Western Animation - Discuss American, Canadian, and European cartoons here (or just bitch about wokeshit, I guess)

[Vyse Inglebard]

Niche Gamer: OPINION – You don’t need to be a kid to enjoy educational cartoons (archive) - Essay about why it's OK to watch WordGirl as a 45 year old.

That's interesting. Mind if we scan your hard drive?

 

[Coolio55]

Niche Gamer: OPINION – You don’t need to be a kid to enjoy educational cartoons (archive) - Essay about why it's OK to watch WordGirl as a 45 year old.

I'm shocked that Bluey only gets a passing, incidental reference.

 

[Kari Kamiya]

View attachment 7093787
That's interesting. Mind if we scan your hard drive?

He needs to change that Video Girl Ai avatar, it's too nuanced and sophisticated for him.

 

[InJailOutSoon]

It's very telling that Kiwifarms is the first and only place I hear about this new Loony Tunes movie. I'm in quite a few animation circles and there has been no mention of this flick whatsoever. Must say, I'm a bit ashamed of myself even. I'm usually good at knowing what is coming out and/or is in production, and not knowing about this film until it got released almost makes me want to relinquish my self-made title of being an animation insider.

 

[Newcomer 42]

I hope that movie succeeds, we need more of that deranged humor in these dark times. Also, the Looney Tunes Show of the 2010s was surprisingly well-done, with Daffy Duck having character growth and accomplishing his goals instead of being an one-note lunatic, as well as recycling classic jokes like his crossdressing tendencies (here justified as being a hobby of his).* Shame Pepe Le Pew pretty much does nothing because he was cancelled in-universe... Shortly before being done so IRL, kek.

*Of course, terminally online people years later latched on that and declared Daffy is a trans icon, duh, .

 

[Trilby]

I hope that movie succeeds, we need more of that deranged humor in these dark times. Also, the Looney Tunes Show of the 2010s was surprisingly well-done, with Daffy Duck having character growth and accomplishing his goals instead of being an one-note lunatic, as well as recycling classic jokes like his crossdressing tendencies (here justified as being a hobby of his).* Shame Pepe Le Pew pretty much does nothing because he was cancelled in-universe... Shortly before being done so IRL, kek.

*Of course, terminally online people years later latched on that and declared Daffy is a trans icon, duh, .

It's why I felt I had to bury myself from this modern thinking that has ruined 80-90 year old characters

 

[Bankingway]

The Day The Earth Blew Up isn't playing near me yet, but when it releases where I'm at I'm going to see it ASAP. Something good for Looney Tunes and they're shitting themselves trying to market it? What a surprise!

OPINION – You don’t need to be a kid to enjoy educational cartoons (archive) - Essay about why it's OK to watch WordGirl as a 45 year old.

You absolutely can watch Word Girl as an adult, nobody's stopping you, but don't expect congrats or hearty pats on the back for watching something made to help children memorize words. Especially if you can't leave it at "I like it" and feel the need to justify it like this:

Have you ever wanted to watch something not specifically made for your age range and gotten the tired old response, “uhhh, why are you watching _______? What are you a diaperbaby??” (No? Only me? Well nevermind then..)

Thus, you do not, in fact, have to be a diaperbaby to enjoy educational cartoons.

Would've been nice if this article touched on the glaring issue with adults watching cartoons intended for preschool kids: They tend to be retarded and not engage with anything else in the medium outside of an unchallenging, thumbsucking bubble that tells them things they already know, while also expecting what they watch to cater to them and their "lost childhoods". Because clearly the audience is depressive grown men/women and not preschoolers, right?
Having variety in what you engage with and learning what genres, subgenres, styles you like and dislike is very important to bolstering enthusiasm and keeps things fresh, especially for the industry producing the work. Goes for any medium, but Western animation suffers the most from casual circles going into a childish ghetto and adding fuel to the fire that is the medium's death spiral.

