New "Looney Tunes" headed for Cartoon Network!

[CrankyYankee]

Woo-Hoo! Bugs & his buds are getting a new gig on CN. Read all about it!
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/20/movies/20looney.html

 

[Bengalsfan]

I expect it to be a dud just like Baby Looney Tunes, Space Jam and Back in Action were. It's like trying to bring back Seinfeld or Friends with a different cast. It appears the heads of Warner do not understand why the original 'toons were so popular. If they really want to bring the conciousness of the toons back up, re-run the original shorts...UNCUT!

 

[therealjm12]

What the folks at Warner Bros. need to understand is that the original Looney Toons/Merrie Melodies were never made for children. They were shown in movie theatres as shorts just before the showing of movies like Casablanca. If they make them for adults, the children will follow.
It is true that young children have no idea who Bugs, Daffy etc. are. There is no marketing for them at the moment. If you bought a five year old a Bugs Bunny coloring book they would have no idea who he and his friends are. Yes, there are videos and DVD's out there but that is not the same as being on TV on a regular basis. Kids only know what's hip and now.
So how about Popeye?

 

[cd637299]

I had read about this on a classic cartoon board. It'll even include the Road Runner & Coyote----in CGI animation----for cryin' out loud.

<Foghorn Leghorn> It must be a JOKE, son! </F.L.>

cd

 

[azumanga]

Revamping classic characters for today's audiences ended up mired in failure most of the time -- while there were some successes (such as new Saturday morning "Flintstones" during the 1970s), there are also some failures, such as "Yo, Yogi!" (which now takes place at a mall instead of a park) and the "House of Mouse" (take classic Disney characters, "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-in" and Dean Martin's celebrity roasts, put them in a blender, and hit "liquefy").

 

[DToTheJ]

I expect it to be a dud just like Baby Looney Tunes, Space Jam and Back in Action were...

(in his best Foghorn Leghorn voice)
No, son... "Pinky, Elmyra And The Brain" was a dud!

 

[MarcB]

I myself liked Animaniacs which aired on Both FOX KIDS and KIDS WB! But the way my local WB affiliate used to promote the show was really obnoxious.

In one particular episode there was a segment where one of the characters was on a game show and the host of the game show said "Name all the US State Capitals" and the character breaks out into song giving all the state capitals. - That whole segment was how they promoted Animaniacs on my local WB affiliate. They'd air that whole segment with a continuous scrolling message "Watch Animaniacs Weekdays at 4:00PM and Saturdays at 9:30AM on WB-59/WBNE!" (I'm not sure of the exact time KIDS WB! aired the show).

 

[KeithE4]

I expect it to be a dud just like Baby Looney Tunes, Space Jam and Back in Action were. It's like trying to bring back Seinfeld or Friends with a different cast. It appears the heads of Warner do not understand why the original 'toons were so popular.

They were still popular with us in the '50s and '60s because (1) they were still being made, and (2) the topical references were still relevant to our parents, the World War II generation and we got the jokes (or at least an explanation) through them.

If they really want to bring the conciousness of the toons back up, re-run the original shorts...UNCUT!

Given the now-arcane & irrelevant topical humor (old-time radio & World War II references especially) and the fact that some of the cartoons absolutely cannot be shown today due to their racial content, don't hold your breath waiting for that to ever happen.

Some classic WB cartoons can still be popular (most Bugs/Elmer, Road Runner/Coyote, Sylvester/Tweety, and Foghorn Leghorn cartoons because of the lack of topical humor), but it's a rather small subset - maybe 300 cartoons out of the 1000-or-so WB cartoons made between 1930 and 1969.

Of the remaining 700, about 300 were made in black & white, 300 were just not funny (do you really want to bring back Buddy and Cool Cat?), and the rest were products of the '30s and '40s and don't stand the test of time.

 

[FreddyE1977]

sadly, in an e/i, too-P.C., homogenized, overly-regulated by self-appointed Nannies environment,
you just can't do Looney Tunes anymore.

 

[gr8oldies]

Not only everything that was just said, but no matter who does the voices, it doesn't work. One would have to be inside Mel Blanc's head to pull it off.

 

[DToTheJ]

What the folks at Warner Bros. need to understand is that the original Looney Toons/Merrie Melodies were never made for children. They were shown in movie theatres as shorts just before the showing of movies like Casablanca. If they make them for adults, the children will follow.

If that's the case, how can one explain why the aforementioned "Flintstones", a primetime show originally geared toward adults, ended up being shown during childrens' programming?

 

[DToTheJ]

I myself liked Animaniacs... In one particular episode there was a segment where one of the characters was on a game show and the host of the game show said "Name all the US State Capitals" and the character breaks out into song giving all the state capitals. That whole segment was how they promoted Animaniacs on my local WB affiliate...

Did they happen to run the bit where they recite all of the Presidents (up until Clinton, who was commander-in-chief at the time the show was produced) as a promo for that show, as well?

 

[MarcB]

Did they happen to run the bit where they recite all of the Presidents (up until Clinton, who was commander-in-chief at the time the show was produced) as a promo for that show, as well?

Yeah. They did that one too.