The screen goes dark briefly and an uplifting jig like version of The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down starts to play as you see an icon orange backdrop with the words Merry Melodies appear on the screen. And just like that you are having a flashback to watching the intro to one of your favourite Looney Tunes cartoons. From the Barber of Saville to Duck Amuck there is something that gets triggered in your brain for about every 5 minute short that a feel good Pixar clip can’t reproduce. But now you get to live that again as for the first time in decades a new Looney Tunes feature film hits cinemas with The Day the Earth Blew Up.
If you like cartoons there are certain pieces of media that are part of your DNA, they are so fundamental that calling them iconic seems like a downgrade as they go well past that. While Disney has it’s stable of Mickey and Friends for most of the world it was the Looney Tunes who were our first cartoon loves (and not in that way where Bugs Bunny would put on a dress and a wig and pretend to be girl bunny, Garth). Now in a world where some films we can’t name might never see the light of day the constellations have aligned for a feature length Daffy Duck and Porky Pig film to grace the big screen.
The Day the Earth Blew Up is more than just a regular Bugs Bunny movie which were more often than not a series of shorter cartoons stuck together with some extra animation storytelling glue but rather a complete and full tale (well 1 hour and 31 minutes of one, which is pretty long). No 3D animation here, or even that 2D/3D mixing thing that was popular in the late 90s animation films, this is the stuff that would make Fritz Freleng proud.
The storyline goes like this, after a quick montage of Porky and Daffy growing up together we fast forward to the pair being home owners as the farm they grew up on is slowly converted to suburbia around them. Now subject to the whims of the Home Owners Authority Inspector the pair are told they have 10 days to fix their roof before their home is condemned – the hole in their roof obviously being created from a crashing asteroid dripping with alien goo with sinister intents.
One small interlude later (which does psych you out in thinking that you might be getting a collection of short cartoons stuck together) the pair find themselves part of the workforce as they aim to raise money to fix their roof and stuck in the middle of a They Came from Outer Space situation.
While it might be easy to say that this is simple 2D hand drawn style animation the film itself is actually quite gorgeous in places in reproducing the original Looney Tunes ascetics with 2D animation and the occasionally overly detailed hand painted static character and even bordering into some Fleischer Superman serial with the invading alien threat. Even without the story and humour which remains consistent and engaging throughout the entire film our nostalgia would have us drawn to watching this like we were in a time machine.
So should you go see it? In short – yes. While we have no problems with Mr Jordan we very much would love to see a resurgence of this style of animation and films especially if they can be done to this level of quality. While still a Looney Tunes level of story and plot, it managed to do so and keep at that level for the aforementioned hour and a half. Even if you do not have anyone under the age of 6 to take to watch it this is made for anyone who ever watched enough Bugs Bunny cartoons to gain an appreciation for classical music.
Looney Tunes: The Day the Earth Blew Up is in cinemas across Australia from March 27
