The Looney Tunes Show (Parte Deux)

Several months ago, I made a post about the new Looney Tunes show. Today, it remains as one of my most viewed posts on the blog (I'm a little surprised by that.) You canview the original post here.

A few months have passed since it premiered and about 9 or 10 episodes have aired. I'm sure so

me of you guys are wondering if I saw it and if I did, what do I think? Well, I've seen them all and so far....

I think Bugs said it best in one episode: "I like it"

I really do. I know it's no where near the caliber of the original classics, but it's still an enjoyable show compared with everything else on Cartoon Network now. They even brought back the originals to air thanks to this show. So some good did come out of it after all.

I think I can name some good reasons why this show works. Here we go:

#1.) The show's creators.

I've done a little research and figured out that this show has been made by two animators named Spike Brandit and Tony Cervone. These two are animators with a history at Warner Bros, working there since the 1990's according to their IMDB pages. Their credits include directing a few Animaniacs! episodes and creating Tom and Jerry Tales with the help of Joe Barbera. Now they're in charge of everything T & J related. They were also involved in another Looney Tunes show that's been well received by a lot of Tune-heads like me: a little dity called Duck Dodgers.

So yeah... these guys have experience with these characters.

And that's a good thing. At least WB had the decency to give the show to people who know and care about these characters vs giving them to someone like Seth MacFarlane (thank God he doesn't handle the show!) It shows that the company still does care about the Looney Tunes.

#2.) The animation

I know that it's still kinda TV-ish quality, but again, it's still much better than anything else on CN. The show is traditionally animated and colored with computers. I think that's how it's handled, but I'm just guessing here.

Above is a still from one of the latest episodes. Looking at it alone says (to me, at least) that the quality is still pretty high for a TV cartoon, so give it some slack here. The backgrounds are amazing (I really love the paint-splatter technique for the skies in this show. It's just wonderful to look at.) I'm pretty sure this show has a high budget so it allows for better animation.

Speaking of which, I forgot to mention the designs by Ms. Jessica Borutski. I defended her a lot in my last post, so I'll cut to the chase here. They do look nice and have a refreshing new look our friends. I still can't figure out why Bugs is purple, though...

#3) The Looney Tunes are still more or less the same as they were in the Golden Era.

That is to say without a few adjustments, But very little has changed about they're personalities: Bugs is still a wise-cracking smart-ass, Porky is still a very mild mannered nice guy, Yosemite Sam is still brash and loud, and the gophers are, well, themselves.

Few have changed kind of drastically since the classics. One is Daffy.

God, I still love that design...

Anyway, a few people have described him as a buffoon, even calling him the new Peter Griffin (...that hurt just to say that.) Well, I think Daffy here is more or less based off of his character in the Duck Dodgers show. Here, he's still narcissistic, zealous, obnoxious, slobbish, and oblivious to everyone else's needs or desires from him. He's also completely in over his head, believing that he's the center of the universe, even though he isn't and sort of has a very high opinion of himself.

The persona says Jones-ish, yet the look says Clampett. It's a nice fresh take.

But that's nowhere near the one character that needed an upgrade and benefited from it: Lola from Space Jam.

Again, wonderful design. I think she looks better now than ever...

Err, if you've seen Space Jam, then you'll know Lola. In the movie, she was basically a paper cit-out of a female athlete. Harsh but true. She wasn't funny or fun in the movie and I think she hasn't been seen since then. (except for the baby revival show)

Spike and Tony took her in and actually made her a fun character, even if she can be kind of annoying. Here, she's the very ditsy, clingy, obsessive semi-girlfriend of Bugs. I say semi because Bugs doesn't feel the same way about Lola, calling her crazy on a few occasions.

Then again, can you blame him?

#4.) The main stories are still kind of fun

The stories are sort of a hit-and-miss to be honest. But there's more good ones than mediocre, so it's not so bad.

My favorites, so far are:

• The Jailbird and Jailbunny: Daffy gets arrested for littering the Grand Canyon and drags Bugs along for disrupting the court. It's kind of funny after the two break out. Bugs wants to go back because he can make fun of the other prisoners and get away with it, calling it a smart-alec's paradise (makes sense).

No resemblance at all...

• Casa de Calma: Bugs and Daffy go to a spa. Disaster meets Daffy after trying to impress a starlet. This is so far the most like the original classics out of all the ones that aired.

That's an interesting expression. There's lots more from Daffy in this one.

This is just adorable!

• Devil Dog: The Tasmanian devil escapes from the zoo and makes it to Bugs' house. Taz is really intimidating at the beginning. He acts more like the real animal he's based on and even has red eyes! He's never been more scary. Bugs eventually tames him thanks to Speedy's advice (I'll admit, that killed the mood for a while) and the two become friends.

See? Told ya.

This would have been a interesting short...

• The Foghorn Leghorn Story: Daffy is offered a lead in Foghorn's new biopic. There's a great fight scene in the end.

It got better later.

• Eligible Bachelors: Bugs and Daffy get auctioned at a bachelor auction. Lola gets Bugs on a date in Paris and Daffy gets the day with Granny. (She only wanted him to help out with chores. She's 90. Get your mind out of the gutter!) Granny then engages Daffy and the audience in a very gritty WWII story where she saves the artwork at the Louvre. It's actually really cool.

