> Interestingly though, I don't recall ever seeing a cartoon with subtitles - they were always dubbed.

First of all, they are for kids, and you can't expect kids to read that fast. Kids actually watch cartoons before they can read.

The actors being relieved of the duty to dub feature movies, were more than welcome to dub these featureless ones - and the translators could finally use full sentences and have some style over efficiency, play with translating the names etc. The end result was that some of the cartoons have become legends - not because of what they are (classic Duffy or Bugs, mostly), but because of the translation and because of being dubbed by the best actors.

Not legends. Cult classics is a better expression :). The translation for "the abominable snow rabbit" is one such classic which has even become a figure of speech in regular language.