DOYLESTOWN, Pa. - What's art, doc?

At the James A. Michener Art Museum, that question is answered with a new exhibit featuring more than 160 drawings, cels, paintings and related items from the golden era of Warner Bros. animation that made Bugs Bunny and his fellow Looney Tuners into pop culture icons.

"These days, it seems pop stars are around for 60 days, not 60 years," said Stephen Schneider, the exhibit's curator. "What they did at Warner Bros. was so resonant, it managed to hold on to its pre-eminence in a way you rarely see."

"That's All Folks! The Art of Warner Brothers Cartoons," on view at the Doylestown museum through July 3, is an expanded version of a 1985 exhibit at New York's Museum of Modern Art.

It takes a comprehensive look at the history, artistry, humor and cultural commentary that breathed life into Bugs, Porky Pig, Elmer Fudd, Daffy Duck, Tweety Bird, Sylvester, Yosemite Sam, Foghorn Leghorn and the rest of the 2-D menagerie - with an emphasis on the "golden age" from 1938 to 1955, Schneider said.

The era was marked by a creative team that included Tex Avery, Chuck Jones, Friz Freleng, Mel Blanc, Carl Stalling and Bob Clampett.

The minutes-long films took as much as a year to create and required thousands of hand-drawn "cels" of the characters and watercolor backgrounds. The cartoons were shot one frame at a time, with just the slightest change in position from one cel to the next, giving the impression of fluid movement.

The exhibit also shows the preliminary work that went into the films including "model sheets" - the templates that made characters consistent from cartoon to cartoon and artist to artist.

The cartoons got their distinctive style from the richly zany musical scores and story lines that were frenetic in pace, irreverent in tone and imbued with sarcastic send-ups of movie stars and political figures.

"It wasn't until the 1970s that people really started to appreciate the artistry that was involved in creating these, and how unique and innovative they were," said Marla DelSordo of the Michener Museum.

In Warner's infancy during the early 1930s, Walt Disney's lavishly animated fantasy worlds and storybook tales reigned supreme. But the upstart studio staffed with Disney expatriates soon began blazing new trails.

The exhibit also shows how characters like Bugs Bunny, Yosemite Sam and Elmer Fudd greatly changed in appearance over the years - a move that today often prompts outcries of heresy from toonatics.