A new cartoon

I love animation. Possibly because I've never grown up. Or maybe because it is a legitimate art form which I recognize as such. Sadly, people dismiss cartoons as "just for children", and they miss out on some quite funny things (or more serious, as with some anime).

I tend to prefer the funny side of things with a slight edge to them (and this goes for many, many areas in my life), or at least some kind of smartness about them. It's somewhat ironic that most situation comedies don't float my boat. A certain morality or belief system comes into play that a show cannot violate, and far too many sit-coms cross that line. But sit-coms are a discussion for another day. (I'll just say I count "The Dick Van Dyke Show", "Mary Tyler Moore", "The Bob Newhart Show", "Newhart", "The Andy Griffith Show", and "I Love Lucy" among my favorites.)

Back to cartoons, since that is the subject of this post, the Looney Tunes series of cartoons is classic. Great characters, extremely humorous, and something for both children and adults to enjoy. These characters do not need a makeover or an updating, though I'm not such a purist that I won't give an attempt at "re-imagining" a chance. I saw Space Jam, and "blech" is all that comes to mind; I didn't bother with the sequel due to how bad the first was.

And so it was when I heard about "Loonatics: Unleashed", a modernized version of the classic characters from Looney Tunes, that my first thought was, "Why?", then, "but, hey, I'll give it a chance". Yesterday, I saw a sneak peek of it, a 1-2 minute snippet. If this is what they show to entice children (and adults) to watch, this show is doomed from the start. Yes, the characters look very modern; in particular, I like the image of the new Road Runner. The clip, however, was everything bad about bad sit-coms (and SNL, for that matter): Predictable, dragging on too long to extend the humor for your viewing displeasure, and just plain stupid. Yes, I realize there was a certain stupidity about the original Looney Tunes, but it was handled smartly.

Of course I will watch the first few episodes to see if it's any better than this small clip, but I'm not holding my breath.