for winter. They simply move from one habitat to another that may offer them better odds for survival. While this may mean that most ducks do travel south, ducks that have a ready access to food may opt to winter where they are. Other ducks may travel west or even north to known feeding spots. Usually, the place ducks travel to migrate is based on their ancestral nests. So, Daffy going on strike from flying south is not so strange.

Of note, domesticated ducks don’t migrate during the winter. Domesticated ducks usually cannot fly—some have clipped wings, while others are too fat.^[7]

2 Rabbits are Fast Burrowers

A motif in many Bugs Bunny cartoon was the grey rabbit burrowing quickly from offscreen, only to emerge and be confused that he was not where he intended. “I should have made a left in Albuquerque” is one of the most memorable quotes in animation history. Like many things in “Looney Tunes,” this is only a half-truth.

Rabbits are prolific burrowers. The typical rabbit spends most of his non-foraging life digging. Rabbits have powerful front legs and long, sharp claws. Rabbits will burrow to build a den or nest underground (although, cottontail rabbits build dens above ground). These dens are connected to neighboring dens, forming a network called a warren.

Even though digging is instinctual for rabbits, it is a slow, time-consuming process. Rabbits will spend days—if not weeks—digging a single hole. While rabbits will spend large sums of energy digging, their small size means that only a small amount of dirt is moved at a time. This doesn’t dissuade them, though.

There is something about rabbit holes that “Looney Tunes” did get right. Usually, when Bugs needs to make a quick escape, he will dive into a nearby rabbit hole, only to appear somewhere else. This is typical rabbit behavior. To avoid predators, rabbits will dig deep escape routes in their foraging or warren zones. These rabbit holes are connected to the warren or to other rabbit holes. A frightened rabbit would head to the nearest rabbit hole, dive in, travel through the underground connections, pop out a different hole and escape, confusing the predator.^[8]

1 Finger In The Barrel

Common sense probably makes this a touch obvious, but just in case . . .. In 2012, the Discovery Channel show “Mythbusters” tested the Bugs Bunny troupe of sticking a finger in Elmer Fudd’s shotgun to make it backfire and explode. The logic behind this is that by sticking a finger in the barrel, the air space in front of the bullet cannot be vacated, leaving the expanding gas behind the bullet with nowhere to go. This would turn the shotgun into a bomb.

“Mythbusters” found that a finger stuck in a shotgun barrel would disintegrate in the path of the slug, along with most of the finger’s arm. If Bugs was to plug a shotgun barrel with his finger, Bugs would have died or been horribly maimed. Fortunately, “Looney Tunes” is just a cartoon and the laws of physic there are but a suggestion.^[9]

About The Author: Frederick Reese is a politics, financial, and emergent technologies reporter. Based in Upstate New York, Frederick has written for Yahoo!, CoinDesk, Bleacher Report and the Huffington Post. You can follow Frederick on Twitter.

Answer songs, which are written as a response to other songs, have been around for a long time. For instance, in 1923 the song “Yes! We Have No Bananas!” made waves on the music scene. Later that same year an answer song called “I’ve Got The Yes! We Have No Banana Blues” was released.

As the years went by, more and more answer songs saw the light with some of the most well-known ones including “California Gurls” by Katy Perry, “Love Will Tear Us Apart” by Joy Division and according to some, “The Rain Song” by Led Zeppelin.

On this list are just some of the many, many answer songs that have been written in response to the famous ones that came before them.

10 “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels” – Kitty Wells

Country music singer, Hank Thompson, released one of the most popular songs in country music history in 1952, namely, “The Wild Side of Life.” The song and especially the following lyric “I didn’t know God made honky tonk angels” inspired the Kitty Wells answer song “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels.”

Wells’ lyrics directly address what Thompson sings about, namely: “I didn’t know that God made honky tonk angels.” She sings in reply: “It wasn’t God who made honky tonk angels, as you said in the words of your song. Too many times married men think they’re still single. And that’s caused many a good girl to go wrong.”

