Regards, Ivan
Posted on 02/21/2005 11:46:31 PM PST by MadIvan
How can Coyote battle gravity in space, where everyone floats?
WATCH out world, I’m angry. Warner Brothers is messing with Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, updating them for the 21st century. Is nothing sacred? Calling them Loonatics, as if they were escapees from Bedlam, these descendants of our familiar friends will rocket through space some 700 years in the future. Instead of their natural fur and feathers, they have been redrawn wearing hard-edged space costumes and now resemble Japanese robots.
Most appallingly, each has been given a crime-fighting superpower. Why? When did we stop believing that ordinary human traits such as intelligence, bravery, tenacity and loyalty comprised heroic virtues?
According to the president of Warner Brothers Animation, Sander Schwartz, "this is ... intended for kids [6-11 years old] who are growing up in the internet age, an age of technology, an age of hip, cool animation". Mister, go watch some reruns. Bugs and his gang are the dernier cri of cool. In 2002, readers of America’s TV Guide (with a circulation in the millions) voted Bugs Bunny the greatest cartoon character of all time. Not bad for a bunny invented before television itself. He beat Homer Simpson, Charlie Brown and Disney’s mouse, who limped in at number 19.
THE original animators had grand ambitions, and each film is a masterpiece of wit and sophistication appealing to young and old alike. Bugs came into his own in 1940, when Mel Blanc, inventing an accent that tortured the vowels of Brooklyn and The Bronx, first uttered the immortal words "What’s up, Doc?" Munching his carrot, Bugs planted his first juicy kiss on the lips of arch-enemy, Elmer Fudd. (If that’s not subversive, what is?)
Looney Tunes alerted kids like myself to a variety of cultural touchstones. To this day, hearing Strauss’s Blue Danube makes me picture the ever-extending hump of a rabbit burrow tunnelling across the landscape before Bugs pops free. In 1957, Bugs and Elmer starred in What’s Opera, Doc?, which presented Wagner’s entire Ring Cycle in seven minutes, and became the first animated short inducted into America’s National Film Registry. In another cartoon, Bugs spins the genre on its head, tormenting Daffy Duck by switching his backgrounds and props, messing up the soundtrack, even going so far as to erase and redraw him.
ACCORDING to reports, the new cartoons are "action-oriented, filled with chases and fights". But isn’t the entire substance of the Roadrunner/Wile E Coyote relationship an elaborate high-speed chase punctuated by explosions? What the hell more does it take to satisfy kids these days?
Worse still, the proposed modernisation must inevitably destroy the purity of premise behind Roadrunner cartoons, laid out in ten strict rules by the series creator, Chuck Jones: 1 Roadrunner cannot harm Coyote; 2 No outside force can harm Coyote, only his own ineptitude or the failure of Acme products; 3 Coyote could stop anytime, if he wasn’t a fanatic (as defined by Santayana: "one who redoubles his effort when he has forgotten his aim"); 4 No dialogue, ever, except "Beep! Beep!"; 5 Roadrunner must stay on the road; 6 All action is confined to the natural environment of the characters; 7 All tools and weapons must be obtained from the Acme Corporation; 8 Whenever possible, make gravity Coyote’s greatest enemy; 9 Coyote is always more humiliated than harmed by his adventures; 10 The audience’s sympathy must remain with Coyote.
Take these two out of the American desert and all hell breaks loose. How can Coyote battle gravity in space, where everyone floats? The first time he screeches off a cliff, he’ll merely waft away unharmed. What fun is that? How can Roadrunner embody perpetual motion if he’s going head-to-head with bad guys? Did nobody think this through? Is Warner Brothers so lazy - or creatively void - that it can’t invent new characters as compelling as the old?
A COLLEAGUE summed it up neatly: Bugs, Daffy and the rest are at once quintessentially timeless and of their time. In a decade, hard-nosed pre-pubescents will dismiss Loonatics as "so 2005". As for the originals, well, age shall not wither them. Warner Brothers, if you’re reading, take my advice: It ain’t broke. Stop trying to fix it.
Regards, Ivan
Ping!
"EAT HOT MARTIAN DEATH RAY, SANDER SCHWARTZ -- !"
Uhhh ... we are talking about a duck, a rabbit, and a desert bird, right?
BTTT
bump
These loonatics SUCK! Bad enough having kids and having to deal with Pokemon and such... now they gotta desecrate Bugs Bunny!?!?!
"Of course you know, THIS means war!"
Well, at least they're not using the update as a tool of
leftist indoctrination, like they did with Tiny Toons.
Mostly, we are talking about a "wabbit!" A special wabbit that Elmer Fudd would invite for dinner, with a shotgun in his hand. If Elmer hadn't clarified that he had cooked dinner for Bugs, Bugs woulda thwown a wock at Elmer.
