Guest tv tanned Posted March 10, 2005 Report Share Posted March 10, 2005 Found this rather excellent article from The Scotsman of all places, regarding Warner Bros. attempts at blasphemy...'Updating' Bugs Bunny and the gang is no laughing matter How can Coyote battle gravity in space, where everyone floats? LEE RANDALL WATCH out world, Im angry. Warner Brothers is messing with Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, updating them for the 21st century. Is nothing sacred? Calling them Loonatics, as if they were escapees from Bedlam, these descendants of our familiar friends will rocket through space some 700 years in the future. Instead of their natural fur and feathers, they have been redrawn wearing hard-edged space costumes and now resemble Japanese robots. Most appallingly, each has been given a crime-fighting superpower. Why? When did we stop believing that ordinary human traits such as intelligence, bravery, tenacity and loyalty comprised heroic virtues? According to the president of Warner Brothers Animation, Sander Schwartz, "this is ... intended for kids [6-11 years old] who are growing up in the internet age, an age of technology, an age of hip, cool animation". Mister, go watch some reruns. Bugs and his gang are the dernier cri of cool. In 2002, readers of Americas TV Guide (with a circulation in the millions) voted Bugs Bunny the greatest cartoon character of all time. Not bad for a bunny invented before television itself. He beat Homer Simpson, Charlie Brown and Disneys mouse, who limped in at number 19. THE original animators had grand ambitions, and each film is a masterpiece of wit and sophistication appealing to young and old alike. Bugs came into his own in 1940, when Mel Blanc, inventing an accent that tortured the vowels of Brooklyn and The Bronx, first uttered the immortal words "Whats up, Doc?" Munching his carrot, Bugs planted his first juicy kiss on the lips of arch-enemy, Elmer Fudd. (If thats not subversive, what is?) Looney Tunes alerted kids like myself to a variety of cultural touchstones. To this day, hearing Strausss Blue Danube makes me picture the ever-extending hump of a rabbit burrow tunnelling across the landscape before Bugs pops free. In 1957, Bugs and Elmer starred in Whats Opera, Doc?, which presented Wagners entire Ring Cycle in seven minutes, and became the first animated short inducted into Americas National Film Registry. In another cartoon, Bugs spins the genre on its head, tormenting Daffy Duck by switching his backgrounds and props, messing up the soundtrack, even going so far as to erase and redraw him. ACCORDING to reports, the new cartoons are "action-oriented, filled with chases and fights". But isnt the entire substance of the Roadrunner/Wile E Coyote relationship an elaborate high-speed chase punctuated by explosions? What the hell more does it take to satisfy kids these days? Worse still, the proposed modernisation must inevitably destroy the purity of premise behind Roadrunner cartoons, laid out in ten strict rules by the series creator, Chuck Jones: 1 Roadrunner cannot harm Coyote; 2 No outside force can harm Coyote, only his own ineptitude or the failure of Acme products; 3 Coyote could stop anytime, if he wasnt a fanatic (as defined by Santayana: "one who redoubles his effort when he has forgotten his aim"); 4 No dialogue, ever, except "Beep! Beep!"; 5 Roadrunner must stay on the road; 6 All action is confined to the natural environment of the characters; 7 All tools and weapons must be obtained from the Acme Corporation; 8 Whenever possible, make gravity Coyotes greatest enemy; 9 Coyote is always more humiliated than harmed by his adventures; 10 The audiences sympathy must remain with Coyote. Take these two out of the American desert and all hell breaks loose. How can Coyote battle gravity in space, where everyone floats? The first time he screeches off a cliff, hell merely waft away unharmed. What fun is that? How can Roadrunner embody perpetual motion if hes going head-to-head with bad guys? Did nobody think this through? Is Warner Brothers so lazy - or creatively void - that it cant invent new characters as compelling as the old? A COLLEAGUE summed it up neatly: Bugs, Daffy and the rest are at once quintessentially timeless and of their time. In a decade, hard-nosed pre-pubescents will dismiss Loonatics as "so 2005". As for the originals, well, age shall not wither them. Warner Brothers, if youre reading, take my advice: It aint broke. Stop trying to fix it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Tam o' Shantie Posted March 10, 2005 Report Share Posted March 10, 2005 looney tunes were bollocks anyway. tom and jerry rape them and then spit on them after they cum. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paranoid Android Posted March 10, 2005 Report Share Posted March 10, 2005 Never read all the article, but it's stupid all these peopel complaining that they're ruining looney tunes, it's only another of hundreds of cartoon spin offs. This isn't replacing the origional show. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Da Fat Porn Star Posted March 10, 2005 Report Share Posted March 10, 2005 That's all folks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inkster Posted March 10, 2005 Report Share Posted March 10, 2005 What the guy says in the article is totally true.The argument wasn't whether tom n jerry raped bugs bunny it was sayin that bugs is a cartoon that is timeless (as is tom n jerry) and taking it into spaceage times will just ruin it. Warner Bros are lazy!I mean they developed the space man dude and the alien characters in space jam so why not continue this and make more new characters if they want to have a space theme?rant end. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.