Brain's Perculating

[Jeff Harris]

This is something I just don't understand.

Okay. Here goes.

In 1995, Time-Warner bought Turner Broadcasting for, let's say enough to buy a small chain of islands. Turner owns Cartoon Network, showcase of a lot of fine animated entertainment. Time-Warner owns, Warner Bros., creators of a lot of fine entertainment.

Warner Bros. Animation is a viable brand name, particularly with its stable of characters, including those that made up the popular Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies shorts. They are still in business.

People like Looney Tunes.

People like cartoons. Cartoon Network showcases a lot of new cartoons, especially on Fridays, where new shows and shorts begin.

You feel me knocking? Don't get ahead of me, I'm getting there.

WBA makes content. CN needs content. Cartoon Network regularly premieres new shorts every year.

My question is, where the heck are new Looney Tunes shorts?!?

Seriously, I don't get it. They'll bastardize the characters in movies like Space Jam, and postage stamps but they don't make new shorts like they used to. Animaniacs and Pinky and the Brain are good, but I'd like to see what these creators would have treated the tried and true characters of Termite Terrace. And I think Cartoon Network should showcase new shorts. Heck, I'd even like to see an incidential short similar to Feed the Kitty or From A to Zzzzzzz which don't feature familiar characters, but are funny to watch. The Cartoon Cartoon shorts are nice, but they lack the feel and fullness of a Warner Bros-made short.

It'd be nice to see a new Bugs Bunny cartoon every now and then, or even a retro-styled Daffy Duck short (you know, the nut rather than the greedy slob). It'd be a fresh breath, and it'd be cool as well.

I think.

What do you guys think?

[Calhoun07]

I was just thinking the same thing when I commented on another board how Warner Brothers would be foolish not to make new cartoons with Terry McGinnes as Batman Beyond. I thought of the Looney Tunes characters and thought the same thing, that they are foolish to not make new cartoons with those characters. Does anybody have an answer that would satisfy the fans?

[Psycho Fox]

Originally posted by calhoun07
Does anybody have an answer that would satisfy the fans? Uhhh I don't know maybe the execs are on drugs.

[Roman Legion]

Would it have been nice if WB could have continued to produce Looney Tunes shorts in the true spirit of the classics, in the 90's? Yes. Would it have worked if they tried? Doubtfull.

So maybe they *should* have tried...? I don't know. The unique conditions that led to those shorts weren't in place at WB anymore, and it's not really something you can force. I think "Space Jam" goes to show that the former Time-Warner corporation wasn't in the right spot to pull off what's suggested here at any level. Plus, you'd have execs messing with the creative process at every step. In the end, it's trading a bastardized movie for a batch of bastardized shorts; not much of an improvement.

Sacrificing the fruit of the Silver Age only messes things up even more, as if that had been the case, most of us probably wouldn't be here now to be discussing this. ;-)

Somewhere out there, some small animation studio must be capable of producing such cartoons... but would WB ever allow it?

Romey
--</pessimism>

[Psycho Fox]

Originally posted by Romey
Would it have been nice if WB could have continued to produce Looney Tunes shorts in the true spirit of the classics, in the 90's? Yes. Would it have worked if they tried? Doubtfull. Well if CN contracted WBA to do a few shorts for promotinal reasons ie put them in between shows and took the money out of their advertising budget then it might slide pass the execs and they simply ingore it thus as long as CN didn't stick its nose into too much in the creative decision it should come out fine.

Thus you have a few minute or minute and a half shorts that don't belong to a show.