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Feb. 18th, 2005 08:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
unbibiumI keep seeing links to Loonatics, another re-imagining of Looney Tunes.
In the late 80's, every cartoon that had ever been popular had a "babies" or "and son" version. There was Muppet Babies, Popeye & Son, Flintstone Kids... so Warner Brothers invented Tiny Toon Adventures. And it was actually pretty good -- they made characters based on the old WB menagerie, but vaguely teen-aged, and for the first time, a substantial quotient of female characters. And they mapped very well into the social setting of junior high school. And there were occasional cameos by original WB characters, who were still well-known to kids at the time, because Bugs Bunny cartoons were on more channels than Disney cartoons. Mickey who?
Then one day I was flipping channels and saw a superdeformed Bugs Bunny. He was talking to a superdeformed Lola Bunny, whose Looney Tunes résumé consists entirely of Space Jam, in which she had no purpose but to be the Token Chick. And I looked at the channel guide, and lo, they had made "Baby Looney Tunes". Yes, even though WB already did this WAY better with Tiny Toons, they decided to explore what it would be like if Hanna Barbera owned Bugs Bunny back in 1988. I didn't give it much of a chance; I already watch Fairly Odd Parents every month or so, that's enough cartoons for me most of the time.
And now all the blogs are abuzz about Loonatics.
Hey, this is what happens when copyrights last more than 50 years, and corporations get to capitalize on characters created before they were born. If you're lucky, they'll do something cool with it. But eventually, they'll ruin it. It took even less time for Paramount to ruin Star Trek.
I'm sure that if all the copyright extensions since 1980 never passed Congress, Bugs Bunny would have fallen into public domain, and immediately become a Disney feature film.
Bugs Bunny talked like he was from 1930's Brooklyn. I saw the trailer, and Buzz Bunny talks like a voice actor trying to evoke Bruce Willis. He ends up sounding like Stinkoman. 20X6!
In the late 80's, every cartoon that had ever been popular had a "babies" or "and son" version. There was Muppet Babies, Popeye & Son, Flintstone Kids... so Warner Brothers invented Tiny Toon Adventures. And it was actually pretty good -- they made characters based on the old WB menagerie, but vaguely teen-aged, and for the first time, a substantial quotient of female characters. And they mapped very well into the social setting of junior high school. And there were occasional cameos by original WB characters, who were still well-known to kids at the time, because Bugs Bunny cartoons were on more channels than Disney cartoons. Mickey who?
Then one day I was flipping channels and saw a superdeformed Bugs Bunny. He was talking to a superdeformed Lola Bunny, whose Looney Tunes résumé consists entirely of Space Jam, in which she had no purpose but to be the Token Chick. And I looked at the channel guide, and lo, they had made "Baby Looney Tunes". Yes, even though WB already did this WAY better with Tiny Toons, they decided to explore what it would be like if Hanna Barbera owned Bugs Bunny back in 1988. I didn't give it much of a chance; I already watch Fairly Odd Parents every month or so, that's enough cartoons for me most of the time.
And now all the blogs are abuzz about Loonatics.
Hey, this is what happens when copyrights last more than 50 years, and corporations get to capitalize on characters created before they were born. If you're lucky, they'll do something cool with it. But eventually, they'll ruin it. It took even less time for Paramount to ruin Star Trek.
I'm sure that if all the copyright extensions since 1980 never passed Congress, Bugs Bunny would have fallen into public domain, and immediately become a Disney feature film.
Bugs Bunny talked like he was from 1930's Brooklyn. I saw the trailer, and Buzz Bunny talks like a voice actor trying to evoke Bruce Willis. He ends up sounding like Stinkoman. 20X6!
