Sunday, February 20, 2005

The Super Bowl is for jerks!

I watched the Puppy Bowl instead!

Saturday, February 19, 2005

What's up Doc? WE SCREWED UP THE LOONEY TUNES!!


050217_loonatics_hmed.hlarge
Originally uploaded by alco-beat.
Well, as Handsome Dan just remarked, "Warner Brothers really shit the bed this week."

For those of you not in the know, the current powers-that-be at Warner Brothers recently decided that the classic Looney Tunes cartoons (and their assorted characters) were simply not happenin' enough to keep around. So they've taken Bugs Bunny & Friends and moved them 700 years into a goth, flash-animated future, and given them terrifying makeovers....oh yeah, and SUPERPOWERS. Name of the series? Well LOONATICS, of course!

Says WB president Sander Schwartz: "This is a kids show intended for kids today who are growing up in the Internet age, an age of technology, an age of hip, cool animation, and something that we hope will resonate with that age group,"

So kids are now instantly predicated to crave suckiness?

Chimes in David Janollari, president of the Kids' WB: "We all flipped for it!"
He also tries to quiet the cynics out there by saying, "I think the legacy is intact. If anything, it's an homage to the legacy instead of a destruction of the legacy."

Toonzone reports that the updated names of the characters include "Buzz" for Bugs Bunny, and "Duck" for Daffy Duck. Ummm....

This is the biggest disgrace I've ever seen happen to a trusted cultural commodity, even including New Coke. Generations of people have enjoyed the Looney Tunes in their original form.
What I find most insulting is that the WB has all of a sudden decided that since the LT's were cartoons then obviously their only audience must be children. Cartoons did not always used to be de facto children's entertainment; they were all-ages vehicles shown before double feature matinees at movie theaters-- they have mass appeal. The way they were crafted was incredibly smart and nuanced. Kids could laugh at the crossdressing and butt jokes (and so could everyone else!), but only adults really probably understood the in-jokes about Bogie and Tallulah, and why Michigan J. Frog was so damned hilarious. I was a religious fan of Looney Tunes as a child, and as I continue to re-watch the expisodes in adulthood, I find new jokes, and things I hadn't noticed before. This is why these are such wonderful creations that can be savored over a lifetime-- and explains why this LOONATICS idea is total heresy to all that Chuck Jones worked so hard to create. Is there a petition I can sign somewhere to get this shit off the air before it starts?

Hungry hungry hippo!

Even though the little guy lost his life, I'd like to think that he'd be happy to know that even after death he continued to to deliver with cheap thrills and circus freakitude.

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