Redheaded, moustachioed, former Oxford copper James Malcolm sent me word on some Loonatics. No, he didn’t divulge any juicy tidbits of information on any nut-job he ran into during is quarter century of law enforcement in Oxford. Jimmy’s red-faced over a Michigan J. Frog network announcement.
WB, last week, presented their newest attempt at making gobs of cash — the Loonatics. The Loonatics are futuristic (700 years into the future) descendents of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Road Runner, While E. Coyote, Lola Bunny and Tasmanian Devil. The new cartoon is set to air Saturdays this fall.
Oh, be still my beating heart.
Don’t get me wrong, Warner Bros. studios can do anything they want with their property. I just don’t think the family television in Casa D’Rush will tune in to mutant Loony Tune characters blasting their way through outer space. It’s not that the new show won’t be well-done and entertaining — it probably will be. It’s just that the Rush lads don’t need another cartoon to watch involving space ships, superheroes and battles of intergalactic-proportions — especially when the new, sleek and darkly dressed characters are mere morphed animations of those much loved and tightly woven into our popular culture characters.
(How’s that for a sentence, you students of the English language?)
The new supercharged cast, in case you haven’t heard, will be endowed with superhero powers. They have a space ship and fight bad guys. Get ready for explosive, fast-paced animated action, interspersed with pithy one-liners that sound vaguely familiar. WB muckity-mucks claim the characters (yet to be named) will have genetically passed-on traits from their 1940s ancestors.
Swell. It’s one thing for the governor of California to bust through a cinder block wall, looking for girlie men and shouting, ‘I’ll be back!?
It is an entirely different operation to have an angular and dark ‘Buzz? Bunny popping up from a wormhole that ripped through the very fabric of space and time, chomping on a carrot and saying, ‘What’s up, doc?? Or, ‘I knew I shoulda taken that left turn at Albuquerque!?
The former is a futuristic, sci-fi action film. The latter is a futuristic, sci-fi action animation.
Okay . . .
So maybe there is no difference, that doesn’t make it right. (Does it?)
What made the likes of Bugs, Daffy, Sylvester, Tweetie, Porky, Foghorn Leghorn, Yosemite et al, classic, well-remembered and much imitated characters is first, and foremost, the humor. (Come on, what is more funny than Elmer Fudd blasting off the beak of Daffy Duck with a shot gun during rabbit hunting season?) The characters were round, funny, witty — like us on the other side of the TV tube.
Seems today everything has to be fast, action-packed. There are chases, crashes, explosions and fights. Even in the children’s cartoons the trend leans towards clashes of good against evil. I understand any good story needs some sort of conflict, but not in a Loony Tunes cartoon for goodness sakes!
Not everything has to be edgy. Besides, Loony Tunes already went into the future with the Duck Dodgers in the 24th (and a half) Century. That was first done in the early 1950s and reprised recently for an actual series. It had space ships, chases, explosions and Daffy got his beak shot off. It wasn’t edgy or dark. Daffy was daffy and with Porky Pig and Marvin the Martian, funny.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch — two young, strapping, all-American Rushlings love cartoons. Oh sure, they like to watch the modern stuff like Pokemon. But, according to their very own mother, Jennie, what really gets them going are the old Looney Tunes and Tom & Jerry cartoons. Apparently, slapstick humor still rules supreme with the males of our species (pre or post pubescent, it doesn’t matter). There is something inherently witty and clever about a stray anvil falling from a building and landing on somebody.
Pure comedic genius.
I guess what I’m here to state is this: Kids need to laugh more. They need to find humor in life. There is something admirable in finding humor where others cannot see, and then sharing it with the world.
Comments for that fuddy-duddy, anti-edgy, holder-on of the old, Don, can be e-mailed to: dontrushmedon@charter.net