HBO Max Brings Back Bugs Bunny And The Looney Tunes Gang In Classic Style
by Rob Salkowitz
When HBO Max launches on May 27, it will feature a treat for fans of classic Warner Bros. animation: brand new animated shorts featuring Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig and the rest of the gang, reproduced so faithfully to the original style that they might have been discovered in a time capsule from Looney Tunes’ late 1940s heyday.
“This is a love letter, a passion project,” said showrunner Peter Browngardt (Uncle Grandpa), who pitched and developed the new series for WarnerMedia and is executive producing alongside Sam Register. “I grew up knowing these characters, the classic directors. And I thought, ‘why can’t we do that anymore?’”
The original Looney Tunes were short animated stories meant to play before feature films in movie theaters. Starting in the 1930s, Warner Bros Animation, headed by Leon Schlesinger, assembled a talented crew of animator/directors like Bob Clampett, Tex Avery, Robert McKimson, Fritz Freeling and Chuck Jones. They produced hundreds of classic cartoons packed with gags, slapstick, inside jokes, contemporary references, memorable characters and even a few tear-jerking moments, helped along by the voice talent of Mel Blanc and the music of Carl Stalling.
Over the years, animators often tried – and often failed – to “modernize” Looney Tunes for succeeding generations of kids. Browngardt didn’t see the point of tampering with perfection. “I thought, if it ain’t broke, why fix it? I just wanted to see more cartoons like they made in the late 40s and 50s, with that zany energy, done with as much production value as we can bring to it.”
He pitched his classic take to WarnerMedia executives and overcame any skepticism with some unusual market research. “I asked if we had ever focus-grouped the classic animation, and we never had. So we showed them to kids and their parents, without telling them they were 50, 60, 70 years old. They thought they were new. We showed them a bunch of stuff and it worked perfectly.”
Browngardt said that many of the kids, who were raised on cartoons more grounded in reality, couldn’t get enough of the surreal humor of the original Looney Tunes. “The kids couldn’t believe the stuff that was happening [like characters ignoring laws of physics and linear narrative] and of course, that’s what animation is for.” The parents – some of whom were raised in the era of Space Jam and other attempts to put the characters into more contemporary contexts, also reacted well to the classics, even the ones with relatively violent imagery.
Armed with data and a mandate from WarnerMedia to “do things with these characters in a big way,” Browngardt assembled a team of writers and animators with as much reverence for the originals as he had, including story editor Johnny Ryan and Art Director Aaron Spurgeon. The team was given an unusually free hand by the network, with no interference from the Standards and Practices group that typically polices content aimed at kids. “I kept waiting for them to pull me back and they didn’t,” said Browgardt. “Back in the old days, the only edict was make people laugh and stay on budget. It was kind of the same for us.”
The result is cartoons that capture the anarchic ambiance of the classics with uncanny precision. In one, Yosemite Sam pressures Bugs Bunny into an “arm-rasslin’ contest” and lives to regret it. In another, firefighters Porky Pig and Daffy Duck get waylaid trying to get out of their own firehouse. No overthinking the premise, no self-congratulatory irony, and definitely no product merchandising – all refreshing departures for kid-oriented animation in the 21st century.
The gags, the timing, the backgrounds, the voices, the music and the sheer wackiness have all come through intact. Bugs Bunny is the wisecracking trickster, running circles around the likes of Yosemite Sam or Gossimer the monster; Sylvester the cat is always scheming to catch the elusive Tweety Bird under the watchful eye of Granny. Other favorites like Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote, Foghorn Leghorn, Marin Marian and Petunia Pig are slated for appearances as well.
The real revelation in the series, though, are the Porky Pig and Daffy Duck episodes, which Browngardt admits are his own favorites. “I like the old Daffy, the nutty Daffy [as opposed to the scheming, indignant Daffy of the mid-1950s],” he said. “I’m really proud of what we did with him and Porky – that’s the most fun we had making them.”
The new series will include 80 eleven-minute episodes, each comprised of animated shorts that vary in length and include adapted storylines for today’s audience. Fans can also look forward to holiday-themed specials. Looney Tunes Cartoons is produced by Warner Bros. Animation and features a talented group of voice cast members including Eric Bauza, Jeff Bergman and Bob Bergen. Browngardt (Uncle Grandpa) and Sam Register (Teen Titans Go!) serve as executive producers.
Looney Tunes Cartoons will be available on HBO Max at on Day One, May 27, 2020.