So I go back to the same question? Why is Warners changing the Looney Tunes yet again?
In this Thursday's New York Times, Brookes Barnes wrote about Warners newest effort to bring their most famous characters back into the limelight. Now, the new Looney Tunes Show will feature Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck living in a city apartment, with the other characters like Porky Pig, Sylvester and Marvin the Martian as their neighbors. This in and of itself is not such a bad idea. Barnes' article is well-written and the people involved seem like they know what they're doing. But I question the point.
There is no question that during the last few decades, Warners has struggled with trying to make the Looney Tunes "modern." I put "modern" in quotation marks because they have always been so afraid that just because something they do is old, it's therefore "irrelevant" and must be "updated." So throughout the year we're going to get new Road Runner cartoons in theatres, but they'll be in 3-D. Maybe this will fare more successfully than their previous efforts, but one can't be too sure.
Space Jam was a box office bomb, although it remains a cult classic among members of my generation. Tiny Toon Adventures, although criticized by members of the animation industry for being plagiarism, was a success. The misfire that sent the dominos falling though, was Looney Tunes: Back in Action, the 2003 dud directed by Joe Dante. This film should have worked perfectly on paper. Dante understands what makes the old cartoons great, and he even went so far to be faithful as to use Treg Brown's original sound effects. But he had a bad script, and a paychecking Steve Martin, and made one of the biggest flops in Warners' history.
So in 2005, when Warners decided to turn 180 degrees and create Loonatics, people were outraged. I know I was one of them. The sheer idea of it was enough to make me throw up in my mouth. Who wants to see Bugs Bunny be a crime fighting superhero? That's not his character. Bugs Bunny has to do crazy things and break the fourth wall. There is a whole rich history of Warners cartoons that the bigwigs seemed to reject just to make a couple of bucks. According to Barnes though, the people in charge of the new series have framed artwork of Loonatics above their desks, as a reminder of what not to do.
Now this is all very well and good, and maybe the new Looney Tunes Show will be a success. It's certainly a funny idea to have them all live together, and if the makers of the cartoon have studied the old shorts, then maybe they'll have a hit. But I have to ask them all this: why haven't they done the simplest thing, and start re-broadcasting the old cartoons on TV?
When I was six, seven and eight, Cartoon Network wasn't what it was today. Their original programming was relegated to the "What a Cartoon" show, and it wasn't until 1997 and 1998 that Cow and Chicken, Johnny Bravo and Dexter's Laboratory became their benchmark animated series. Before this happened, Cartoon Network used to be the go-to place for watching old Hanna-Barbera cartoons, and most importantly, Looney Tunes. I was addicted to the Tex Avery Show, which aired every Saturday and Sunday mornings, and would watch all his old MGM and Warners stuff. But what's more, Cartoon Network was where the new generation of seven and eight year olds could watch Wile E. Coyote, Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. We grew up watching the deranged sensibilities of Chuck Jones and Friz Freleng, and guess what--it worked.
You can watch a Looney Tunes cartoon today and still be incredibly entertained by it, in spite of the fact that we are going on sixty years since Duck Amuck first came out in theatres. It's even more frightening to me to think that my father is the exact same age as What's Opera Doc? and One Froggy Evening. When they started coming out on DVD in 2003, I got the first volume for Christmas and devoured it, along with all the extras. My friend Charley, who was four years younger than I, once came over for a sleepover, and we found ourselves rolling on the floor, cracking up at Bugs Bunny fighting Yosemite Sam, Elmer Fudd, and all the other characters. In my last blog, I talked about Duck Amuck being the perfect movie--which I still believe. So doesn't Warners understand that if it isn't broke they shouldn't fix it?
If this show is going to go over with fans of the old cartoons, I want to see crazy fourth wall jokes. I want Bugs Bunny to hold up signs with pictures of a screw and a ball on them. Know what the best Looney Tunes cartoon has been in the last ten years? The final five minutes of South Park's season five episode, Osama Bin Laden Wears Farty Pants, where Cartmen turns into Bugs Bunny and goes crazy attacking the leader of the Taliban. If the Looney Tunes are dropped into an average, sit-commy world, then in another five years we'll get another new series, trying desperately to get us to pay attention to these characters. Memo to Warners: the new generations of kids will love Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck again when you realize that you don't need to change anything. Looney Tunes will always make people laugh, regardless of age, race or nationality. And until you realize that, you'll still be licking your wounds.
Attached as a bonus is "A New Bunny," a short which is demented and totally wrong on every level--but it still makes me laugh, so there you go.
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