For nearly a century, Warner Brothers has profoundly entertained its audiences with its signature franchise, Looney Tunes. Said franchise has gone on to produce many a continuation and/or spinoff, such as Tiny Toons and Animaniacs (the latter which will receive a reboot on Hulu on November 20th of this very year). Sadly though, things took a turn for the worse in the 2000s decade with awful spinoffs such as Baby Looney Tunes and Loonatics airing on Kids WB, thus tarnishing the name of the popular brand, forcing WB to create two more shows named The Looney Tunes Show (2011 - 2015) and New Looney Tunes (2015 - 2020) as an apology to its faithful viewers. But a new hope came shining through when Warner Bros.' streaming service HBO max launched in the United States of America, and with that launch came the official relaunch of the franchise, the one and only Looney Tunes Cartoons! ... more specifically the first 10 eleven-minute episodes as 70 more have been allegedly planned. So now that the Looney Tunes have entered the complex world of streaming, will it be enthusing enough to make us merrily roll along, or will it force the merry go round to break down? Let's find out!
The Story
As with the classic 1900's incarnation of the franchise, the premise of the show is very simple; the marquee characters of the brand, such as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Tweety Bird, Road Runner, Porky Pig, and Sam Sheepdog are placed into various situations where they have to outwit adversaries such as Sylvester Pussycat, Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam, Beaky Buzzard, Wile E. Coyote, Gossamer, and Ralph Wolf. However, unlike other recent attempts to revive the classic icons, the show actually holds truer to the source material of the original shorts from the 1900s' than ever before as it seems to follow the exquisite qualities of Tex Avery, who created Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, Friz Freleng, who created Porky Pig, Sylvester and Yosemite Sam, Bob Clampett, who created Tweety and Beaky Buzzard, and Chuck Jones who created Elmer Fudd, Road Runner, Wile E. Coyote, and Marvin the Martian. The series does tend to have a need to be like the classics at times, something which does not settle well with most fans of the franchise. Fortunately, all of this is overshadowed by the fact that the flair of the old generation comes through with the new generation's take on the classic characters, as directors such as Pete Browngardt (the show's creator), Ryan Kramer, David Gemmill, Michael Ruocco (the voice of Beaky Buzzard), and Kenny Pittenger have succeeded in emulating the character's antics to a newer audience instead of flanderizing them like before, along with the help of talented writers such as Johnny Ryan, Eddie Trigeuros, Andy Gonsalves, Caroline Director, Ryan Khatam, Alex Kirwan (the show's supervising producer), Andrew Dickman, Jacob Fleisher, Charlotte Jackson, and Mike Pelensky. I've never seen such broader comedy in all my existence; this concept is marvellously WONDERFUL!
The Animation
Just like any Looney Tunes related project, the animation must pay homage to that of the original 1000 shorts. Fortunately, in this incarnation, the animation of the shorts does so much more than that as it has hired the talents of four animation studios: Yowza Animation; a Canadian studio known for their slow and puppet-like yet bouncy work on the 2000s Disney shorts and Welcome to Wayne, Yearim Animation; a Korean studio known for their old school work on the Seth MacFarlane universe and New Looney Tunes, Snipple Animation; a Phillipinian studio known for their fluidly digital work on UniKitty and Wacky Races, and Tonic DNA; a French-Canadian studio known for their easily timed and smooth work on DC Superhero Girls and The Old Lady and the Pigeons. All four have different outlooks on animation quality and effortlessly use them to their own advantage in delivering the humour, not to mention the fact that all of the shorts have really detailed and appealing, yet somewhat distracting backgrounds from art director Aaron Spurgeon. However, despite being mostly talented, the studios do take the unneeded opportunity to combine some inappropriate moments in the shorts, i.e., in "Bubble Dum", Daffy Duck unzips his own skin for his skeleton to break free just because he was trying to pull gum out of his feathers, whereupon another Daffy eats the leftover mix of skin and gum. Yowza really made that weakness in their own favourable advantage, though, and thus I can officially declare the animation quality top notch!
