February 19, 2005

• Looks ok. I don't know why all the hub bub though, it's not like we'll never see the old Bugs toons again, they play all the time. This is just updated for the tots.
• Reminds me of a show invented by a committee: 'Edgy' characters so similar they're hard to tell apart? Check. Desperate attempt to grasp onto others' success (in this case 'superheroes')? Check. Completely misses the point of the original show it's supposedly inspired by? Check. Ironic that the news broke on the same weekend as 'Son of the Mask' opens.
• in the future, cartoon characters don't need pupils.
• Today is the day I crossed the threshold of feeling old. May as well give Charlie Brown a gun or introduce Mighty Morphin' Popeye. I have a bad taste in my mouth. yuck.
• second that Zanshin. The Bugs character fits into a "crime fighting" role like I still fit into my graduation clothes. I hope to never stumble across this abomination.
• This is such a good idea. I'm not kidding or snarking or whatever. Attempts at self improvement are always a good idea, even when they fail miserably. Also, this is much better than trying to extend copyrights a thousand years. And now that Bugs has laser vision, I want my frickin hovercar already. WTF Future, where's my hovercar?
• I'm as irritated as anyone, but I think we've got to realise: this is what happens when your childhood memories and cultural references are (c) some big corporation. I think the best thing to do is to realize this and move on. Being upset only acknowledges the power of these amoral bastards. Just chalk Bugs Bunny up as another fatality to commercial art and move on, promising quietly never to buy anything with his likeness on it again.
• Thanks for the video, though, I hadn't seen that. In the end, it's kind of... generic, isn't it? Oh, and I'm sure I'm several years late in noticing this, but one of those six original characters isn't really.
• Just now feeling the pangs of getting older? I knew I was long past that timeline mark when I had to switch back to AM radio to find music worth listening to. Guess I have grey hair to look forward to next!
• Mr. Knickboker - here's your flying car
• "We at the network want a dog with attitude. He's edgy, he's in your face. You've heard the expression let's get busy? Well, this is a dog who gets biz-zay! Consistently and thoroughly." "So he's proactive, huh?" "Oh, God, yes. We're talking about a totally outrageous paradigm." "Excuse me, but proactive and paradigm? Aren't these just buzzwords that dumb people use to sound important? Er... not that I'm accusing you of anything like that... I'm fired, aren't I?"
• Actually, what upsets me about these is the idea of putting Looney Tunes into long-form episodic plots. If anything, the best way to revive Bugs would be to make even shorter shorts and toss 'em up before movies again. They have to be even shorter to give the animators and writers the pressure to be as frenetic as the old ones, which were chockablock with gags. That, and they can't keep aiming for kids. I mean, Jimmy Durante was a staple caricature (a word that always looks spelled wrong to me), and no kid at the movies would have really grasped why. The pop culture riffing combined with the vaudville is why those old shorts still work. (Well, and the Roadrunner cartoons are visually gorgeous. They're the best slow-played sight gags maybe ever).
• They've been doing this forever. Look at Tiny Toons, or whatever its called.
• Tiny Toons was different characters with the original characters occasionally appearing as teachers. They did do a "Baby Loony Toons" which a)seems redundant after Tiny Toons and b) seems even more blatant rip off of muppet babies Regarding the new series, it will be on teh air for a couple seasons, then disappear to never be seen again.
• Regarding the new series, it will be on teh air for a couple seasons, then disappear to never be seen again. I am told the 1970s-era Tom and Jerry cartoons are still around in various places, so I can't believe this new stuff will go away entirely. I got a lot of my introduction to music through old Looney Toons (particularly the opera cartoons) and I'm a bit sad that the tots are going to get what looks from the stills like "Justice Toons Unlimited". I suppose this could work out to be like the Duck Dodgers in the 24th-and-a-half century cartoons, which would make it a lot better than it seems on first sight. The stills don't make me want to go check out the video, though, and I doubt that it will end up in my Netflix queue or on my Amazon wish list.

