Apprentice
Posted:
Feb 1, 2012, 1:41 PM
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So tell me...
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What exactly was so bad about Loonatics Unleashed?
I've never watched it, being that I thought it was a movie (lol), and after some of the reviews you guys have given it, I don't think I want to. That is, without asking this first.
However, I have looked it up, and apart from being quite cliched (and involving Lola, I mean I like her and stuff BUT SHE'S IN EVERYTHING) what exactly was so bad about it? o-o I can't really tell just from Wikipedia.
In short, is it just a case of disgruntled fanboys or was it actually that awful?
Also does it have Marvin? ._.
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~Provoker of ill-prone bellies since 1998
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Directing Animator / Contributor
Posted:
Feb 1, 2012, 2:33 PM
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Honestly, I think that Loonatics Unleashed might have gone over better with fans if Warner Brothers had gone with original characters rather than going with futuristic descendants of the Looney Tunes characters (and yes, they were descendants not the original characters; the series was set in the year 2772). People like Looney Tunes and they like action super hero shows, but they don't want to see the 2 combined. It's 2 great tastes that taste weird together. A "Just-Us League of Super Toons" series may have worked, if WB had played said series strictly for laughs and not tried to take it seriously at all.
As for why WB is putting Lola Bunny in all things Looney Tunes now, the answer can be summed up in 2 words: Political Correctness. Lola possesses something that Bugs, Daffy, Porky and the other established LT/MM don't, which is 2 'X' chromosomes. I know that a lot of people don't like Lola, but if she weren't used, then fans and various organizations would be complaining about the new LT series not having any female characters, so her inclusion is to be expected.
Both seasons of Loonatics Unleashed are available on DVD, you could check them out and judge for yourself, although I would advise renting them first.
Also, to answer your question about Marvin, no, Marvin himself never appeared in the series (as none of the original LT characters appeared in the series), but his 28th century descendant, Melvin the Martian, appeared in a single episode.
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Visit mine and my twin brother's blog. It goes down smooth.
www.astralcity.blogspot.com
(This post was edited by SpaceDemon on Feb 1, 2012, 2:35 PM)
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Apprentice
Posted:
Feb 1, 2012, 3:22 PM
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Ah right. Thanks.
I'm pretty sure that some of the episodes are on youtube, I'll see if I can find them
Also, to answer your question about Marvin, no, Marvin himself never appeared in the series (as none of the original LT characters appeared in the series), but his 28th century descendant, Melvin the Martian, appeared in a single episode.
Hehe, that's kind of what I meant. ^^; I did actually know about the desendants thing, I just didn't know how else to phrase it.
One episode? Pfft, typical. xD
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~Provoker of ill-prone bellies since 1998
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Supervising Animator / Moderator
Posted:
Feb 1, 2012, 4:40 PM
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Looney Tunes and superpowers just don't mix. That's how I truthfully felt. Another problem was that those designs were pretty darn ugly. Originally the characters didn't have any pupils, so their eyes looked souless. I actually did watch an episode once--and truthfully it wasn't horrible, but it was neither original nor something I wanted to watch again. It was basically your cliche superheroes show.
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"Homer,we just brought Flanders back from the dead. Did you use the notebook to make a flock of penguins peck him to death?"
Marge-"Murder He Wrote"-a Simpsons Comic story.
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Apprentice
Posted:
Feb 1, 2012, 5:35 PM
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One episode? Pfft, typical. xD
That was pretty much the only episode I enjoyed of the series. :)
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What you see depends on what you're looking for.
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Supervising Animator
Posted:
Feb 1, 2012, 8:46 PM
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And The Loonatics weren't EVEN Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, etc.
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Thank God for kids who love obscure things-Lee Hazelwood (1929-2007)
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Key Animator / Contributor
Posted:
Feb 1, 2012, 10:19 PM
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What exactly was so bad about Loonatics Unleashed?
Aside from mediocrity, not too much. The stories were formulaic, but that's true of almost any series that has only 22 minutes to go from start to finish.
As SpaceDemon noted earlier, Loonatics could have worked better with original characters. And Warner Brothers Entertainment had had success with other superhero series, such as Superman, Batman, and the Justice League. Loonatics albatross was their connection to the beloved Looney Tunes. When the Walt Disney Company purchased ABC Television in 1996, they bulldozed "The Bugs Bunny Show" off the face of television. The Looney Tunes reappeared on the WB Network, until it folded from too-small viewership. Then, the Looney Tunes appeared on the fast-growing Cartoon Network. But when WBE started charging Turner Entertainment for usage rights, Ted Turner refused, and Bugs Bunny and friends ended up mothballed. Loonatics Unleashed was a desperate effort to reboot the Looney Tunes, by shoehorning them into the action-hero genre that was working for Warner Brothers at that time.
