Does the Name "Poochie" Mean Anything to You?

Jesse Walker | February 18, 2005

The creators of Loonatics, a forthcoming show for the WB, plan to "update" Bugs Bunny and four other Warner Bros. characters (along with Lola Bunny of Space Jam, who I guess I should call a Time Warner character) by projecting them 700 years into the future and giving them superpowers. The new toons are supposed to be descendants of Bugs and co. -- the leader of the pack will be called Buzz Bunny, because buzz is what it's all about, baby -- and they will look like this. Warner suit Sander Schwartz says the show will bring the franchise into "an age of technology, an age of hip, cool animation."

This news has provoked much outrage in the blogosphere. In the words of Jonah Goldberg:

If there's one issue which should mend the left-right divide on the web, this is it. Bang the war drums.

They...are...ruining Bugs Bunny!

To which I reply: Bugs Bunny went on life support in the '60s, when Warner Bros. directors like Robert McKimson and Alex Lovy proved shaky heirs to the characters developed by Chuck Jones, Tex Avery, and Bob Clampett. He died in the '70s, when he appeared in atrocious TV specials with "modern" soundtracks. His soul was suffering in Purgatory in the '90s, when some ersatz rabbit appeared under his name in Space Jam and those MCI commercials.

In other words, it's too late to ruin Bugs Bunny. The puckish pookah is as ruined as he's going to get. In 1991, Greg Ford and Terry Lennon made a brilliant short called Invasion of the Bunny Snatchers, in which -- I quote Jonathan Rosenbaum's review -- "malignant carrots from outer space are turning all the Warner Brothers cartoon characters into poorly and cheaply drawn replicas of their former selves." That about sums it up. (A similar theme animated Joe Dante's underrated Looney Tunes: Back in Action.) Fortunately, the original Bugs Bunny shorts of the '40s and '50s are still as funny as ever, despite the mostly mediocre stuff that followed them.

So while I'm sure this Loonatics show will be deeply moronic, at least it

1. isn't pretending that these are the same characters we all love, and

2. might be so bad that it'll give us something to gape at. Just as my generation spent years wondering if we hallucinated The Star Wars Holiday Special and that Superman vs. Muhammad Ali comic book, our children will have conversations 30 years from now about that weird show they think they remember, where Bugs Bunny and Wile E. Coyote lived in the future and looked like anorexic X-Men. "Did that really happen? Wait, you remember it too? Thank God, I was afraid I was going crazy..."

[Acknowledgements: I stole the "Time Warner character" line from Clark Stooksbury, who used it when he refused to watch Space Jam with me nine years ago. Also, I already know that "puckish pookah" is redundant, so there's no need to e-mail me about it.]

Comments

|2.19.05 @ 2:03PM|#

If there's one issue which should mend the left-right divide on the web, this is it. Bang the war drums.

Interesting, aren't liberals for change and conservatives for stuffy old traditions? How can this bridge that gap?

|2.19.05 @ 3:19PM|#

And remember, recycle...TO THE EXTREME!

|2.19.05 @ 6:06PM|#

Just to stick up for Robert McKimson for a minute, he directed some of the most beautiful and distinctive Loony Tunes from the late forties to the mid-fifties. The decline in the quality of his cartoons coincided with slashed budgets and the departure of people like Carl Stalling (the genius behind the music).

|2.19.05 @ 6:16PM|#

Ahhh... The Star Wars Holiday Special. I don't know which is more painful to witness: Carrie Fisher trying to sing, or Imperial Stormtroopers being outwitted by ART CARNNNNNEEEEY!

|2.19.05 @ 7:50PM|#

Nothing they do to Bugs, et al at this point could be any worse than the Tiny Toons.

|2.19.05 @ 7:58PM|#

Must Generation Y, or whatever they're calling themselves these days, ruin everything?

...They haven't even added a new style of music...they're like cultural vampires--let's hope they don't reproduce.

|2.19.05 @ 8:00PM|#

...On second thought, maybe their kids will rebel against them and add something to the canon!

Jesse Walker|2.19.05 @ 11:40PM|#

Fair enough, Les, but even his decent early work wasn't as good as Jones, Avery, Clampett, early Tashlin, or early Freleng.

|2.20.05 @ 3:15AM|#

Aw, who knows, maybe it'll be funny.

Rodney|2.20.05 @ 9:02AM|#

From youaredumb.net :

Here's something I want everyone on the Internet to drill into their thick fucking nerdskulls. We've ALL SEEN THE POOCHIE EPISODE. Every last one of us. We know. You don't have to scream "POOCHIE" every time someone is quoted as saying "edgy". Unless it's Kevin Nash**. Find a new comedy landmark already. It's been EIGHT YEARS. New rule. If you compare anything to Poochie (except Kevin Nash**), you have to grow a handlebar moustache and wear a bow tie. EVEN THE WOMEN. And you have to incorporate "dagnabbit" into every sentence.

**If you don't get this joke, you don't want to get this joke. Trust me.

Franklin Harris|2.20.05 @ 10:34AM|#

McKimson did direct one short that I regard as a classic, 1950's "What's Up, Doc?"

We're the boys of the chorus
We hope you liked our show
We know you're rootin' for us
But now we have to gooooooooooo!

Jesse Walker|2.20.05 @ 11:37AM|#

We've ALL SEEN THE POOCHIE EPISODE.

Silly me, alluding to something that people have seen. I guess they only make allusions to private family jokes over at youaredumb.net.

