The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie (2025)

[Mike Blakesley]

Well, the Looney Tunes are among my favorite things on this earth, specifically the eras of Chuck Jones, Friz Freling and Robert McKimson in the 1940s and 1950s. There are other directors (Bob Clampett especially) that have their fans. But the era mentioned is what I grew up watching on Saturday morning cartoons, so as awesome as the older shorts are to some people, those TV-era ones will always be "the best" to me.

What made the Looney Tunes great is the fact that they were made for adults, not kids. And there you have the problem with this new movie, and virtually every other Looney Tunes enterprise that's come along in the last 30 years. They started making them for kids, or "families," whatever that is these days. Instead of relying on cleverness and subtlety, they have gone all in on wackyness. They lost sight of what made the Looney Tunes special; it wasn't the looneyness, it was the writing and the animation.

So now we have this new movie, in which Porky Pig and Daffy Duck have to save, you guessed it, THE WORLD! (It's always the world these days, unless it's the universe.) I haven't seen this new movie yet but I've seen the trailer a few times and from that evidence, it looks like it's going to be a maniacal mess. Besides the trailer, you can take as further evidence the fact that it is not distributed by Warner Bros., but by a teeny company I've never heard of before called Ketchup Entertainment.

I really really hope I'm wrong -- the trailer has some review quotes in it that are quite heaping of the praises. So I'll reserve final judgement until after seeing the movie. But, either the trailer is the worst trailer ever or the movie is going to suck.

[Ryan Gallagher]

I feel ya, I was a tot when "The Muppet Show" was in a popular evening slot. Kids certainly stayed up and watched it with family, but it was really cleverly aimed at adults. Same could be said for the Simpsons which came out a little bit later in my life. All the best kids shows were of this nature to some extent.

Having said that, I looked it up and Muppets went off air when I was 4. Either I have very strong memories as a 4 year old or it is the syndicated reruns I am remembering. That or I definitely remember Muppet Babies, so maybe that is what prompted parents sharing original Muppets with me?

It is somewhat telling of the times though, households may have only had a single TV, and it was the parents that controlled what to watch in the most desired slots, if you wanted to occupy that slot you had better make it something adults enjoy too. Nowadays there is no such pressure, kids can watch whatever age appropriate drivel (and rot their little brains) hiding in a corner with a tablet, only parents with enough time and care will somewhat curate based on their own opinions of quality and watchability.

[Ed Gordon]

The Hays Code came just when the animation art form was reaching new peaks of technological sophistication. However, it is only partially responsible for the notion that cartoons are for kids – television is also to blame.

In the early 1950s and 1960s, the voracious need for content in television saw old film shorts originally intended for general audiences repurposed for broadcast during children’s programming hours. This practice went on for decades, ensuring pop-culture iconic status for Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny and others.

The quote is from an article, Cartoons have always been for adults but here’s how they got tangled up with kids

During the jazz age, animation studios were often staffed by young animators barely out of their teens. This may explain the often juvenile, but hardly innocent, humor in early cartoons. Many of them featured scantily clad women and substance use....

At the same time, Hollywood was drawing public outrage over salacious scandals both on and off screen. This led to the 1934 Hays Code, a set of moral guidelines that governed film productions until 1968.

...Hardest hit was New York City’s Fleischer Studios, the adult-themed rough-edged city rival to rural California’s clean Walt Disney Studios. The Hays Code forced Fleischer to sanitize its most famous character, Betty Boop from a flapper sex symbol to a milquetoast schoolmarm.

The article includes Betty Boop cartoons before and after the Hays Code which might explain Betty Boop's change, but not the change in focus of cartoons from general audiences to children on Television.

In 1959 Rocky and Bullwinkle debuted on TV

Rocky and Bullwinkle was originally targeted at adults, even though it became popular with children. The creators, Jay Ward and Alex Anderson, used clever wordplay, satire, and political humor that went over many young viewers’ heads. Source: IMDb

Rocky and Bullwinkle was a brilliant blend of slapstick humor and clever satire aimed at both kids and adults. The series followed Rocky, a flying squirrel, and Bullwinkle, a dim-witted moose, as they thwarted villains like Boris Badenov and Natasha Fatale. The show often broke the fourth wall and incorporated political and social satire, making it stand out from other children’s cartoons. Though not initially a commercial success, its reputation grew over time, and Rocky and Bullwinkle became a cult classic known for its sharp humor and timeless charm.

From: https://historycollection.com/30-cla...n-1920s-1990s/

So why was Rocky and Bullwinkle, a cartoon that appealed to adults and kids, not as popular as those cartoons that appealed to kids only?

[Tony Bandiera Jr]

<snip> So why was Rocky and Bullwinkle, a cartoon that appealed to adults and kids, not as popular as those cartoons that appealed to kids only?

I think for the same reason a lot of the movies churned out lately are doing badly.....R&B was constantly in your face and often about as subtle as a sledgehammer. Bugs Bunny, et al, tended to more subtle uses of wordplay and humor which always has a broader appeal. Kinda like how the classic Bond films were still action packed, but the dialog and plot points were presented in a subtle, "you figure it out" way. (And one must not forget the classic "North By Northwest" which moves along quite nicely but is somewhat sophisticated.)

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

For those that love Looney Tunes, the best way to see them is accompanied by a full Symphony Orchestra. This would be as close as one can get to being on the scoring stage at Warner Brothers when the cartoons were originally made. I got to attend a presentation in Salt Lake City back around 2000. In that case, The Utah Symphony accompanied the cartoons, projected from film, at Abravanel Hall. Well, they started doing this again back about 2010. It uses the same conductor in each city unlike the original tour. But it does show they are still using mainly the classic Looney Tunes, and a few of the newer Tunes. It's going to be here in Nashville in June, so I will definitely attend it...The schedule, and the cartoons presented are at the link.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Moderator, please remove post

[Mike Blakesley]

The original Looney Tunes didn't get enough credit for their creative music. Carl Stalling and Milt Franklyn were both geniuses. The way they would weave popular songs, classics, and originals together, along with all the little touches to accompany the movements of the characters, is downright amazing. They were miles ahead of all the other studios in this.

