New Warner Bros. Bugs Bunny short evokes the greatness of classic Looney Tunes
As a rule, reboots usually pale next to the original productions that inspired them. Which is what makes this new Warner Bros. short starring eternal adversaries Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd such a goddamn delight, as it absolutely evokes the greatness of the classic Looney Tunes era, with fluid animation, ACME dynamite explosions offering percussion for a classical score, and a requisite kiss from Bugs to Elmer.
The fun, frantic animation, set to Amilcare Ponchielli’s “Dance Of The Hours”over the course of 90 seconds, features the complicated choreography Bugs/Fudd battles are famous for, evoking a classic animation style over the more modern computer-generated cartoons we so often see nowadays.
Best of all, “Dynamiet Dance” is merely a hint of what’s yet to come. The short debuted yesterday at the the Annecy International Animation Film Festival as part of a “batch of finished shorts from the upcoming series Looney Tunes Cartoons,” Warner Bros. announced in a press release. WB explains that each “season” of Looney Tunes Cartoons will offer 1,000 glorious minutes (in more than 200 shorts) “of all-new Looney Tunes animation that will be distributed across multiple platforms” like digital, mobile, and broadcast. The shorts will feature cartoon icons like Bugs, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig “and other marquee Looney Tunes characters will be featured in their classic pairings”—can we please get some Yosemite Sam and Foghorn Leghorn love?
The series is executive produced by Sam Register, who has done similarly great work with Teen Titans Go!, and Peter Browngardt—we find his Uncle Grandpa unwatchable, but will definitely be giving Looney Tunes Cartoons a go. Browngardt told Variety at the festival: “We are approaching each short as its own film, and not as an episode in a series… Our mantra on the shorts is story, comedy and reverence for the classic Looney Tunes of the ’30s and ’40s and the way they used a more cartoonist driven animation.” “Dynamite Dance” is proof that they’re capable of pulling that off.