(But not if they're eight years old! 'Cause that's, like, forever.)

Dagnabbit.

Warren|2.20.05 @ 11:55AM|#

A little off topic -
I was raised by: Dr. Seuss (a.k.a. Theodore Geisel), Fred Rogers, Chuck Jones, and Jim Henson (The man was a god I tell you. Do you hear me? A GOD!)
I weep for the children of today. Who and what is molding them? Sponge bob, Power Puff, Play Station? Is there anything that can hold a candle to what I had, for the K-6 crowd today?

But there is JK Rowling and Lemony Snicket. Perhaps today's kids will grow up with a greater regard for literature (because it's the only crafted entertainment available) than we did.

|2.20.05 @ 2:45PM|#

Must Generation Y, or whatever they're calling themselves these days, ruin everything?

Hey pal, don't lay this at our feet. This whole episode smacks of Gen X and their deep and abiding love of a quick buck.;)

|2.20.05 @ 2:47PM|#

Jesse,

Granted, McKimson had many fewer great shorts, but the ones that are great (Gorilla My Dreams, Walky Talky Hawky) rank up there with the works of the more consistently impressive fellows you mentioned. But that's just me. I loved the way he made the characters gesture madly.

|2.20.05 @ 4:47PM|#

"My name is Elmer J. Fudd, Millionaire. I own a mansion and a yacht."

If there ever really was a Libertarian Film Festival, before the movie started, they should show "Rebel Rabbit" (1949) in which Bugs finds out that the government only pays 2 cents for capturing a rabbit. Just to show the government how dangerous a rabbit can be, Bugs goes on a full blown Anarchist rampage against the United States government.

Remember, "Bugs Bunny was Here!"

|2.20.05 @ 9:08PM|#

Nothing they do to Bugs, et al at this point could be any worse than the Tiny Toons.

Pfffft. Tiny Toons was quite good. Probably shouldn't have included the old WB characters, but the new characters were interesting, and a good bit of the writing was very funny. It wasn't nearly as good as Animaniacs, mind you, but it wasn't atrocious.

Maybe these guys are trying to do for Bugs & Co. what Batman Beyond did for Batman. It worked for the Batman universe, but somehow I don't think it will for the WB characters.

Franklin Harris|2.20.05 @ 9:21PM|#

There are several Bugs Bunny shorts with libertarian themes. Two that come to mind are the ones were he fights developers who want to pave over his hole to build a freeway and and office building, respectively. Bugs was no fan of eminent domain. There is also a nice short in which Sylvester inherits a lot of money, and Elmer Fudd tries to convince Sylvester to save it by explaining the capitalist system to him.

As for why Saturday morning cartoons suck now compared to when most of us were kids, it's mostly the government's fault. (See also: this golden oldie of mine.)

|2.20.05 @ 11:47PM|#

I'll second the support of Tiny Toons. I liked that one as a kid, and I had taste in cartoons.

Franklin Harris|2.21.05 @ 12:42AM|#

"Tiny Toons" was awful. Never mind that it was filled with anti-capitalist propaganda. (Montana Max rarely did anything to provoke Buster Bunny, but we were supposed to root against him anyway because he was rich.)

"Animaniacs" was hit-or-miss. The Animaniacs themselves were great, as were Pinky and the Brain. The rest... eh.

Now "Freakazoid" -- THAT was the best WB cartoon of the late '90s, and, of course, it only lasted one season.

|2.21.05 @ 2:00AM|#

My problem with "Tiny Toons" was that it suffered from a terminal case of the cutes.

|2.21.05 @ 9:44AM|#

Here's a really bad mid-'60s short: Bugs was a WWI flying ace facing off against Yosemite Sam, in a cartoon that, IIRC, also featured a poorly-voiced Elmer Fudd (Arthur Q. Bryan having passed on) and other out-of-place WB characters. Bill Lava likely did the (bad) music; artwork and jokes were horrendous. Even a ten-year-old kid could tell the quality was dropping off. Jones and Freleng had left the studio by then. Soon enough, Warners re-released 1930s black-and-whites -- badly-colorized -- and closed its cartoon unit. THAT was Bugs Bunny's low point.

Jesse Walker|2.21.05 @ 12:15PM|#

If there ever really was a Libertarian Film Festival, before the movie started, they should show "Rebel Rabbit" (1949) in which Bugs finds out that the government only pays 2 cents for capturing a rabbit.

The most libertarian Warner Bros. short would have to be the one where Daffy dodges the draft.

Franklin Harris|2.21.05 @ 2:02PM|#

The most libertarian Warner Bros. short would have to be the one where Daffy dodges the draft.

Well, now, I wouldn't say that.

|2.21.05 @ 2:40PM|#

Don't forget the classic one with the two mice, one a big city dweller, the other his old world bumpkin cousin, which told us of the glories of mass production and mass consumption. Also, Sylvester tries to eat them.

|2.22.05 @ 8:01AM|#

I second Jesse's point that the classic cartoons were already raped by the 70s (yeah, thanks Hanna-Barbara). For one, the "animation" was terrible. They used the same cells and sequences over and over, and many times only the mouths moved. Secondly, they sucked out all animosities and other dynamics that made the original characters interesting. The contemporary Tom and Jerry cartoons I grew up with had them as being FRIENDS! FRIENDS?! What the fuck?!

Again, thanks alot for making my childhood cartoons boring, fuckheads.