General Looney Tunes / Assorted WB Animation (that isn't DC) Thread.

Regardless of what you think, part of the Looney Tunes fanbase felt alienated from the decision. And Le Bron James did them no favors.

Space Jam: A New Legacy, making Buster and Babs twin siblings in Tiny Toons, Tweety NF Ts, Coyote vs. ACME getting shelved.

Like with any fanbase, they deserve better. I admit that it is hard to update the Looney Tunes for modern times. I just feel that they take the easy way out and they never do the research. Unless there is a big Snyder Cut movement, this is just a rough time for the brand. They are as relevant as the Disney branded Muppets. No clear direction.

Edited by rwinger24 on Apr 19th 2024 at 6:15:19 AM

As for why Zaslav got more money…

The article explains it. WBD a while back changed the compensation package to be based on cash flow rather than stock price.

The 2023 strikes shut down a lot of productions, lowering costs. So cash flow increased.

The Snyder Cut is a bad comparison. WBD listened to social media outcry and released it. But it didn’t earn them anything. They blew $50 million on it for nothing.

Edited by M84 on Apr 19th 2024 at 9:14:27 PM

WB did not want this. That came from Jason Kilar and AT&T in a move to boost subscribers. Streaming was the rage during COVID. Now it’s not anymore. Things changed since Discovery reset the company.

As a genuine business strategy, you do not want to upset the customer. Coyote vs. ACME is in strong demand. I simply don’t get why they want to close the door just for short term gain. The Looney Tunes are historically important but executive meddling, trends and focus groups really got in the way.

I already said the Snyder Cut failed at that. It didn’t work to boost subscribers.

The problem is that social media outcry all too often is just Vocal Minority.

The Snyder Cut not working out is probably a big part of why WBD is not listening to the social media demanding they release Coyote vs. Acme.

Edited by M84 on Apr 19th 2024 at 9:28:54 PM

Compare it to how they responded to the Charles M. Blow article. That was not much Vocal Minority but risk aversion and damage control and that is why WB wanted to move away from anything considered problematic for modern audiences, especially if it is a French caricature of a skunk that has no boundaries.

With that aside, nothing appears to be changing. It's a broken system you need to rebuild and reset. These questionable choices will not stop unless there is a shakeup within the top. I think the DOJ should keep them on watch in relation to antitrust laws.

Pepe was overrated anyway. Tbh, the original shorts weren’t that great.

The best stuff with him was that parody of Casablanca, Carrotblanca.

Saying 'this character is not funny' is a troublesome thing on its own because if something is subjective, that is humor. Obviously someone was finding Pepe le Pew funny or they wouldn't have done so many shorts starring him.

The problem wih Looniversity is not making Buster and Babs twins, I believe. It's that the show... sits uneasily at a site where it's not that much of wacky comedy like Animaniacs 2020 but you can't take it seriously either. It is kind of nor fish nor fowl, and it feels... off. Much like Animaniacs 2020, it also ignored or underused too many former characters... and while those may have been 'unfavorites' to some degree, it doesn't feel like they replaced them with anything worthy either. For all its flaws Animaniacs 2020 feels like it is Animaniacs much better than Looniversity is Tiny Toon.

Animaniacs and Looniversity are both attempts to pander to nostalgia for fans of the old shows.

The problem with them is something that fundamentally can't be fixed — they aren't the old shows and never can be the old shows.

I feel like characters getting sidelined or restricting their original personalities is always a missed opportunity to allow proper updates that can inspire fans (unless you are Pete Browngardt). I remember awhile ago that you should not let an obscure character hover in the background unless you have something to do with him or her. It’s their prerogative whether they want to take risks or avoid it and play things safe.

Velma, Animaniacs 2020 and Looniversity were definitely not in my range, not my cup of tea per se in comparison to other iterations that actually know what they are doing even with executive meddling. Tiny Toons Looniversity really plays things safe and it’s more kid friendly than the original Tiny Toon Adventures. The original had variety and the format is changed up once a while as opposed to being a sitcom with predictable plot lines.

The only project I am looking forward to right now is “The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie” because I like the hook to it and it is a rare chance to see how two famous characters like Porky and Daffy can hold an entire movie on the big screen without cameos.

Edited by rwinger24 on Apr 19th 2024 at 10:14:40 AM

Looniversity doesn't try to be the old show, it's simply that the thing it is trying to be doesn't work all that well. It doesn't ape the original Tiny Toons when they were just rehashing Looney Tunes routines (those were the weakest episodes of the original, because as someone, perhaps Paul Dini, said, if you were watching a Tiny Toons remake of the Great Piggy Bank Robbery you'd just want to watch the original instead), but it takes inspiration from the mostly later episodes about teen life, but without getting what made those likable back then.

It had a noble purpose, but Animaniacs 2020 worked better despite just trying to ape the original without 75% of the original segments.

I mostly remember the Prom-ise her anything episode where Monty is made out to be a jackass because he rejects Elmyra's creepy advances. That one (bad), Plucky and Hamton stealing a candy bar (good), the unoriginal X Mas special (bad), an evil woman hunting a whale Green Aesop story (good), and the vacation movie (mixed) is what sticks out in my mind when I think of Tiny Toons. It was something I watched sometimes when scrolling through channels but didn't actively seek out enough to call myself a fan. Just an average 90s show with ups and downs.

The thing is if you are only focused solely on what the average 6-11 kid or what specific groups (females for example) want to see, as a result of executive interference and focus groups, you are bound to just getting the bare minimum.

