Back in April I reported that the Looney Tunes were back in production for a Looney Tunes animated series on the Cartoon Network. Collider.com has the first images of the series.
Here is the press release:
This year marks a return to the big screen for Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote, two of the most popular Looney Tunes characters of all time. The studio will present animated 3-D shorts featuring the duo before three of its family features, all to be released this year. In each new three-minute cartoon short, Wile E. Coyote is as determined as ever to catch the elusive Road Runner, now with an arsenal of state-of-the-art ACME gadgets to snag his quarry-all in stereographic 3-D. The shorts and films they will appear before are as follows: “Coyote Falls” (“Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore” in theaters July 30); “Fur of Flying” (“Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole” in theaters September 24); “Rabid Rider” (“Yogi Bear” in theaters December 17).
The characters also return to television with The Looney Tunes Show, an all-new half-hour animated television series for Cartoon Network. No longer confined to seven-minute shorts, iconic Looney Tunes characters Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck are out of the woods and living in the suburbs among such colorful neighbors as Yosemite Sam, Granny, Tweety and Sylvester. In addition to each episode’s main story, The Looney Tunes Show also features cartoons within a cartoon. The Tasmanian Devil, Speedy Gonzales, Marvin the Martian and other classic characters sing original songs in two-minute Merrie Melodies music videos, and the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote are featured in two-and-a-half-minute CG shorts.
The Looney Tunes characters also serve as ambassadors of an active lifestyle for children with PSAs, “better-for-you” food products and a global initiative to get kids moving. WBCP recently announced a partnership with the Ad Council and the Department of Health and Human Services as part of First Lady Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move!” initiative to combat childhood obesity. Looney Tunes characters appear in a series of four public service announcements, currently on-air, alongside some of today’s most noteworthy athletes, including stars from the NFL, NBA and Olympics (Drew Brees, Kevin Durant, Tony Hawk and Misty May-Treanor).
These look horrible.
Can we wait until the shows/films come out and see them in motion before we start tossing the judgements around?
Apparently not.
Faces look okay, but bugs body looks more like the trend toward baby or child characters of a decade or two ago. That doesn’t seem right. Jeff, you can wait, but what’s the fun in that!? This is a discussion on the first images. They may change a some by release, possibly (but doubtfully) based on initial reaction to the images.
The 2d stuff is awesome. A perfect modernization of the classic look. It’s reverent but not a look alike. I love it!
I agree with Mike. They’re working with an old property and the fact that the characters look like themselves with a little bit of artistic style show a certain creativity that the original Looney Tunes characters have lacked in decades.
The style could possibly indicate that this is a LT project involving actual artists who want to grow the property in a meaningful way.
Still looks horrible. But I should add I was refering to the LT television characters, the 3D road runner shorts look pretty awesome!
The world doesn’t need anymore Looney Toon productions. I think Space Jam effectively squashed any life left in these characters.
I am the oddball here I guess. I love the new style for Bugs and Daffy. These guys have gone through several style changes over the years. I am with the creators here because I feel a fresher, more trendy look is what’s best for Bugs.
As for the 3D look for W.E. Coyote and Roadrunner, I again agree because this technique will work best with the 3D production. Plus I think it looks very cool!
Times change, trends change and so characters must be revamped a bit. I feel very confident that the end result will be AWESOME!
David Jones
Creator of “Just Say Cheese”
HA HA I Agree with Rick. The super bowl premiering commercial that inspired Space Jam should have been left to just that, a commercial.
One more thought, I did LOVE the Cartoon Network Duck Dogers series. Probably the most successful attempt at keeping LT characters current.
Space Jam was awesome. Seriously. A lot better than most of the 3D animated kids movies that are out these days.
The new Looney Toons 2D stuff looks really good, a perfect modernization of the classic characters.
I think they’re going in the right direction with this. Last time they tried “updating” these beloved characters, we were offered that timeless classic “Loonatics Unleashed” (note sarcasm.)
It seems the executives have gotten out of the way of the creatives and are letting them make the best cartoons possible. That’s the only way this will work.
Last time there was a high-profile Warner Bros. property on Cartoon Network, they let the Justice League showrunners do their thing, which turned out pretty well. Maybe this will turn out well, too. (I hope!)
Where are the residents of Termite Terrace when you need them?.
These characters will never be as good as they once were, for obvious reasons named Friz Freleng, Bob Clampett, Chuck Jones, Mel Blanc, Raymond Scott, Robert McKimson. They were the essential ingredients to the success of the old cartoons and nobody’s ever going to improve on what they did. No how, no way!
I am excited about the 3D shorts myself, they look awesome! I’m hoping that they don’t completely tame the LT characters in suburbia though. We’ll see I guess. Some things change for the better other things just change.
Speaking of Mel Blanc, he was the best voice-over actor, ever; just try to imagine anybody else doing this Foghorn Leghorn bit:
“That Rhode Island Red turned white–then blue! Rhode Island! Red, white and blue! That’s a joke, son, a flag-waver! You’re built too low! The fast ones go over your head! You got a hole in your glove! I keep pitchin’ ’em and you keep missin’ ’em! You gotta keep your eye on the ball! Eye! Ball! Eyeball! I almost had a gag, son–joke, that is.”
Those cartoons were funny to watch because they were funny to listen to. Mel was a genius!
It’s true. The world does not need anymore Looney Tunes cartoons. We have seventy years worth of these things already. Enough. Today’s artists were assigned the job of making more product to exploit by the determined grave robbers of Time Warner’s Marketing Division. Those guys are certainly not interested in anything so risky as “growing the property in a meaningful way”.
There are too many new ideas to be explored to waste another dime or second of an artist’s life making any more of these.
And to expand this past Bugs and Daffy, characters that wear WHITE GLOVES should be left in the first half of the 20th century where they belong.
That goes double for a certain three foot tall mouse and his pantless sailor duck and giant stupid dog friends.
Bugs and crew would be at their funniest when they are being un-PC. What made them funny in their hayday was the unpredictable nature of their actions coupled with outrageous hyperbole in their character.
After so many decades, we’re used to who they are, so they’d have to go in a new direction and I thinkthe funniest path would be to take on the absurdist mentality of political correctness so prolific today.
But WB seems content to dilute these characters down to their most basic cliched catchphrases and actions, thus leaving nothing new or interesting about them to be seen. Sad.