AUTHOR: David DATE: 2/20/2005 11:36:00 AM ----- BODY:

So Warner Brothers decides it wants to update the original line up of Looney Tunes characters to make them more appealing to the Teen Titans and Yu-Gi-Oh! generation. It might have been a good idea if they'd actually stuck to the basics of what the characters are about but to turn them into a bunch of whacked out, badly designed superheroes? Take a look at this trailer for the show and tell me...do you have any inclination to watch it?
Let me get this straight though...Warner wants a new cartoon series that is hip, funny (presumably), has great characters, and will appeal to kids of all ages...this sounds remarkably like what they had twelve years ago with the early episodes of the "Animaniacs". Notice I said the early episodes though. Towards the second season of the show the Animaniacs were starting to suffer from typical studio writing and seemed to have lost much of the originality and wit that made the first season so spectacular.
The Animaniacs had great writing, well developed characters (Wakko, Yakko, Dot, Pinky & The Brain, Buttons & Mindy, Goodfeathers, etc.) and, at least at first, well done animation. The plots were tight even if they were outrageous, innovative and sometimes wholly inappropriate for small kids, but in the end this was a show that was groundbreaking - presaging the ironic, sarcastic, intelligent shows that have flooded Cartoon Network, Nickolodeon, and Disney in the past few years.
The show was easily marketed, easily merchandisable, but for some reason it didn't have the staying power to last beyond a few seasons. That doesn't mean that the characters couldn't have been spun off into their own shows but for some reason after the mid-1990s the entire cast seems to have disappeared off the face of the cartoon universe.
My indignation and anger over this show isn't so much about how Warner is bastardizing the heritage of Bugs and friends by turning them into wisecracking, badly-wrought "anime-style" superheroes, as Amid over at Cartoon Brew suggests, it's that the same studio that brought us the remarkable Animaniacs is trying to shortcut its way to a succesful cartoon by riding on the familiarity we all have with these characters when in fact the new series has nothing at all to do with the orignal Warner cartoon stable. Why bother using the Bunny, Tasmanian Devil, Road Runner, connection at all except for outright economic reasons? They could just as well have come up with an entirely new group of characters and it would have made no difference to the final product. I mean, really, doesn't anyone else see a bad committe decision behind the name of the program, "Loonatics"? And is there more than a passing resemblance between Loonatics and Animaniacs? At least with the Animaniacs the titular characters, the Warner Brothers and Sister, were seriously maniacal. With the Loonatics it's just an unclever name to try and differentiate this program from all the other pablum that's being pushed on our kids nowadays.
Take a look again at the trailer. Then take a look at the group photo that's posted above. Notice how the characters aren't really animated at all? They just assume the same position the same time and use a cheap zoom to give the illusion of movement. Go get em Warner.

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