Guess who this is?

So those are my thoughts on The Looney Tunes Show. It's an ok show. It's fun, neat-looking, and worth the thirty minutes.

I know I've listed some good qualities about the show, but it's not perfect. For example, I don't care for the CGI Coyote-Roadrunner shorts, which by the way, why didn't just animate them like the rest of the show? It'd look a lot better to me. And why are they only two minutes? That's about the length of one joke in some of the originals.

But you should check it out. And I'll say it now so it doesn't look like I'm defending the show to death: nothing beats the classics. They brought them back thanks to this show on CN and there's also the DVD's.

Well, th-th-th-th-that's all folks! Hope you enjoyed!

The Looney Tunes Show

This post is something that I wanted to get off of my chest for a while. Judging by the title, I think you already know what it is. So here we (Or I ,rather) go...

To begin, this show has been bashed by so many animation fans simply because of the new character designs by one of my favorite modern artists, Jessica Borutski. (And it's not even out yet!) I liked her two shorts, I Like Pandas and The Good Bunny With the Bad Teeth. That constellations idea she had for a show was really cool too. Overall, her art is very pleasant to look at and she definatly has developed a style of her own.

However, back last year, she was bashed for her designs on a new Looney Tunes show. If you haven't seen it, here they are:

That's just Bugs and Daffy. So why are people bashing Miss Borutski, you ask? Well first of all, some animation fans, like me, grew up with these characters and really don't want to see their appearances changed on this kind of level. If you noticed, the characters are more angular than before and they have extremely simplified shapes so that they can be animated easier on a flash program like ToonBoom or whatever it's called. A lot of animation fans really hate this kind of thing and prefer the lush style of traditional animation. I know I refer the old way over flash.

Even the plot of the show got people fired up in a bad way. Well, instead of being their usual, slapstick selves, we get to see what life is like for Bugs, Daffy, and the other Looney Tunes outside of the Warner Bros lot. We see the rabbit and duck (both voiced by Jeff Burgman for the first time in 10 years) living together in a house. Trust me, they didn't want to see them looking like this:

Now now it comes to this: what do I think of them?

Well, they are appealing in their own right. I'm not too angry about the radical change of appearances. Even 70 years ago, the great directors and artists of Termite Terrace had changed these characters slightly to fit their own styles. Jones, Avery, Clampett, McKimson, Freling, Davis, Tashlin, and all the other animation directors had their own way of designing these characters and modeling their personalities to their own desire. Even I do it! (I think I'll try this again in a while in color too.) For instance, I give Bugs' ears black tips, a feature not seen since Elmer's Candid Camera in 1940. Say what you want, I think they look kind of cool.

I actually like some of these designs myself. While Bug's new look mis growing on me, I really enjoy the way Daffy, Pepe, Marvin, The Gossamer, Yosemite Sam, Foghorn, Sylvester, and Petunia Pig. (kudos on Borutski for reintroducing a character not seen since 1937) I think my favorite overall is Sylvester's look. It kind of reminds me of McKimson's look for the cat: a big nose with short legs.

I accept the fact that these are Borutski's own versions of theses classic characters and as true admirers of animation, we should try to look at the positives. After all, she's doing something that not a lot of new artists get the chance to do: reintroduce these classic characters to a new generation with new concepts and ideas. I think it's only fair that we should at least honor Borutski for her efforts and goals for this show. If you have kids, then I would expose them to both this new show and the classics that are beautifully restored on the boxed DVD sets. If they like one over the other, that's fine.

As for the show's writing quality, well... look for yourself:

#1

#2

I wasn't impressed by the first clip, but I thought that the second was a little better. (I just noticed Mac and Tosh made a cameo)

I think I'm going to wait until February when this show comes out and take a look for myself. To be honest, it looks better than some of the other attempts of reintroducing the Looney Tunes or classic cartoon characters in general. (Remember Loonatics?.... I thought not. And don't make me mention that godawful Yogi Bear movie!) Keep in mind that this is going to be completely different from the classics of the golden age because humor has changed over the years.

For now, I'm keeping my optimistic perspective for this new show and hope it turns out better than people claim it is. My only hope that after this Borutski can have a shot of doing more of her own original ideas for TV. So rest your sphincters, gentlemen.

Phew! Glad I got that off of my chest!

Oh, and Happy New Year to you readers.

(Blooper) Bunny

This is one of the Bugs Bunny shorts made in the early 90's. This one was made for the 51rst birthday of everyone's favorite rabbit. The designs on the characters may be stock images from WB of that time, but the writing and directing here is worth mentioning. It was directed by Greg Ford and Terry Lennon, who previously directed Invasion of the Bunny Snatchers. Like the shorts from the 50's, this and Bunny Snatchers have sort of a very risqué sense of humor, considering when it was made. Both cartoons actually hammer how big-shot executives seemed to have ruined classic characters we love. However, Bunny Snatchers examined this more and with funnier results. (Blooper) Bunny is still worth a look. After all, it is a product of the early 90's.