Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Looney Tunes Cartoons’ On HBO Max, Where The Classic Warner Bros. Characters Star In New Retro Cartoon Shorts

The idea behind this newest series of Looney Tunes Cartoons debuting on HBO Max on May 27 is that the classic Warner Bros. characters go back to their roots in the 1930s and 40s, in cartoons that are mostly physical gag-driven, akin to the very early Tex Avery days at the animation studio. Each episode contains a six-minute short, a one-minute interstitial, and a five-minute short. Will they fit in with the classics from WB’s early days?

LOONEY TUNES CARTOONS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: The traditional Looney Tunes opening, with the colored rings and the classic Warner Bros. logo. The first cartoon in the first episode is “Curse of the Monkeybird.”

The Gist: In “Curse of the Monkeybird,” Porky Pig (Bob Bergen) and Daffy Duck (Eric Bauza) go in search of treasure in an ancient temple. Daffy is so clueless that he trips one trap after another, basically putting Porky in a body cast. But Porky shakes it off, and before they can get the treasure, they run into the massive Monkeybird (Fred Tatasciore), whom the two of them trick into getting engaged to and marrying Daffy. They get the treasure, but they find out what the real curse is at the end.

After a one-minute short where Marvin The Martian (Bauza) deflates a planet, we get the short “Harm Wrestling,” where Yosemite Sam (Tatasciore) is the best arm wrestler in the entire West. But when Bugs Bunny (Bauza) takes a wrong turn into Sam’s saloon, Sam challenges him to a match. Of course, Bugs does everything he can to get the best of Sam, including tickles and not waiting for him to say go. But when Sam finally thinks he has Bugs dead to rights. Bugs pulls some TNT out of nowhere to get the upper-hand (pun intended).

Our Take: Just like the original Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons (which became interchangeable titles soon after Avery left WB), the visuals and sensibilities are closely related to the episode’s director. Here, the directors are Peter Browngardt (Steven Universe) and Kenny Pittenger (SpongeBob Squarepants), and it feels like there are definitely different sensibilities at play in each short. We just wish that some of the snarkier, multilevel humor of the original series was in place, rather than just a series of bug eye gags and scenes of heavy items falling on the characters.

We do appreciate that the animators decided to bring the classic characters back to their early looks: Elmer Fudd (Jeff Bergman) has a red nose, Bugs has yellow gloves, Sylvester (Bergman) has yellow eyes and a larger mouth. The visuals are all of that rich style that defined those ’30s and ’40s color cartoons, which does help put us in the state of mind to consider these cartoons along with those classics from the studio’s early animation days.

But that might be the problem. Those early days, while revolutionary in terms of visual storytelling, were still raw compared to the Chuck Jones / Bob Clampett / Bob McKimson days that stretched from the mid-’40s to the late-’50s. Sure, there were still visual gags and anvils falling on characters, but the recurring characters themselves were deeper, with more complicated motivations for their actions. Bugs Bunny proved that you can make a beloved character that’s sneaky in a good way, and that revolutionized how the rest of the group was created.

Daffy made an especially stark transformation, from the simplistic silly and goofy bird that bounced around and went “whoo hoo!” to the devious duck that tries to outsmart Bugs and/or tries to make a quick buck. Unfortunately, the early Daffy is what we see here, who isn’t nearly as interesting as the Daffy we all know and love. Even the Bugs cartoons we saw — one with Gossamer! — felt more derivative of what’s gone before it than something combining the old and new. The Bugs stuff elicited a chuckle or two, but almost all of what we saw in the three episodes provided to critics felt overstuffed, cramming in as many sight gags as possible at the sacrifice of everything else.

What Age Group Is This For?: Probably 8 and up, given the cartoon violence endemic in Looney Tunes shorts, even ones produced by 2020 standards.

Parting Shot: After blowing up Yosemite Sam real good, Bugs says, “Confidentially, folks, this ain’t my first rodeo,” and holds up an “Arm Wrestling Champion 1964” certificate.

Sleeper Star: Considering all the people it takes to voice these classic characters these days, it makes it even more miraculous that Mel Blanc basically voiced all the major characters for decades.

Most Pilot-y Line: The gag of putting male characters in dresses is questionable in 2020, but we give the producers credit for going for it. It gave us the sight of Porky in a pink dress going “Always a bridesmaid, never a bride.”

Our Call: STREAM IT. The new Looney Tunes Cartoons will be fun to see with your (older!) kids, but they’ll just make you want to cue up a video of a classic like “What’s Opera, Doc?” or “Rabbit Seasoning” to show your kids just how much better the original ones were.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company.com, RollingStone.com, Billboard and elsewhere.

Stream Looney Tunes Cartoons On HBO Max