Come to think of it, the proliferation of "I only watch baby cartoons and I'm 25 years old" in recent times is half the reason shows like Common Side Effects struggle to get attention the way that autistic campaign to save the Wil E. Coyote film or make Wild Robot a success did.

 

[starborn427614]

It's very telling that Kiwifarms is the first and only place I hear about this new Loony Tunes movie. I'm in quite a few animation circles and there has been no mention of this flick whatsoever. Must say, I'm a bit ashamed of myself even. I'm usually good at knowing what is coming out and/or is in production, and not knowing about this film until it got released almost makes me want to relinquish my self-made title of being an animation insider.

Advertising has apparently been non-existent. Wouldn't be surprised if WB sent it out to die.

 

[Grand Duke Snowfall]

Advertising has apparently been non-existent. Wouldn't be surprised if WB sent it out to die.

Warner Brothers is just very allergic to using their beloved IPs properly and doing anything that’ll make them money, and it just baffles me.

 

[Basic Blond Boy]

I recall that as soon as Back in Action failed, Cartoon Network pulled the vast majority of old Looney Tunes reruns. Fast forward to today, most kids don't even know who Bugs Bunny is, much less Daffy and Porky.

They know who Bugs is. Looney Tunes is still big in pop-culture despite Warner's attempts to bury it.

For as much as the thread shits on it, Space Jam has really carried the series popularity over the past decade. It became a huge culture point for Zoomers born after the film for the meme-to-unironic love.

The Looney Tunes Show from 2010 has also been brought back into relevancy, especially in the Super Mario fandom. I swear, every Mario animation with Daisy now uses voice clips from the series to portray her and Luigi as Lola and Bugs respectively.

Then of course you have Big Chungus.

 

[invisibult plus+]

It's very telling that Kiwifarms is the first and only place I hear about this new Loony Tunes movie. I'm in quite a few animation circles and there has been no mention of this flick whatsoever.

Advertising has apparently been non-existent. Wouldn't be surprised if WB sent it out to die.

Warner Brothers is just very allergic to using their beloved IPs properly and doing anything that’ll make them money, and it just baffles me.

My parents saw an ad for it on TV- TCM I think- but I didn't know it's coming out until today. Warner has been hot and cold towards animation, and out of touch with the market, for a long time, so it's likely that they think only older people would want to see it.

 

[Kari Kamiya]

Advertising has apparently been non-existent. Wouldn't be surprised if WB sent it out to die.

The trailer (if it was even still shown in theaters) truly didn't do it justice.

 

[Quiet Guy]

I hope that movie succeeds, we need more of that deranged humor in these dark times. Also, the Looney Tunes Show of the 2010s was surprisingly well-done, with Daffy Duck having character growth and accomplishing his goals instead of being an one-note lunatic, as well as recycling classic jokes like his crossdressing tendencies (here justified as being a hobby of his).* Shame Pepe Le Pew pretty much does nothing because he was cancelled in-universe... Shortly before being done so IRL, kek.

*Of course, terminally online people years later latched on that and declared Daffy is a trans icon, duh, .

I may or may not have mentioned this before, but I didn't like Looney Tunes 2010. I only watched some early episodes so maybe it got better, Daffy Duck's writing wasn't clever; he was just dumb and nonsensical without a punchline.

It didn't really resemble Looney Tunes either. Outside of the Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote segments was there even any dynamite or anvils? They turned Gossamer into Witch Hazel's kid, which could have conceivably worked if he was still monstrous, but certain people still acted like he was a child.

There was also an episode where Yosemite Sam lived with Bugs, but all he did was annoy Bugs instead of trying to get rid of him and take the house for himself. There is actually an old episode like that, so they could have had a plot practically giftwrapped for them, yet that is what we wound up with...