The Wells song became the first number one hit on the Billboard chart for a solo female artist and has been credited with creating opportunities for other country stars like Patsy Cline, Dolly Parton, and Loretta Lynn. Wells’ success also brought its own set of problems, however. The song was banned from NBC radio and Wells was barred from performing it at the Grand Ole Opry.

9 “Play It All Night Long” – Warren Zevon

Some answer songs use more than one famous tune for inspiration. In the case of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama”, the lyrics were written in response to two of Neil Young’s songs: “Southern Man” and “Alabama.” “Sweet Home Alabama” name-checks Young in the lyrics: “Well, I heard Mister Young sing about her. Well, I heard ol’ Neil put her down. Well, I hope Neil Young will remember. A Southern man don’t need him around anyhow.”

In 1980, singer songwriter Warren Zevon took it upon himself to write a musical response to “Sweet Home Alabama” and the result was “Play It All Night Long.” Zevon’s wit and dry sense of humor shines throughout the lyrics in which he refers to the ‘southern life’ as being bleak and poor. It is also the only song (in popular music) that refers to brucellosis.

8 “Superstar” – Lydia Murdock

Michael Jackson will forever be one of the most famous music superstars that ever lived. His songs include massive hits like “Thriller”, “Rock With You”, “I’ll Be There”, and of course “Billie Jean”. After “Billie Jean” was released in 1983, Jackson said that the lyrics were based on false claims made by groupies about his brothers while they were on tour.

Later that same year, American pop singer Lydia Murdock released a scathing answer song called “Superstar”. The lyrics include: “I’m Billie Jean and I’m mad as hell” and “You can’t love a woman and push her aside.” This song led to short-lived fame for Murdock and peaked at number 14 in UK in 1983.

7 “Live Forever” – Oasis

In 1993, Nirvana released “I Hate Myself and Want to Die” on the compilation album, The Beavis and Butt-Head Experience. The official release of the single was cancelled after Kurt Cobain’s death in 1994 and was eventually released on vinyl in 2014 after which it reached number 1 on the Billboard Hot Singles Sales chart. The song was never performed live.

Noel Gallagher, from Oasis, felt inspired to write a positive answer song the following year called “Live Forever”. He explained that he was struck by the fact that an extremely talented and popular guy like Cobain wrote lyrics about hating himself and wanting to die, while Gallagher himself wanted to ‘live forever.’ Oasis released “Live Forever” in August 1994, and it became the band’s first single to enter the top ten in the UK.

After the 2017 Manchester Arena terror attack, Liam Gallagher and Chris Martin of Coldplay performed the song at the One Love Manchester tribute show.

6 “The Wallflower” – Etta James

Hank Ballard and the Midnighters started something with “Work With Me Annie” and its sequel “Annie Had a Baby” in 1954. These two singles spawned a horde of answer songs including “Annie’s Answer” by the El-Dorados and “I’m the Father of Annie’s Baby” by Danny Taylor.

Etta James recorded her very own response to the original song in 1955 in the form of “Wallflower” which is also known as “Roll with Me, Henry.” James’ version was thought to be too risqué for radio stations with lyrics such as “Hey baby, what do I have to do to make you love me too. You’ve got to roll with me Henry, alright baby.”

Even though the lyrics clearly refer to dancing, many believed that it held a sexual connotation as well. When it was covered by Georgia Gibbs that same year, the title was changed to “Dance With Me Henry” to make it acceptable for radio airplay.

The Midnighters got the last say however when they closed out 1955 with ‘an answer to the answer’ called “Henry’s Got Flat Feet (Can’t Dance No More)”.

5 “No Pigeons” – Sporty Thievz

TLC was one of the most popular American girl groups during the nineties. Their super hits included “Creep”, “Unpretty”, “Waterfalls” and the somewhat divisive “No Scrubs”. To go with the release of “No Scrubs” in 1999, TLC shot a futuristic music video, and the rest is music history. The song became the group’s third number one single and won 2 Grammy awards following TLC’s 4-year hiatus.

