6/10
OK, but Sander Schwartz has got to go!
2 December 2006
I rented this movie today. I thought it was OK, but the main problem was the company that produced it. Warner Bros. Animation hasn't been the same since 2002, when Sander Schwartz took over and ruined everything. The company mostly focused on cartoons featuring the DC superheroes ("Justice League Unlimited," "Teen Titans," "The Batman"), crude Flash-style cartoons that try to bring in humor ("Mucha Lucha," "Xiaolin Showdown"), and some other action shows. They also tried taking over production on Scooby-Doo, and totally killed the magic of the show with changing the voices and sound effects and animation style ("What's New, Scooby-Doo?," "Shaggy and Scooby-Doo Get a Clue," "Aloha Scooby-Doo"), and also completely changed Tom and Jerry (with "Tom and Jerry Tales," which looks even worse than the Gene Deitch and Chuck Jones T&J cartoons!). Despite turning out all this mediocre product, the studio tried a couple of times to produce Looney Tunes cartoons in the old spirit, with poor-quality shorts like "Museum Scream," "Hare and Loathing in Las Vegas," etc., and ultimately, "Looney Tunes: Back in Action." But when the latter flopped at box-office (hey, it was a bad idea, "Finding Nemo" was poisoning the other animated flicks of that year!), the future of Looney Tunes was at stake. Termite Terrace churned out "Baby Looney Tunes," "Duck Dodgers" and "Loonatics Unleashed," which are NOWHERE near the quality of the classics, even nowhere near the quality of the cheap late 1960s Warner-Seven Arts cartoons! This current addition to the Looney Tunes filmography, "Bah Humduck!," is the latest attempt by Warner Bros. Animation to do a Looney Tunes cartoon. The current staff at the animation department had no or barely enough experience with the classic (but near-obscure) Warner Bros. cartoon characters. Gossamer and Marvin the Martian and Hubie and Bertie and a few others are poorly drawn here, and the music is NO MATCH for Carl Stalling (or even Milt Franklyn.) Heck, even Bill Lava could do better music than that. If they wanted Carl Stalling-style, they could've hired Steven Bernstein, music composer for "Animaniacs" and "Pinky and the Brain," as well as the 1994 Animaniacs-esquire Hanna-Barbera special, "Arabian Nights." Also, Wile E. Coyote is always treated like that he is always silent or deaf or doesn't know how to talk, and that he can only use signs. I know Wile E. Coyote. He talked a couple of times. And you know what? I actually LIKED his voice! Mel Blanc gave him a great British-sounding voice that matched really well with him. But alas, Mel Blanc has gone, but there are many others out there. They could've hired Kevin Michael Richardson, whom voices Tech E. Coyote (who, unfortunately, sounds NOTHING like Wile E. Coyote!) Also, Billy West does a good Elmer, but a bad Bugs Bunny! I LOVE Billy West's Fry from "Futurama," as well as his Stimpy (but his Ren wasn't the best Ren voice though). Speedy Gonzales's voice is also really bad, too. He is designed in the same style as you see on most merchandising. The best Speedy Gonzales design out there was the 1955-1967 Speedy.

But anyways, it shows that the Looney Tunes are still struggling to make it into today's culture. If they do, and the quality improves or Sander Schwartz leaves the studio, it could lead into a Looney Tunes renaissance!
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