 

[Grand Duke Snowfall]

I get that Looney Tunes 2010 probably wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but I remember enjoying it as a kid. I vaguely remember one episode where Daffy was put on a blind date with Granny. Her idea of a date was cleaning the attic while telling him a story. Specifically how she was a spy in World War II, keeping the Nazis from stealing valuable artwork as they were being driven out of Paris by the Allies. Tweety was there too, he saved her life. Also refused to tell Sylvester how old he is.
I now want to try and find that episode again.

 

[Sergeant Major Buzzkill]

I may or may not have mentioned this before, but I didn't like Looney Tunes 2010. I only watched some early episodes so maybe it got better, Daffy Duck's writing wasn't clever; he was just dumb and nonsensical without a punchline.

You should watch the 2009 Laff Riot pilot, very fun and more in line with actual Looney Tunes with a bit of a modern twist:

 

[Basic Blond Boy]

I may or may not have mentioned this before, but I didn't like Looney Tunes 2010. I only watched some early episodes so maybe it got better, Daffy Duck's writing wasn't clever; he was just dumb and nonsensical without a punchline.

Most fans would say that the show doesn’t really get an identity till mid season 1, and especially season 2. By then, the zany-ness and absurd situations begin to come out more and the writing in general seems to be a better blend of Seinfeld and Looney Tunes rather than a generic sitcom starring Bugs.

 

[Vyse Inglebard]

https://archive.ph/nBdTb

Bob Miller: What persuaded Warner Bros. to actually do something like this?

Peter Browngardt: In Hollywood a lot of times you get pigeonholed into certain things. Like they’ll look at Looney Tunes and they’ll go, ‘Well that only works for a short form’ or ‘That only works if you have a star basketball player and you make it an ensemble cast.’ They don’t think that it has the sort of legs to hold up a story, but I didn’t feel that way and I don’t think Alex feels that way, and Sam Register and a few others at the studio felt that way. And we were fortunate enough to pitch this Porky and Daffy sci-fi comedy adventure film and and make it to this point. It’s really wild to think that it took this long but hopefully it starts a trend where you can get some more classic cartoon character feature films. They’ve done a few and other studios have done some, but this one’s unique to Warner Bros.

Alex Kirwan: Warner Bros. had asked Pete and I to oversee a series of shorts previous to this [Looney Tunes Cartoons]. We made what, 200 Looney Tunes shorts? And they were incredibly fun to make and they were received well. And I think that helped give Warner Bros. the confidence that we knew these characters and had gotten their chops up a little bit with the property. And so they saw the potential in the future.

Browngardt: [Sam Register] came to me and asked if I had any ideas for a film. I came back with basically the seed of this.

Miller: It was originally meant to present on Max, correct?

Browngardt: Correct, we got greenlit through Max, yes. And then, like most businesses, they go through ups and downs and we had a wild journey to getting to this point, but we got here and very happy to do so. And I believe we got here not only because the cost of the film wasn’t egregious, but also I feel like we made a good material and the film was coming out well. And I think we had a great team of people working on it.

wait...how much did it cost to make, anyway?

Miller: It’s been reported that this was done for a budget of $15 million.

......HOW?!

Browngardt: There’s a couple of reasons why I think we were smart economically with this film. Alex and I talked about the fact that we had a team, the right people in place. We didn’t have to redo stuff a thousand times and search and build and train and all these things to do. Sometimes you’re creating something of this caliber; Looney Tunes is highest caliber, in my opinion. So we already had the experience of making the shorts. We created a production model that get maxes out quality but lessens cost. We did character layouts to ensure that we didn’t have to redo scenes. We made the animators use the character layouts so we knew what kind of drawings we were gonna see on the screen. Things like that. A little bit more time upfront pays off in the back end in a lot of ways when you’re making these type of things. And we worked with several overseas studios and that does cut costs. We proudly animated some minutes here in the States, but most of the film was made in Canada or the Philippines.

Kirwan: I think we also felt strongly the stars of this movie are Porky Pig and Daffy Duck. It didn’t seem necessary to load this up with big name celebrities to try to boost it up. These characters have been around for like 90 years. They should be the draw onto themselves. They are the celebrities.

