SNAPSHOT
Warner Bros. Animation is announcing its most ambitious Looney Tunes content initiative to date with Looney Tunes Cartoons, a series of new short-form cartoons starring the iconic and beloved Looney Tunes characters. With multiple artists employing a visual style that will resonate with fans, each “season” will produce 1,000 minutes of all-new Looney Tunes animation that will be distributed across multiple platforms – including digital, mobile and broadcast. (synopsis via Laughing Squid)
That’s not all folks!
In news sure to gladden the heart of cartoon shorts-loving fans everywhere, particularly those who, like me, enjoy the madcap, buffoonery and freneticism of Warner Bros.’ Looney Tunes, all-news short, sharp, and hilariously funny adventures from Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd, Daffy Duck et al are in the works.
Promising 200 new cartoons created the way their golden age predecessors were by cartoonists riffing on an idea, and letting the narrative flow from that, the Looney Tunes revival kicked off with “Dynamite Dance”, with the music “Dance of the Hours”, courtesy of Italian composer Amilcare Ponchielli, at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival in France (just concluding today) where a non-verbal Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd embark on an explosive dance that you just know Bugs is going to win. (Also shown were “Wet Cement” with Porky Pig and Daffy and “Mummy Dummy” with Bugs Bunny.)
It looks and feels just like the Looney Tunes of old, the result, notes executive producer Peter Browngardt, who, with supervising director Alex Kirwan, presented the short at Annecy, of their drawing first, writing second method.
“I feel like that is what made the classic Looney Tunes so fantastic. It wasn’t screenwriters. They were thinking completely visual all the time. I feel like the best cartoon animation comes from that process.” (Comicbook)
Twenty shorts are already in the bag, with a lot more to come, and though we only get a brief taste of the comedic anarchy in store from “Dynamite Dance”, it’s more than enough to reassure us that Looney Tunes is back, and back in spectacularly hilarious fashion.