Naturally, some other artists weren’t about to take the ‘diss’ lying down. One group in particular, Sporty Thievz, released an answer song “No Pigeons” that peaked at number 12 on the US Billboard Hot 100 around the same time that “No Scrubs” was getting all the major attention.

“No Pigeons” was originally called “No Vultures” with the title changed to avoid causing extreme offense. The term ‘pigeon’ has also been used in other Sporty Thievz songs including “Cheapskate” and the remix “Even Cheaper.”

The “No Pigeons” lyrics include “… I don’t want no Pigeons, them be them girls who gets no dubs from me. Playin’ the bar dumb broke wit her best friend’s coat, tryin’ to holler at me”.

4 “The Night I Fell In Love” – Pet Shop Boys

Sometimes urban legends make their way into music as is the case with the Phil Collins song, “In The Air Tonight”. Legend has it that the opening lines describe a drowning that was in progress and someone standing close enough to the scene to help but doesn’t. Also, Collins apparently took it all in from a distance that was too far away to help. This of course isn’t true and Collins himself denied it as well, but the legend also made its way into another song; “Stan” by Ellen DegeneresEminem.

Then the Pet Shop Boys decided to name drop “Stan” in their 2002 song “The Night I Fell In Love” by singing “Then he joked “hey man, your name isn’t Stan, is it? We should be together!”” The song tells the story of a homosexual encounter between a teenaged boy and the rapper he idolizes. Because of the name “Stan”, the consensus is that the rapper referenced in the song is Eminem.

Dr Dre and Eminem responded to the track in 2003 by releasing “Can-I-Bitch” in which they run over the singing duo while rapping “Boosh! Boosh! Boosh! Boosh! What was that? Pet Shop Boys.”

3 “Diane” – Cam

“Oh, I promise I didn’t know he was your man
I would’ve noticed a gold wedding band, Diane
I’d rather you hate me than not understand,
Oh Diane”

These lyrics seem like it could belong to any country song, until you realize they were written as a reply to Dolly Parton’s infamous “Jolene.”

The song, according to country artist Cam, is “the apology so many spouses deserve, but never get.” It tells the story of Jolene coming forward to tell Diane that she never knew the man in question was married.

While the song was mainly inspired by “Jolene”, some of the inspiration also came from a friend of Cam’s real-life situation. When she was nine years old, her father came home and told her that his secretary was pregnant and that he would be leaving her mother to go and live with his mistress.

2 “Go Your Own Way” – Fleetwood Mac

Answer songs don’t always have to come from a different band or artist. The members of Fleetwood Mac took it upon themselves to answer one another in song. One of many examples of this is when Stevie Nicks wrote “Dreams” which is about the breakup between her and Lindsey Buckingham. The upbeat song is included on the band’s 1977 Rumors album.

Buckingham had a swift reply in the form of “Go Your Own Way” which can also be found on the album. Nicks later said that she ‘wanted to go over and kill him’ every time the song was played on stage.

Buckingham explained he was initially inspired by “Street Fighting Man” by the Rolling Stones but ended writing the lyrics as the beginning of a conversation with Nicks to help him move forward after their breakup.

1 “Good Idea At The Time” – OK Go

The Rolling Stones also inspired another band with their song “Sympathy for the Devil”. The song was released in 1968 with Jagger singing in the first person as the Devil and referencing tragedies and atrocities throughout history and blaming it squarely on humans:

“Stuck around St. Petersburg
When I saw it was a time for a change
Killed Tsar and his ministers
Anastasia screamed in vain”

Rock band, OK Go, wrote an answer song titled “Good Idea At The Time” which was released in 2005. Some fans of the song believe it was written as a follow up ‘tribute’ to the Stones’ original, whereas others are of the opinion that OK Go’s lyrics tries to take some blame away from humankind for all the tragedy that has befallen the world and places it back within the devil’s court:

“True about my taste; true about my wealth.
The thing about St. Petersburg:
I was never there myself, so come on.
Anastasia might have cried all night, I couldn’t say myself,
So come on, yeah, come on.”