The More Things Change, The More They Suck

Loonatics Unleashed.

Those two words should be enough to strike fear into the hearts of any decent cartoon lover. I watched my first episode this morning, and was appalled at what I saw. Not really by the content of the cartoon, but because of what it stands for.

For those not in the know, Loonatics is a re-invention of the classic Looney Tunes cartoons featuring Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Wile E. Coyote, Road Runner and the Tazmanian Devil. Only they've been turned into Ace Bunny, Danger Duck, Tech E. Coyote, Rev Runner and Slam Tasmanian. Also added is Lexi Bunny. Missing are Elmer Fudd, Porky Pig, Yosemite Sam, Foghorn Leghorn, Tweety Bird, Sylvester the Cat and all the rest of the Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies/Warner Bros. cartoon classics.

The Loonatics are a team of superheroes in the year 2772, when the city-planet Acmetropolis has been knocked off its axis by a meteor. The Loonatics work together to fight supervillains, while attempting to entertain with clever one-liners. Its genuinely awful, complete with poor design, bad dialogues and mind-numbing plotlines.

Now, if this were a standalone cartoon, I would just think it was another moronic cartoon designed by the empty-headed, unimaginative piece of garbage being fed to the children of today. Heck, I might even be pleasantly surprised that this one isn't predicated on some horrible commercialization of a poor Western interpretation of Eastern mysticism (I'm looking your way Avatar!) But this cartoon is supposed to be associated with the classic cartoons of days gone by. Its supposed to be carrying on the tradition of Friz Freleng, Chuck Jones and Tex Avery. Instead, its pissing on their memories.

Granted, the classic Looney Tunes cartoons haven't been treated particularly well over the ages. Up here in Canada, our version of The Cartoon Network, Teletoon, shows Looney Tunes cartoons every morning, and in the afternoons on weekends. What I often see are the 'movie' versions of these cartoons. These ones are a bunch of cartoon shorts edited till they're shells of their former selves, and then spliced together with a really bad unifying plot, which usually has absolutely nothing to do with the cartoons, and are also often poorly drawn insults to the name of animation.

The most notable of these is Private Eye Elmer Fudd's search for the 'Mystewious Stwangew'. It's just horrible, and these compilation shows are a blight on the memory of the classics.

Recently, it seemed that the Time-Warner was trying to apologize for this, with their release of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection DVD sets. (Okay, atone and make money from people who want to own these important slices of North American pop culture.) But these Loonatics show that the memory of these classic cartoons means nothing to these people. Its sad really.

And just in case you might think that I'm one of those conservatives who oppose any attempts to bring classics into the next generation, I should point out that I commend The Cartoon Network and The WB for their respective Justice League Unlimited and The Batman cartoons. Smart, sharp and entertaining reinventions of classic comic characters that do a fine job of carrying on a tradition begun so many years ago.