NOTE: Please do not take any of the little nitpicks in this review (or any of my other reviews, for that matter) seriously. I write these reviews in the hopes of making people laugh. Those nitpicks are really just dumb little observations that I'm attempting to make jokes out of, not complaints that add to whether or not I like something.
NOTE #2: No disrespect is meant towards anyone who worked on the show I am reviewing today. I'm sure they are all very nice and talented people.
NOTE #3: If you like this show, that is great. Go ahead and like it. I'm not judging you.
I'm really not sure why I bother with these re-reviews. The second episodes of Ned's Newt and My Gym Partner's a Monkey that I reviewed weren't any better than the ones I reviewed the first time, so why should I expect Loonatics Unleashed to be any better the second time around?
That being said, I know that this... strange little piece of Looney Tunes history does have its fans (or at least it did at one point), and as we've established it's not completely fair to judge a show based on one episode. To fully judge if a show is bad, you need to watch at least TWO episodes of it (or four, if it's one of those shows where each episode is two segments). So here we go again...
For those of you who never read my previous review of the show, Loonatics Unleashed came to be when Looney Tunes Back in Action underperformed because it was given a crappy release date against other family movies, some good (Brother Bear) and some bad (the live action Cat in the Hat. No, I don't know why that did better than Looney Tunes Back in Action either), and poorly advertised. Warner Bros., for some inexplicable reason, came to the conclusion that the film didn't do better because people didn't like the Looney Tunes anymore. What to do? Well, the same year that Looney Tunes Back in Action came out, Teen Titans premiered on Cartoon Network. And since everybody loved Teen Titans, somebody got an idea: "What if we did a Teen Titans knockoff with Looney Tunes characters?".
I can name several reasons why doing a Teen Titans-esque action cartoon with Looney Tunes characters - or rather, their descendants - is a dumb idea. It's like putting Rocky and Bullwinkle in Gargoyles or something. But Warner Bros. did it, and 2005 saw the premiere of Loonatics Unleashed on Kids' WB. Even before the show came out, the world took one look at it and said "This looks stupid." Two seasons were made before the show got the axe in 2007. Since then, the Loonatics have only popped up to be made fun of in shows like Wabbit: A Looney Tunes Production and the Animaniacs reboot.
According to TV Tropes, the show had a chaotic production schedule - animator Chris Duncan complained that they had to finish an episode in just one week, whereas showrunner Ron Myrick said that the art directors somehow believed that they were in charge of the show and demanded that Warner Bros. let them be as dark as possible for a Saturday morning cartoon. This might have contributed to the show only receiving twenty-six episodes.
Okay, so what's the plot of the show? Well, in the year 2772, the planet of Acmetropolis gets a meteor thrown its way, and the meteor releases waves of supernatural energy that cause six random teenagers to gain superpowers. Those teenagers are...
- Bugs Bunny's descendant Ace Bunny (voiced by Charlie Schlatter), who's basically what happens when you stick Bugs and Sonic the Hedgehog in a blender and suck out all the charm.
- Danger Duck (Jason Marsden), Daffy Duck's descendant who's literally just Daffy in all but name.
- Slam Tasmanian (Kevin Michael Richardson), who is the Tasmanian Devil. That's it.
- Lexi Bunny (Jessica DiCicco), the descendant of Lola Bunny... who for some reason is not related to Ace at all, even though logically, if Ace is Bugs' descendant and Lexi is Lola's, then the only possible explanation for their existence is that Bugs and Lola had children... unless Lexi isn't actually Lola's descendant but rather just a clone of her...
- Tech E. Coyote (also Kevin Michael Richardson), Wile E. Coyote's descendant and the smart guy of the team, and the only character I recall kind of liking.
- Rev Runner (Rob Paulsen), the Road Runner's descendant. Unlike the Road Runner, he speaks English, his shtick is that he talks really fast, but he's fortunately not nearly as annoying as other characters who talk really fast (coughcoughPinkiePiecoughcough).
In the first season, the Loonatics themselves were five of the only six characters who had anything to do with Looney Tunes - the sixth being a Foghorn Leghorn-esque guy named Mr. Leghorn (if he's meant to be Foghorn's descendant, does that mean Foghorn married a human being?!). The second season fixed this by bringing in descendants or knockoffs of other Looney Tunes characters like Porky Pig, Sylvester and Tweety, and Yosemite Sam, as well as throwing in more nods to the franchise's history and some more jokes. Did this improve the show at all? Well, today we'll be watching the seventh episode of the show's second season (and the twentieth episode overall), "The Hunter", to find out. This is Loonatics Unleashed - take two.
