So the Interweb is a buzz about the new Looney Tunes Show set to debut later this year. I for one and terribly excited by the whole thing.
As a life long Looney Tunes fan I’m ecstatic to see what Warner Bros has up it’s sleeve and from everything I can see they’re taking the time, effort, care and money to hopefully make something that looks like a win. Apparently the premise is something along the lines of the regular forest dwelling tunes have all packed up and moved into a suburban cul-de-sac and Bugs and Daffy will have some sort of “Odd Couple” relationship dynamic all while interacting with the rest of the classic cast. I think it’s a wonderful idea.
(shown below)

So Long As…Warners doesn’t repeat the mistakes of Loonatics. But from everything I’ve heard they’ve made that their goal.
I even love the new character designs. While I’m partial to the look that was popularized by Chuck Jones in the 50s and 60s it’s true that every director who worked with the characters drew them differently and it was common that depending on the director bugs could come out in several shorts a year looking completely different than the cartoon before. I think these new models are just delightful.

My hope is that they don’t try to change the voices. That was one of many problems with loonatics. I realize Mel Blanc is long gone but they’ve a crewed a wonderful cast of voice actors to fill in his stead first and foremost being Billy West as Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd and Joe Alaskey as Daffy Duck. (Joe has also stepped in from time to time to do Bugs Bunny but Billy is my absolute favorite.) In fact I’m almost positive that he could probably do a better Daffy than Joe as well. Nothing against Joe; I just prefer Billy. I’ve also heard Billy’s Porky Pig and I’ve never felt Bob Bergen has just never quite got it right. I think Looney Tunes Back In Action was the first time he’s ever gotten it right and I credit that to John Dante who FINALLY applied the right level of speeding up/digital tweaking that’s been absent from much of the characters since Mel’s passing. The same for Tweety and Speedy. I’ve never understood why they didn’t do that. People don’t seem to realize that All of Mel’s early voices were treated that way. Bugs, Daffy, Porky, Tweety, Speedy and just about all of the higher-pitched voices. Sylvester not at all being minus the spittle was Mel’s voice. In fact, without the tweaking Daffy and Sylvester would have had the same voice. Daffy was just Sylvester sped up.

I’m also terribly curious to see more of the new Wiley Coyote & Road Runner short but I’d prefer not to have to purchase a ticket for Cats & Dogs just to see it. Though I’ll admit I’m a little bit weary about that one. The last Road Runner cartoon that came out was so off that I’d wished they’d just left them dead. Instead of Acme’s prop catalogue Wiley had acquired himself a magic spell book and as I watched it I just kept thinking Chuck would never have chosen to do that.
(first peek)

Also as you can see it’s going to be in 3D. I’m not appose to that either except that until How To Train Your Dragon I had never seen a piece of 3d animation done that I felt could realistically “ape” the true cartoon style. But that was a different studio and aside from Happy Feet and the Creepy Robert Zemeckis attempts I can’t think of a single movie Warners has attempted in CGI. These characters have to be elastic, flexible. And move in ways that no living creature can and computer animation generally doesn’t have the freedom and effortlessness that hand drawn traditional animation does but if anyone can do it Warner Bros can.

But I for one am eager to see what Warners is going to give us. I love these characters and think it’s been far too long since our last outing with them.

My only hope is that “That’s Not All Folks!!”
~I’m just sayin’