You would think that a network devoted entirely to cartoons would have been able to find time for some classics – and now, finally, that’s true. The Cartoon Network is running a 30 minute daily Loony Tunes show. Check your listings (6:00 AM in my neighborhood.)
I picked one at random to Tivo, and struck gold: “Bully for Bugs” and “What’s Opera, Doc?” (plus a lame-ass Tweety & Sylvester. Two out of 3 ain’t bad.)
Since I consider Chuck Jones to be a National Treasure, I see this as a wonderful development.
Alas, but I think these showings of the classics are just a run-up to the premiere of the new Looney Tunes show. Of course I hope they do a good job with the new show, but… well, get the real thing while you can.
There’s also an hour-long segment at noon! Watching in the morning is very nice, but if you’re recording, go for the noon sets instead. All the morning titles are reappearing in the noon sets (on different days) with additional stuff.
Are the cartoons still edited to pieces? I was watching the Cartoon Network years and years ago and they had Bugs and Pete Puma and the joke is Bugs gives him tea and asks him “How many lumps”? Pete his thinking sugar lumps, while Bugs is thinking along the lines on lumps in the head from the mallet he has.
Pete says, “Give me lots, a lot of lumps” and Bugs wails on his head with the hammer.
But they edited this out and well basically the cartoon made no sense with all the edits.
When the cartoon network started, it was either entirely or at least nearly 24-7 Loony Toons. Thanks to this, outside of maybe a few ones which were completely racist, I’ve probably seen every single animation they ever made at least twice.
I always like to recommend that people try and track down some Screwy Squirrel episodes.
I dearly love the classic Looneys, hate to run down the franchise in any way.
But the people who own the rights now seem to have no understanding of what made the Termite Terrace studio work great. This, for example, is… not encouraging.
There have been a small handful of not-appalling LT interpretations since the end of the classic era. The actual character drawings in this iteration are not the worst ever seen. It is pathetic that that’s the best I can say at the moment.
Watch the good old stuff when you can. Buy a Golden Collection or three if you haven’t already. Those are the best presentations since the original theater runs. (Vol. 6 includes a revelatory survey of the World War II cartoons. Vols. 1-2 have the largest number of the best-known titles, but it’s all great, great stuff.)