No, we are talking about our childhood fwends...
Well, at least they're leaving Krazy Kat alone...
Absowutely. And fwends don't let fwends be wabbit-napped by evil plutocwats who want to turn them into something that looks wike it should be in a gay-pwidde pawade.
It'thh DEEETHHPIKKKABLE!
Yes, but HIGHLY anthropomorphic ones!
Destroy them with your space Mod-ewe-late-ore, Kent!
This sucks! They managed to cast Daffy as Duck Dodgers without changing him, so what's with this superhero crap? Sounds kind of '60's to me.
Saw the previews and was disgusted. They can't accept the idea of classics. They have made me SO angry!
I saw Duck Dogers on Cartoon Network a little while ago. They took the best Loony Tunes episodes and made them stupid.
The whole problem is that there is no slapstick anymore.
The thing that made Loony Tunes funny was people getting shot, wacked on the head, clotheslined, falling off cliffs. The new Loony Tunes has very little of that. They also tend to focus more on why things happen even if it's not even funny.
Why does Elmer Fudd want to shoot Bugs, it doesn't really matter, it's just a good excuse for Bugs to dress up in Women's clothes and pretend to seduce Elmer, which also wouldn't happen in a modern Loony Tunes. Everything has to have a reason in the new Loony Tunes.
I think that's why Aqua Teen Hungerforce has been so successful. The show doesn't make sense and that's the beauty of it.
Oh Thit! You made me laugh so hard I can't wemember how to paste this in my cwapbook. I mean scwapbook. It's a keeper! Oh, well. Off for another package of depends...
"EAT HOT MARTIAN DEATH RAY, SANDER SCHWARTZ -- !"
Shhh, Marvin! Be vewy, vewy quiet; we're hunting Warner Brothers executives. We need to sneak up on them, and then....
What's next, a Bugs Bunny Anime? "Rabbit Bebop" perhaps?
As Bugs would say to the Warner Brothers executives: "What is it with you anyway?"
Add Harvey Birdman to that list as well.
West and wewaxation at wast.
Does this mean that Bugs will no longer dress as a woman and steal kisses from Elmer?
I want to see how they update the bucktoothed, four-eyed jap soldiers from the WWII era toons.
Why i oughta!!!!!!!
SOmetimes heavy editing yields a massive improvement.
The WB is on acid..............
I had forgotten about the WWII cartoons – not exactly 21st Century PC! Will Bugs and pals being fighting Muslim terrorists?
Said it before, say it again..
Prediction:
FLOP!
Can't forget The Venture Bros. as well.
If you have children and worry about the cartoons now days, I highly recommend the Boomerang Channel if you can. It is owned by the Cartoon channel and only shows old cartoons that most of us freepers grew up with. Flintstones, Popeye, Looney Toons, Scooby Do, and Rocky and Bullwinkle are some of the cartoons that they show. Besides I love watching them too.
They also have some the old HB series (many of which get poked fun at in Adult Swim). Birdman, Space Ghost (the real one, not Coast-to-Coast), ThunDarr, etc.
They also have the Scooby-Doo derivatives -- Josie and the Pussycats, JabberJaws, etc. The latter are after my time.
What a bunch of maroons.
Why? Why mess with the classics? Not that the present "anti-violence" crowd liked the Loony Tunes in the first place. I mean, some kid could try dropping an anvil on their friend and then where would we be?
Elmer needs to get out his "Spear and Magic Helmet".
Speaking of non-PC cartoons, have you seen "Coal Black"? It's considered one of the top 25 cartoons of all time. But because it is not PC, most people haven't seen it since the 1940s. You can read about it here and watch it here.
How about the part with “Murder Inc., we wipe out anybody. Midgets ½ price, Japs free.”
One of the funniest shows on TV. Anyone who ever thought "Johnny Quest" was a little fruity should see this show.
I told you it is not PC. The swing beat and rhyming dialogue is infectious though.
And is the the first ever reference to Meyer Lansky's "Murder, Inc" in print? It kinda gets me curious.
Amen.
The swing beat and rhyming dialogue is infectious though.
Good God, they're annoying to even look at. There is no way this cartoon will be a success. It would be as entertaining as watching talking Rorschach blots.
He needs to get his Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator tuned up for Warner Brother's.
Furthermore, by tying the characters to that idea, it severely limits the element of completely random, madcap humor that made the originals so great ("Duck Amuck" or "Porky in Wackyland," for instance). These characters should be able to go anywhere -- past, future, myth, pop culture or the real world. The only thing that prevents them from being timely as themselves is a lack of imagination by the creators.
I only hope "Loonatics" dies a swift death so Warner Brothers can see the light and use the Looney Tunes characters to their full potential.
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