• Today is the day I crossed the threshold of feeling old. May as well give Charlie Brown a gun... --Zanshin

  Already been done. Weapon Brown, by the author of The Cuddly Menace
• New Coke!
• O/T When did 'paradigm' become an undesirable word in communication? Having been educated in the Social Sciences, it's still a meaningful word to me. / but then again, I'm told that my skills are obsolete now as well. *sigh*
• SideDish wins.
• Actually, what upsets me about these is the idea of putting Looney Tunes into long-form episodic plots. And there we have it, right there. It's like putting a sock on a basset hound -- once the novelty wears off, it's just not funny anymore. The best idea the WB people came up with in the last decade or so was Animaniacs, which used the brilliant notion of new characters in the same bizarro short form. Much better than Tiny Toons, IMO. They should stick with what brung 'em.
• It's the desperate marketing that really gets to me. Imagine a future where your grandkids are watching a pionty version of the Simpson family fighting villians with their good friend Monty "The Human Torch!" Burns and his sidekick Baby Smithers....
• js, Warners did do a new series of theatrical shorts just a couple years ago, but I think they've been shelved. I don't know if it was because they were unhappy with the finished product, or there was some question about which films they would run before. Disney ran a handful of Roger Rabbit shorts in front of some of their '90's kids movies, but the form itself seems to be dead.
• This is for you Zanshin
• gren, that depressed the hell out of me.
• That's a genuinely miserable thought, gren. I'd say more, but I think the Ritalin's kicking in and I... can't... seem to... qrzwldgdijc flmm flmmmm jjjjjjjjjj
• I remember being asked in college who I would most like to get drunk with. My answer was Bugs Bunny.
• I love the Animaniacs. I also liked Freakazoid (for the constant use of the term "poo gas?" You bet!). I agree that WB should focus in that direction. Then again, I'm a 28 year old woman who digs cartoons, so I'm betting that I'm not exactly in their target audience.
• O/T When did 'paradigm' become an undesirable word in communication? Having been educated in the Social Sciences, it's still a meaningful word to me. When every idiot in the business world started using it without any purpose except to fill in space and make themselves sound important. Along with "proactive," it is the empty-suit MBA idiot's word of choice. (my other favorite is "moving forward." You hear this all the time in business- how about, when we do a project where we move BACKWARD through time, you let me know. Otherwise I'll just assume we're moving forward)
• Monkeyfilter: Might as well give Charley Brown a gun. I really liked both the Animaniacs and Freakazoid. Animaniacs is back on one of the digital cable channels that my parents get, and I made 'em sit through an episode. It's still pretty good (though only really the Animaniacs themselves and Pinky and the Brain. The rest kind of blow, and blow harder now for age). Surprisingly enough, the Ozzie and Drix show isn't as bad as I had thought, what with it being a port from the movie Osmosis Jones, which was excerable crap. It's produced by the Farrelly Bros. too, which is odd. The best cartoon right now, though, is Teen Titans by far. Their use of iconography from two seperate cultures and their stunning design is reason enough to watch it. And the writing is usually pretty sharp too. (Best episode: where they're in Mod England).
• I agree, js. Teen Titans rocks. It's one of the few cartoons around these days to take advantage of (hey!) being a cartoon. Far too many cartoons these days feel compelled to be realistic, which often misses the potential of the medium. (That said, I also like Justice League Unlimited. And the entire Adult Swim lineup except for Family Guy. Never liked Family Guy. Now get the Sealab 2021 themesong stuck in your head!)
• Thanks drjim, as I had no idea the word had become a tool of corporate evil. For me it always has/d a more scientific concept. I shall abandon it quickly. *searches for thesaurus*
• ummm...thanks gren
• One of the things I love most about Looney Tunes is that not only can adults get the humor, but a lot of the humor is for adults and flies over the kids' heads. You know, fun for the whole family.