Lots of buzz continues online over the new Loonatics cartoons. Everyone either loves ’em or … well, no, everyone hates ’em.
Some of the objections are on aesthetic grounds — the characters look funny, or scary. Others are on conceptual grounds — “edgy” stuff is dodgy business at best, and almost never something one can intentionally invoke.
But a lot of it has to do with the WB Looney Tunes franchise in general, and here there’s a lot less consensus. The main threads of thought:
- The Looney Tunes as they were in [fill in a date, probably mid-late 50s, in the Chuck Jones era] are perfect, and anything done with the franchise since then has only been an abomination. This is one more example. They should just keep rerunning those cartoons in perpetuity. That’s all well and good, but probably not much of a money-making opportunity for WB — and, aesthetic pleasure aside, WB is, in fact, a business.
- Same as above, but they should make new cartoons based on the Looney Tunes of [fill in the date]. Probably a non-starter. Retreads of classics rarely come anywhere near the original — and either the anachronisms we accept from fifty years of repeats would seem ludicrous, or updating them would draw the ire of the purists.
- Same as above, but they should try to create something new with the characters, like this. Supporters of the idea point to Tiny Toon Adventures as an example of how that can turn out. Purists shrink back in horror and point to Baby Looney Tunes as an example of how that can turn out.
- Time to move on and create new things, WB. Give some new creators a chance, not to mention some new concepts. I’ve been watching Animaniacs reruns with Kitten lately, and it’s amazing how ambitious that whole show was — a collection of dozens of new characters and setups, some really crazy concepts for individual episodes (or whole shows), and some marvelous results (albeit some that feel already dated). Probably not making WB much money these days, though, compared to the “classics.”
The problem is, it’s like the Star Trek franchise at Paramount: some folks want the original (or their “original”) back, some folks want it to evolve forward (though they want it done “right”), and still others think Star Trek should be retired permanently. Thus, anything Paramount does with the franchise is going to draw passionate fire.
Similarly, anything WB does with LT is going to be criticized. If they do nothing, they’re squandering a beloved (and profitable) property. If they do something that’s an evolution of it, it’s either trite or it’s untrue to the original spirit. If they do something radical, they alienate the fan base.
All that said? Loonatics looks pretty lame.
UPDATES: As opposed to Krypto, which may or may not be my cuppa, but has some apparent potential — derivative, without dragging the original down with it, at the very least. Though, again, not everyone agrees.