The Characters
When the reboot was announced back in 2018, a boatload of characters from the original 1900s' shorts were expected to make their official return to stardom, and this project managed to restore them back to their original glory, thus reintroducing them to a newer audience and making them all more likable and memorable than ever before with character designs by Jim Soper, Kali Fontecchio, Dan Haskett, Carey Yost, and Stephan DeStefano that match the tone of the original shorts and extremely talented voice acting from the likes of Eric Bauza, Jeff Bergman, Bob Bergen, Fred Tatasciore, Michael Ruocco, and many others besides, including a few archival recordings from late animator Paul Julian. Starting off with the marquee tunes, we have Bugs Bunny; who is represented as a likably sadistic trickster, Daffy Duck; who has been reverted back to his original mentally unhinged self, Porky Pig; who is portrayed as the sane restraint to Daffy's lunacy, Sylvester; the persistent pussycat that is extremely prideful, Tweety; the adorable canary who has a similarly likable yet more abusive personality than Bugs' own, Elmer Fudd; Bugs' mild mannered frenemy by whom he is constantly put at mercy to, Yosemite Sam; Bugs' western type archenemy who is more grouchy and violent than Fudd, Road Runner; who just keeps on running with a carefree "beep-beep", Wile E. Coyote; ACME's most loyal customer who purchases their faulty gadgets to capture Road Runner for dinner, and Beaky Buzzard; the dim-witted vulture who is extremely shy. Secondly, we have the supporting tunes, such as Marvin the Martian; who is constantly searching for planets to claim for Mars, Granny; the sweet yet bizarre owner of Tweety and Sylvester, Sam Sheepdog; who treats his role as a sheepdog like a working-class job, and Ralph Wolf; Wile E.'s cousin who works in tandem with Sam by trying to kidnap his flock. Then, we have the recurring tunes, like Gossamer; a vicious monster made entirely out of hair, and Mama Buzzard; Beaky's endearing but overbearing mother. Finally, we have the background tunes, with one them being Doctor Frankenbeans; the villainous creator of Gossamer who prefers his own company. Whilst all 17 of these characters have been reintroduced in the first batch and many more have been confirmed to appear, there has been a missed opportunity surrounding the quantity as characters such as Squeaks the Squirrel, The Warner Brothers, Bosko, The Tiny Toons, Foxy, Pinky and the Brain, The Loonatics, Swackhammer, Tina Russo, and most importantly Lola Bunny.... have either been sidelined to cameos and future media or not been confirmed to appear at all; made even more unbearable by the news that Elmer and Sam have been outlawed in terms of gun usage, something which has gained much controversy. And so, while most of the original tunes will return in the series, the developers could have done more with the quantity.
It's not every day that we get animated content like this, which is why it is important to cherish them when their release date rolls along. Looney Tunes Cartoons is a wonderfully handled piece of animation that takes the entire Looney Tunes franchise by the hand and brings it into a whole new era. Sure, it may attempt to resurrect too much of the classic feel of the originals, but it makes up for it through creatively fluid animation, cleverly written stories, and many zany and lovable characters. As for thy recommendation, I'd say that this is a must watch for anyone who loves Looney Tunes, Warner Brothers Animation, or just the entire cartoon industry altogether. As matter of fact, this is one of those cartoons that if anyone not from the USA gains the opportunity to watch it in the future, they should immediately do so. Cartoonist driven animation is already scarce as it is, but in my book, anything from Warner Brothers is a pure national diamond. It is content like these that truly deserve the Cartoon Critic Seal of Approval!
Story: 8/10
Animation: 9/10
Characters: 10/10
Overall: 10/10
The Story
As with the classic 1900's incarnation of the franchise, the premise of the show is very simple; the marquee characters of the brand, such as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Tweety Bird, Road Runner, Porky Pig, and Sam Sheepdog are placed into various situations where they have to outwit adversaries such as Sylvester Pussycat, Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam, Beaky Buzzard, Wile E. Coyote, Gossamer, and Ralph Wolf. However, unlike other recent attempts to revive the classic icons, the show actually holds truer to the source material of the original shorts from the 1900s' than ever before as it seems to follow the exquisite qualities of Tex Avery, who created Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, Friz Freleng, who created Porky Pig, Sylvester and Yosemite Sam, Bob Clampett, who created Tweety and Beaky Buzzard, and Chuck Jones who created Elmer Fudd, Road Runner, Wile E. Coyote, and Marvin the Martian. The series does tend to have a need to be like the classics at times, something which does not settle well with most fans of the franchise. Fortunately, all of this is overshadowed by the fact that the flair of the old generation comes through with the new generation's take on the classic characters, as directors such as Pete Browngardt (the show's creator), Ryan Kramer, David Gemmill, Michael Ruocco (the voice of Beaky Buzzard), and Kenny Pittenger have succeeded in emulating the character's antics to a newer audience instead of flanderizing them like before, along with the help of talented writers such as Johnny Ryan, Eddie Trigeuros, Andy Gonsalves, Caroline Director, Ryan Khatam, Alex Kirwan (the show's supervising producer), Andrew Dickman, Jacob Fleisher, Charlotte Jackson, and Mike Pelensky. I've never seen such broader comedy in all my existence; this concept is marvellously WONDERFUL!