Obviously, the two genres don't mix well. Were not Terrytoons' The Mighty Heroes awesome? Were not Depatie-Freleng's The Super Six tubular? Once the heroes are made into comic goofballs, their only hope is to be matched with an incompetent villain.
My best take on the fan-fury is: Warner Brothers made Loonatics as a reboot of the Looney Tunes franchise, and as a hedged bet. If the Loonatics caught on, they'd effectively replace the aging Looney Tunes. When the Loonatics failed to hold an audience, they were swept under the rug. A similar fate befell Coke II.
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Directing Animator / Contributor
Posted:
Feb 2, 2012, 7:40 AM
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I said this in an earlier thread, but I don't understand why so many people threw (and in some cases, still are throwing) a big hissy tantrum over The Looney Tunes Show when Loonatics Unleashed, which only predates TLTS by about 4 or 5 years, was a much, much bigger deviation of the established Looney Tunes formula. Honestly, TLTS' biggest problem is that it's too restrained and subdued; LU didn't even feel like Bugs and the gang. (And yes, I know that the Loonatics were technically the LT's descendants, but you get my meaning.)
As others have said, the show was just 2 different sensibilities which simply didn't mesh well together. People like the Looney Tunes, and people like cyberpunk superheroes, but nobody was dying to see the Looney Tunes as cyberpunk superheroes. Like Space Demon and One Ugly Bunny said, LU might, repeat, might have worked if the producers had done it as a full-blown farce, like a Just-Us League of Super Toons or Mighty Heroes type thing or if they had chosen original characters to star in it rather than try to graft clones of Bugs, Daffy and the others onto it. As it stood, LU was just a formulaic superhero show with the Looney Tunes name and images painted on it (it was also something of a furry fetishist fantasy--try saying that 5 times fast!  --since its' protagonists were anthropomorphic animals who lived in human society integrated as 'people' with no explanation of how they came to be there; have animals evolved into full-on sentient beings by the year 2772 thanks to the original Looney Tunes intervention into society? The mind boggles).
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An unemployed court jester is nobody's fool.
(This post was edited by Starburst on Feb 2, 2012, 7:48 AM)
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Apprentice
Posted:
Feb 2, 2012, 8:25 AM
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Okay so I watched it (On Quacks advice I watched the Melvin episode) and I have this to say:
1. Is anyone else getting a HUGE Teen Titans vibe? Or is that just me? o-o Seriously this isa just like Teen Titans with bunnies and stuff. Which reminds me: Is anyone else getting the 4Kids thing with their voices? D:
2. I can't actually make the connection to Looney Tunes. To me this is just a superhero show with bunnies. I can't really tie it to the shorts or TLTS or anything ._. The "oh no you won't" part with Ace and Melvin helped a little, (The trick's been in his family for generations xD) but honestly I can't really tie it.
3. The intro...I could handle it if it weren't for that "ACE IS THE LEADER AND STUFF DERP" voiceover guy. It's like SHUT UP LET ME LISTEN TO THE MUSIC
4. This marks the only occasion where Marvin or the equivilant therof hasn't been my favourite character. That place goes to Rev. He's my homeboy <3 I kind of found Melvin to be a little annoying, tbh...which brings me to my next point:
5. Does hypersensitivty run in Marvin's family or something? Seriously, the two of them both take things WAY to heart too much.
In short, I quite like it but in my head it's totally seperate from Looney Tunes x.x
~Leave this thread up, mods. We can still talk about why we don't like it...or something...xD
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~Provoker of ill-prone bellies since 1998
(This post was edited by InvaderStitchie on Feb 2, 2012, 8:26 AM)
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Directing Animator / Contributor
Posted:
Feb 2, 2012, 9:01 AM
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The intro...I could handle it if it weren't for that "ACE IS THE LEADER AND STUFF DERP" voiceover guy. It's like SHUT UP LET ME LISTEN TO THE MUSIC
The 'voice-over guy' was legendary rocker Bootsy Collins (for those who don't who that is, Google him); it was something of a novelty that WB was able to get him to do the opening, but unfortunately it didn't help the show any. Incidentally, the Bootsy opening was just the 2nd season's opening sequence; the first opening consisted of Zadavia (voiced by Candi Milo) explaining the show's premise.
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An unemployed court jester is nobody's fool.