Looniversity for some reason does not work because it is not focused on being funny. It is how Space Jam: A New Legacy failed at being funny. There is almost no satire or comedy but they only play things completely straight. It seems that they are more focused with making them positive role models or symbols of empowerment rather than being entertaining and or making the audience laugh.

In Prom-ise her Anything both sides were at fault, Max wasn't obliged to return Elmyra's affections but he was a jerk about her. Then again, we had lots of stories of Max being a jerk while Elmyra was just innocently toxic before that, so it's easy to feel for Elmyra.

Edited by TomWithoutJerry on Apr 20th 2024 at 9:09:20 AM

The original Tiny Toons at least had so much freedom with what to do with the characters. It’s the variety and unpredictability with the format that makes it stand out. Stories like “The Looney Beginning” and “Animaniacs!” or short segments that pay homage to the classic cartoons, spoof on pop culture, or one’s that put the Tiny Toons in real life situations any kid or teen went through.

With Looniversity, the landscape is just 10 episode seasons where everything is just safe and hollow. I see it as your basic kids sitcom. And even if they wanted the focus to highly point how capable and strong the females are including Lola Bunny, it just comes off as flat with no depth.

The Looney Tunes Show did the sitcom format too and I like what came out of that. Bugs and Daffy were the highlights and it gave every character you see a much needed update. Lola Bunny in this iteration was the funniest when you compare her to her Space Jam/Tiny Toons iterations where she is simply boring (she was written into the show at the last minute).

Looniversity's problem is that there are so few episodes. Tiny Toons had its fair share of poor to middling episodes, but there were a lot of episodes. And there were enough good ones among them to make up for the rest.

And tbh, Tiny Toons having bad follow up material isn't a new issue either. Anyone remember Pinky, Elmyra & the Brain?

Edited by M84 on Apr 23rd 2024 at 3:24:56 AM

That one kind of boggled the mind. Pinky and the Brain by themselves were great stuff.

I know they'd played with the idea of giving Elmyra her own show, with the Backdoor Pilot that was "Take Elmyra, Please!" from the second season of Tiny Toon Adventures.

The original Tiny Toons is so interesting because you can see how, in some ways, they're making a standard, if above-the-average cartoon for the era, and then they play with it and stretch things and see what they can get away with.

Edited by Robbery on Apr 22nd 2024 at 11:16:29 AM

Somebody at WB wanted to mess with the Pinky and the Brain formula after the original show bombed in primetime, and one of the things asked of the creative team was to add some new characters. Naturally, they parodied it in the "Pinky and the Brain and Larry" episode, and later on in Peter Hastings' final script, "You'll Never Eat Food Pellets In This Town Again"...

And, needless to say, somebody else at WB wanted to have Elmyra in a new show, so they combined her with Pinky and the Brain and voila...

Still, the show had its moments.

Plus it has one of the funniest intros I've ever seen.

That kind of assertion runs both ways, however. If the existence of multiple Pepe shorts shows that obviously someone found him funny at the time, than the lack of Pepe presence nowadays would imply its equally obvious that people don't find him funny any more.

And... well... yeah. Pepe's problem is ultimately that what people in general find amusing and acceptable is different now than what it was in 1950. He's not the first Looney Tunes character to be closed out because they just don't work any more.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Apr 23rd 2024 at 9:35:57 AM

Then we start edging towards whether the Looney Tunes as a whole are generally seen as funny anymore, since most attempts to pull them back in full force sort of fall under the radar. For all the good things about Looney Tunes Cartoons it seems to have failed to reach much of a cultural zeitgeist, and even things like Mickey Mouse 2013 and Duck Tales 2017 appear to have imprinted more on children and older cartoon fans alike.

Then there are things like Looniversity that, after a quick burst of controversy over the bunnies being able to kiss or not, slipped into 'no one really cares' territory.

Being widely popular is generally less important to the question of how well received something is, than whether or not the people enjoyed it in the fist place. If you judge whether something is still considered good by people based on whether it's a smash hit or becomes a household name, you'd be forced to discount like 80% of all media.

For most media, people watch and move on. Everything has its die hard fans, but most series don't explode in popularity no matter how could they are. And that's not even getting into how many intermingling factors there are in getting widespread recognition in the first place.

Like, for instance, Looney Tunes Cartoons didn't reach a wide audience, but it was largely beloved by the audience it did have.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Apr 23rd 2024 at 11:02:48 AM

Then, we went in two posts to how the point was audiences in general, as in , to the audience it has, and in .

Yes..? You changed the point, and thus changed the subject, and now we're talking about something different.

"Is the fact that people want to or don't want to continue writing a character indicative of whether they're considered funny" and "are shows still considered funny if they're not widely known" are two very different questions, and I treated them as such.

The only thing that links them is the overall question of "what makes something funny or not?" which is an extremely broad subject.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Apr 23rd 2024 at 11:44:22 AM

Could you please stop editing your post so much, I keep on having to edit and rethink my reply.

No.

Edit: I have no idea when you're going to respond, so if I need to edit my post to make what I'm trying to say clearer or more accurate, I'm going to do so.

I'm not going to stick with something I realize isn't quite what I'm trying to say, or I realize it too harsh, and so on, on the off chance someone is about to post response anywhere between a minute and an hour from now. Better to just edit the post now than complicate the conversation later.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Apr 23rd 2024 at 11:48:17 AM

Just today I noticed that Foghorn Leghorn has somehow become a new meme in only the past twenty-four hours.

You tell me whether people today still like Looney Tunes or not, or whether they think they're funny - I think it's obvious.

Edited by Aldo930 on Apr 23rd 2024 at 11:46:48 AM