Michael Maltese (February 6, 1908 – February 22, 1981) was an American story man for classic animated cartoon shorts. He is best known for working in the 1950s on a series of Merrie Melodies cartoons with director Chuck Jones. This collaboration produced many highly acclaimed animated shorts, including 4 of the top 5 "greatest cartoons" as judged by 1000 animation professionals; "What's Opera, Doc?" tops this list as the best animated short of all time.