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Directing Animator / Contributor
Posted:
Feb 2, 2012, 1:08 PM
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Yeah, the Boosty Collins opening was during the shows' 2nd season, when the producers (obviously after hearing/reading all the backlash received after the previous season) tried to inject more Looney Tunes-isms on to LU, such as including the familiar LT bullseye for each of the main characters in the opening title sequence and stories with more and more lenghty encounters with other LT character descendants. Most notably Pinkster Pig, a Porky Pig descendant who appeared in only 1 episode but it was given an open ending for possible future appearances, Sylthvester, an intergalactic bounty hunter and a descendant of Sylverster, Ophiucus Sam, Yosemite Sam's descendant who also appeared in a single episode, and an alien prince descendant of Tweety Bird known as The Royal Tweetums (who was 20 times more annoying than his ancestor ever was).
In season 1, there was a character called "Mr. Leghorn" who appeared in a couple of episodes, as a well as a "Mr. Le Pew" who appeared in a single episode, who curiously were both humans. This made no sense. Why should Foghorn and Pepe's descendants have been remade into humans when anthropomorphic animals still exist in this world? Why didn't the shows' producers just make them a rooster and a skunk?
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Visit mine and my twin brother's blog. It goes down smooth.
www.astralcity.blogspot.com
(This post was edited by SpaceDemon on Feb 2, 2012, 1:11 PM)
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Directing Animator / Contributor
Posted:
Feb 2, 2012, 4:07 PM
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Is anyone else getting a HUGE Teen Titans vibe? Or is that just me? o-o Seriously this isa just like Teen Titans with bunnies and stuff.
Nah, Loonatics Unleashed wasn't that much like Teen Titans, at least not to me. Teen Titans: TAS, ironically enough, was a lot closer to DC's Young Justice comic book series than the current Cartoon Network YJ series is. Also, ironically, some episodes of Teen Titans (most notably, the 2 episodes in which the Titans faced off against Mad Mod) came off as being more loony than Loonatics Unleashed. If LU had made some surrealistic episodes like those, the viewers might have had a greater appreciation for the show.
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Visit mine and my twin brother's blog. It goes down smooth.
www.astralcity.blogspot.com
(This post was edited by SpaceDemon on Feb 2, 2012, 4:10 PM)
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Intern
Posted:
Feb 2, 2012, 4:28 PM
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Actually, I found the second season to overall be better than the first. True, they crammed in Looney Tune-isms all they could, but at least the stories had some kind of direction and some consistency. The first season, particularly the first half, was mind-boggling. And not in a good way. When I saw the first episode, I think I literally facepalmed. Space vikings with superpowers. How silly and at the same time unfunny can you get? <br> <br>The problem as many have pointed out was that it was too close for comfort without any of the comfort. I tried to look past the fact that they were meant to be descendants of Bugs Bunny et al, but even then, the designs were absolutely not up my alley. The show was generally not funny, and while some of the action were OK, it became way predictable in most cases. Add the fact that Ace Bunny was way too bossy and annoying, and said "Let's jet!" at least twice each episode, and you can see why it didn't work out at all in the show's favour. <br> <br>Contrast this to the Duck Dodgers series. That, my friend, is how you make a new series based off old ideas without dropping to innovate or make things completely out of character. In my opinion, anyway. <img src="http://forum.bcdb.com/images/smile.gif" alt="Smile" border="0" /> <br> <br>
Off-topic: I HATE THE STUPID MARKUP IN THIS FORUM!!!!!!!!! 
Can't even edit a post without it getting all messed up... 
(This post was edited by Arthur on Feb 2, 2012, 4:32 PM)
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Key Animator / Contributor
Posted:
Feb 2, 2012, 8:14 PM
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Reply to Invader Stitchie: a huge Teen Titans vibe? Not huge in my eyes, but a definite parallel. At their core, both the Loonatics and the Titans were young characters with powers and abilities, but not much experience using their powers, nor with working as a team. Very often, the group would arrive at some crisis point, make a headlong, disorganized foray against the adversary, then have to fall back and regroup. Only afterward do they compare notes and formulate a coordinated plan of attack. Both Loonatics and Titans had "oopsie" moments typical of greenhorns.
And I'll agree that very little essence of Looney Tunes came through. I view the show more as a "Young X-Men" clone.
Further agreement that Season 2's intro with Bootsy Collins was ... euw.
To someone who has no idea who or what "Looney Tunes" are, Loonatics Unleashed is competent fare. But once that nostalgia connection is made, LU doesn't measure up well.
Reply to Space Demon: it was unusual to see a world that was 99% human and only 1% anthro. Certainly, the Loonatics couldn't disguise themselves very well, though it was tried once. I'm noting how, during the flashback sequences, the Loonatics started out stigmatized and marginalized: Ace was a mere stunt double in B movies; Lexi was shut out during cheerleader tryouts; Duck was a pool boy; Slam was a "professional" wrestler; Rev was delivering lunches; and Tech ended up on the Dean's snit list. Perhaps as a subtext, the Loonatics were trying to establish themselves as something more that "dumb animals."
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