The other part of the WB team from that era that gets no respect are the sound effects people. Treg Brown, sound efx guy, was another genius. Listen to any of Chuck Jones's Coyote/Road Runner cartoons. Just the sounds they used to accompany the Road Runner's actions are amazing, to say nothing of everything else.

This is a two-part, 15-minute short that tells about the Warner Bros sound efx work. If you're pressed for time, just watch part 2 (five minutes).

https://youtu.be/Xqaeds-wO4A?si=8fbNHS3mOgFBxTr3

https://youtu.be/x6IeTsHfcvU?si=EZqElOY6eheFydLN

[Mike Blakesley]

I forgot to mention the other curse that "The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie" has is, it has the word "Movie" in the title. No movie with that word in the title has ever been any good. (I suppose you could argue that that phrase is really not part of the title, but they sure are treating it like it is.)

Maybe that curse will be broken with the upcoming "A Minecraft Movie," but I am not holding my breath.

[Mike Blakesley]

Well, I watched this movie today with my wife. She said it was "OK," and I guess that's been my reaction too. Crowds to it so far have been lousy, which is sad, because people need to support family films if they want there to be more of them. The kids have been the biggest enjoyers of this movie, which confirms what I said in my original post above - this was made for kids, not even "families," but square at the kids.

Except in one way - they stuck in a lot of "Easter egg" type things to recall the old WB shorts for us old guys. Things like musical cues (you hear "The Merry Go Round Broke Down" at least once, and the "Powerhouse" melody shows up at least in the credits). The classic "theater audience guy walking in front of the screen" that shows up in a few of the classic toons makes an appearance here, too. Then there are names like "Tex" and "Clampett" that show up on billboards and signs, which is fitting because the styles of those two animators are the ones mostly used in this movie. The Chuck Joned/Friz Freleng influence will apparently be reserved for another time.

There are quite a few chuckle moments, and one or two laugh-out-loud scenes, which is more than I expected. (SPOILER) Near the beginning, there's a scene in which Daffy lays an egg, which would seem to be a biological impossibility because, you know, he's a dude. But it pays off with a great punchline later in the movie. (END SPOILER) There's a certain amount of "butt humor" which you would have never seen in the classic shorts, but hey, it's 2025, they had to make SOME concession to the modern era, I guess.

To me one of the biggest mistakes they made is not opening the movie with the usual Looney Tunes music. There's just a silent "Warner Bros. Animation" card. So the movie starts off on a bit of a letdown, which is not a good thing. The story begins with Porky and Daffy being adopted by a farmer, who curiously is not animated very much -- except in one moment when he tells our heroes to "always take care of your home" before disappearing off into the sunset. Beyond that, he's mostly a static figure except for his mouth, which is a choice I don't quite understand. Maybe it's to indicate that Porky and Daffy don't have much memory of him? I don't know. Somebody please clear this up if you can.

After the brief introductory bit in which P & D become orphans, the real story begins -- a meteor hits their house, leavingi behind some mysterious "green goop" around the hole. The house soon flunks a "home inspection" by a snotty city official, so they try to get jobs to raise money to repair the roof. This fails spectacularly, but they finally get jobs in a chewing gum factory. There, they find out that the green goop left behind by the meteor points to a plot by an alien mastermind, who plans to turn the whole world's population into gum-chewing zombies. So Porky and Daffy (aided by Petunia Pig) have to come up with a way to make people stop chewing the gum, which solution is a bit disgusting, but effective. There is a touching scene in which Pork and Daff both realize they've been loser goofballs their whole lives, and they have a bit of a "come to Jesus" moment, in which they realize that a happy ending here is really up to them and nobody else, and this motivates them to get on it. I've simplified it a lot, but you get the looney idea.

The plot is really pretty good, if a lot on the goofy side, and the animation is about as freeform as you'd want it to ever get. The fact that this is the first hand-drawn Looney Tunes feature film in history will likely be lost on a lot of people, which is too bad. The voices (both Porky and Daffy are done by the director) are spot-on compared to Mel Blanc's original voices. The music of course can't possibly hold a candle to the genius of Carl Stalling's scores on the classic toons. The sound mix is quite good, with an effective use of surrounds. You find yourself wishing that some other Tunes characters would make an appearance -- especially Marvin the Martian, maybe he could have saved the day using the Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator and saved everyone a lot of trouble.

I was left with an odd feeling about this movie. I liked all the little call-backs to the oldies, but I didn't really care for the animation and the over-the-top-crazy plot, but it was really built for fans of the era of Looney Tunes that happened before I became a fan. The reviews I've read have said that it does a good job of recapturing that era. So I'll take my 2-star opinion and average it out with the reviewers, and give it 3 stars out of five. If you're a Bob Clampett or Tex Avery fan, I think you will find a lot to like here. If you like Chuck Jones or Friz Freleng's shorts better, you might be put off.

That's all, folks!

[Mike Blakesley]

After a pretty good, if not spectacular weekend, this thing is falling off the cliff faster than Wile E. Coyote.

Last night we had 4 people, tonight we had one guy. No kids in the building at all since Sunday afternoon. Of course school being in session isn't helping the weeknights.

The more I see of this movie, the more I think of things they could have done with it. The bad space alien guy could have been Yosemite Sam, for instance -- although Sam never had much to do with Porky or Daffy, so it would be out of character for him.