After 80 years together, Elmer Fudd and his shotgun have parted ways. The separation was confirmed to the New York Times by Peter Browngardt, the executive producer and showrunner of Looney Tunes Cartoons, HBO Max’s new reboot of the classic Warner Bros. cartoon series. Though some might take this divorce as a sign that love is officially dead, Elmer Fudd still has plenty of other deadly weapons to cavort around with in his never ending pursuit of that wascally wabbit, Bugs Bunny. In fact, long before the split was made public, Mr. Fudd had been spotted shamelessly embracing a variety of weapons in public—none of which resembled his precious gun: an axe, a spear, and multiple sticks of dynamite. That old dude is gonna be just fine.
And he’s not the only one—the new Looney Tunes will not feature any guns, which means Yosemite Sam is about to go full-time with his fiery little Acme side pieces. “We’re not doing guns,” said Browngardt. “But we can do cartoony violence—TNT, the Acme stuff. All that was kind of grandfathered in.” For those curious about what a Looney Tunes cartoon with a gun-less Elmer Fudd might look like, the new short “Dynamite Dance” does a pretty good job of proving it doesn’t fucking matter—and anyone pissed off about Elmer Fudd going gun-less clearly never paid attention to the original series run anyway.
We don’t know about the rest of you, but seeing that little bald guy run around with a scythe twice his size is infinitely more hilarious than watching him stalk a cartoon rabbit with a shotgun. P.S. the second amendment doesn’t apply to cartoon people. Bye!