Browngardt: We only had to pay one voice actor [Eric Bauza for the leads]. So they shave in at least one paycheck.

.....oh. makes sense.

Miller: Why choose Clampett style —or I notice a little bit of John Kricfalusi influence too—but why choose that as opposed to a Chuck Jones or a Tex Avery or a Bob McKimson-type approach?

Browngardt: Tex Avery is definitely in there for me just because he left the studio in the early ‘40s. But Clampett particularly had it all: the energy, progressing the art form, the way he drew it, the way his crew did it, the animation, unpredictable and off-the-wall. The least conservative as possible version of Looney Tunes.

Clampett is a sort of a child of Avery. He was on the Avery unit. He learned from Avery. It all comes from Tex Avery in my opinion, all of it. I think the whole tone of Looney Tunes is his hymn. When he came to the studio it all changed. Everyone followed his lead. Even Freleng was influenced greatly by Tex in where the brand was going. But yeah, they’re like candy, Clampett cartoons. Just want to take a bite of them. They’re just gorgeous.

Kirwan: To be clear, we love all of it. We love all the directors.

Browngardt: Yes. Absolutely. Yeah.

Kirwan: But there is something about those mid-40s Clampett cartoons. They’re so manic, they’re so zany, they’re so high energy, they’re so pushed, and they’re all different from each other and you don’t know where they’re going to go. They’re the looniest of the Looney Tunes. And certainly we love Jones. It seemed like at a certain point in the world when they thought of Looney Tunes, they thought of these later Chuck Jones cartoons, which is great. But we really thought it was important to remind people that Looney Tunes was more than just that there were other flavors in there that were really great. And to your point about John Kricfalusi, I think he’d be the first to tell you that Bob Clampett is probably his biggest influence. I think we’re drawing from the same well there.

Browngardt: Stimpy literally has the Clampett nose.

Miller: What’s next for you guys?

Kirwan: I’m gonna hold my cards close to my chest.

Browngardt: I’m allowed to say it. I’m working on a Aardman project with Pokémon.

 

[Endless Torment]

I get that Looney Tunes 2010 probably wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but I remember enjoying it as a kid. I vaguely remember one episode where Daffy was put on a blind date with Granny. Her idea of a date was cleaning the attic while telling him a story. Specifically how she was a spy in World War II, keeping the Nazis from stealing valuable artwork as they were being driven out of Paris by the Allies. Tweety was there too, he saved her life. Also refused to tell Sylvester how old he is.
I now want to try and find that episode again.

Episode is called Eligible Bachelors.

Most fans would say that the show doesn’t really get an identity till mid season 1, and especially season 2. By then, the zany-ness and absurd situations begin to come out more and the writing in general seems to be a better blend of Seinfeld and Looney Tunes rather than a generic sitcom starring Bugs.

I would watch it in the background after highschool and I didn't like it much at all at first, but as you said it did eventually become good. The first half kind of sucked and then you got stuff like the WW2 Granny flashback and this music video of Daffy.

 

[A Grey Cat]

The trailer (if it was even still shown in theaters) truly didn't do it justice.

Advertising has apparently been non-existent. Wouldn't be surprised if WB sent it out to die.

Many have compared this to when the likes of iron giant and cats don't dance were released in 97 and 99 by Warner who back then had so little faith in those films they barely marketed them. It was only after people began to appreciate them that they gave them the recognition they deserved.


Particularly with iron giant. As some old dogs among this place may remember cartoon network used to air that movie on loop for 24 hours every Thanksgiving.


You'd think 30 odd years and the development of social media would save day the earth blew up from a similar fate but like life itself, Warner found a way.

 

[Vyse Inglebard]

You'd think 30 odd years and the development of social media would save day the earth blew up from a similar fate but like life itself, Warner found a way.