The Animation
Just like any Looney Tunes related project, the animation must pay homage to that of the original 1000 shorts. Fortunately, in this incarnation, the animation of the shorts does so much more than that as it has hired the talents of four animation studios: Yowza Animation; a Canadian studio known for their slow and puppet-like yet bouncy work on the 2000s Disney shorts and Welcome to Wayne, Yearim Animation; a Korean studio known for their old school work on the Seth MacFarlane universe and New Looney Tunes, Snipple Animation; a Phillipinian studio known for their fluidly digital work on UniKitty and Wacky Races, and Tonic DNA; a French-Canadian studio known for their easily timed and smooth work on DC Superhero Girls and The Old Lady and the Pigeons. All four have different outlooks on animation quality and effortlessly use them to their own advantage in delivering the humour, not to mention the fact that all of the shorts have really detailed and appealing, yet somewhat distracting backgrounds from art director Aaron Spurgeon. However, despite being mostly talented, the studios do take the unneeded opportunity to combine some inappropriate moments in the shorts, i.e., in "Bubble Dum", Daffy Duck unzips his own skin for his skeleton to break free just because he was trying to pull gum out of his feathers, whereupon another Daffy eats the leftover mix of skin and gum. Yowza really made that weakness in their own favourable advantage, though, and thus I can officially declare the animation quality top notch!
The Characters
When the reboot was announced back in 2018, a boatload of characters from the original 1900s' shorts were expected to make their official return to stardom, and this project managed to restore them back to their original glory, thus reintroducing them to a newer audience and making them all more likable and memorable than ever before with character designs by Jim Soper, Kali Fontecchio, Dan Haskett, Carey Yost, and Stephan DeStefano that match the tone of the original shorts and extremely talented voice acting from the likes of Eric Bauza, Jeff Bergman, Bob Bergen, Fred Tatasciore, Michael Ruocco, and many others besides, including a few archival recordings from late animator Paul Julian. Starting off with the marquee tunes, we have Bugs Bunny; who is represented as a likably sadistic trickster, Daffy Duck; who has been reverted back to his original mentally unhinged self, Porky Pig; who is portrayed as the sane restraint to Daffy's lunacy, Sylvester; the persistent pussycat that is extremely prideful, Tweety; the adorable canary who has a similarly likable yet more abusive personality than Bugs' own, Elmer Fudd; Bugs' mild mannered frenemy by whom he is constantly put at mercy to, Yosemite Sam; Bugs' western type archenemy who is more grouchy and violent than Fudd, Road Runner; who just keeps on running with a carefree "beep-beep", Wile E. Coyote; ACME's most loyal customer who purchases their faulty gadgets to capture Road Runner for dinner, and Beaky Buzzard; the dim-witted vulture who is extremely shy. Secondly, we have the supporting tunes, such as Marvin the Martian; who is constantly searching for planets to claim for Mars, Granny; the sweet yet bizarre owner of Tweety and Sylvester, Sam Sheepdog; who treats his role as a sheepdog like a working-class job, and Ralph Wolf; Wile E.'s cousin who works in tandem with Sam by trying to kidnap his flock. Then, we have the recurring tunes, like Gossamer; a vicious monster made entirely out of hair, and Mama Buzzard; Beaky's endearing but overbearing mother. Finally, we have the background tunes, with one them being Doctor Frankenbeans; the villainous creator of Gossamer who prefers his own company. Whilst all 17 of these characters have been reintroduced in the first batch and many more have been confirmed to appear, there has been a missed opportunity surrounding the quantity as characters such as Squeaks the Squirrel, The Warner Brothers, Bosko, The Tiny Toons, Foxy, Pinky and the Brain, The Loonatics, Swackhammer, Tina Russo, and most importantly Lola Bunny.... have either been sidelined to cameos and future media or not been confirmed to appear at all; made even more unbearable by the news that Elmer and Sam have been outlawed in terms of gun usage, something which has gained much controversy. And so, while most of the original tunes will return in the series, the developers could have done more with the quantity.
It's not every day that we get animated content like this, which is why it is important to cherish them when their release date rolls along. Looney Tunes Cartoons is a wonderfully handled piece of animation that takes the entire Looney Tunes franchise by the hand and brings it into a whole new era. Sure, it may attempt to resurrect too much of the classic feel of the originals, but it makes up for it through creatively fluid animation, cleverly written stories, and many zany and lovable characters. As for thy recommendation, I'd say that this is a must watch for anyone who loves Looney Tunes, Warner Brothers Animation, or just the entire cartoon industry altogether. As matter of fact, this is one of those cartoons that if anyone not from the USA gains the opportunity to watch it in the future, they should immediately do so. Cartoonist driven animation is already scarce as it is, but in my book, anything from Warner Brothers is a pure national diamond. It is content like these that truly deserve the Cartoon Critic Seal of Approval!
Story: 8/10
Animation: 9/10
Characters: 10/10
Overall: 10/10