Wednesday, December 28, 2011

The Looney Toons

Ramblings Post #174
Since the break, I'm watching a lot of TV. Well that and playing the bejeesus out of my game system. In fact, I have to remind myself to leave the house for an hour a day at this point. I mean, it's cold outside, and my house is warm, the food is close, the bathroom clean, and there is a movie coming one I haven't seen yet. There are no women here...major drawback. But I really don't like the cold.

I am not a big fan of cartoon remakes or reboots, or whatever you call them. The vast majority of them wash away the beloved memories leaving only the original hard shill sell we all conveniently suppressed. Now, I realize that you can do that with some cartoons, say the comic book based that have already been revamped a hundred times already. But some things should just be left alone.

At some point they rebooted Scooby Doo when I wasn't paying attention. Well, re-rebooted, because I'm certain the Harlem Globetrotters or Don Knotts weren't in the original 60's version. But they made the monsters real, snatching out the mystery element. It's a damn shame what they did to that dog. The revamped Tom and Jerry look cheap, I'm not sure what director thought starting over with Droopy was worth the investment, and the new Transformers (okay, I only saw the commercial) made me cringe. The commercial for the Thundercats looked like they might have put some thought into that one...so I'll let that one pass. For now.

But the things they have done to my Looney Tunes. I like the original looney tunes. I once posted Rabbit Season and Duck Season signs in my office. If they ever sell the box collection of June Bugs, the 24 hour Bugs Bunny marathon, I'm buying. The classic 40's and 50's stuff is classic, its like before writers got a taste of something cynical. They first tried a restart in the in the late 60's, but the images were shoddy. But those look like gold compared to some of the latest revamps...including the "babies" version they tried or the one where they turned them into something out of Tron.

So it was with much trepidation that I tried this new thing, on Cartoon Network now. The Looney Toons show.


It's actually....good. I guess it helps that the first set of Looney Toons weren't actually intended for kids. Just because they were cartoons people have forgotten they were originally filler for adult films. The new show isn't aimed at kids, unless kids are really interested in Bugs taking dancing lessons, Speedy Gonzales opening a pizza parlor or Daffy trying to run a corporation. It's semi sophisticated humor, more on a Seinfeld-esque bent than anything else. I found it watchable, which was a first for me and reboots.

Well, Duck Dodgers in the 24th and half Century wasn't all bad, but then I only caught like four or five episodes.

I can actually recommend this bit of foolishness. It's as though they actually let the writers write, instead of the usual Scriptomatic 5000 output that has driven the masses to reality television. And the less I say about reality television the better. Seriously.

Barkeep. Let me get a Carrot Martini.

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