The episode starts off with an Acmetropolis "Intergalactic Prison Ship" blowing up, followed by one of the smaller ships on it that look like handheld vacuum cleaners flying off towards the planet. Quick question, are we supposed to assume that Acmetropolis is the same thing as Earth? Or is it actually the Save-Ums' planet? Oh, no, did the Save-Ums go extinct because of that meteor?!
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| I feel like this is what Earth is eventually going to look like if we keep polluting it. Why hasn't anybody listened to the Lorax? |
The spaceship lands above the Acmetropolis Museum, and out falls a previous Loonatics Unleashed villain, Massive (originally voiced by Michael Clarke Duncan but now voiced by Kevin Michael Richardson). He's a-yearnin' to do some destruction - and steal a few paintings, presumably because he's a connessiuer of the fine arts.
Fortunately, who should show up but Ace, Danger, Tech, and Slam. Massive blasts Danger, because Danger's being the Daffy equivalent means that he must fill the role of "character who gets put through the wringer despite doing very little to deserve it aside from being arrogant" that Daffy usually filled in 2000s Looney Tunes productions (see also Duck Dodgers in Attack of the Drones, where Daffy does nothing wrong and gets violently punished for it). Though Danger does wind up knocking into Ace and sending them both flying off a building, so at least he's not the only one taking his lumps.
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| Okay, so which Looney Tunes character is THIS guy the descendant of? Don't tell me, I wanna guess it... Gossamer? |
After taking out the other Loonatics (where are Lexi and Rev, by the way?), Ace zaps Massive with his laser beam eyes. I wonder, does shooting laser beams from your eyeballs hurt? "Well, Mr. Big and Tall, looks like it's just you and me!" Ace exclaims... or IS it? Not too far away, a mysterious figure materializes on the roof of a building with a gun.
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| Iron Man?! |
The mysterious figure starts talking... and even with the weird filter over it, it's very easy to tell that his voice is that of Elmer Fudd. If they were planning to make this guy's being Elmer's descendant a surprise, they blew it.
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| So, does he like mutant rabbit stew, or is he a vegetarian who just hunts for the sport of it? Elmer's reason for hunting varied from short to short, so who knows what this guy's deal is... |
We then get the theme song, which in the second season was turned into a horrible, horrible rap. The singer's not even SINGING, he's just SHOUTING and half the time I can't even make out what he's saying. Even Huey, Dewey and Louie's Tasty Paste rap was better than this.
After that, we see Ace still battling Massive, still unaware of Elmer's descendant's presence. Maybe that's because Elmer's descendant is taking his sweet time firing at him. He finally does fire... just as Danger pushes Ace out of the way. It's then revealed that Elmer's descendant doesn't use bullets, he uses those arrows with suction cups on the end. Really? Even Elmer used actual bullets.
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| Sorry, Danger, looks like it's Duck Season. |
The arrow, upon making contact with Danger's rump, sends him flying onto Ace, allowing Massive to get away. Then Danger falls asleep.. for some reason, I guess being a Daffy Duck wannabe really tuckers you out. "Let's get Sleepin' Beauty back to HQ," Ace tells Slam and Tech in his bad Brooklyn accent.
As soon as the Loonatics leave, Elmer's descendant unmasks, revealing himself to be the Loonatics equivalent of Elmer Fudd. Wow, what a twist this would be if we didn't already hear his voice, which was clearly that of Elmer's. Specifically, it's Billy West, who was the official voice of Elmer in the 2000s. I'm not sure why they don't use him as Elmer anymore... not that Jeff Bergman and Eric Bauza's takes are bad, it's just an oddity considering Billy is widely regarded to be the best Elmer voice since Arthur Q. Bryan.
Here's something else for you to wrap your head around: if Elmer has a descendant, that means he had children. He got MARRIED. Well, he did have a wife in at least one short so I guess him being married isn't so hard to believe, but Elmer having kids?
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| Do you think there are descendants of Tiny Toon Adventures characters in Acmetropolis too? I know there's a fan theory that Lexi is descended from Buster and Babs... |
Ace and Danger pay a visit to the aforementioned prison ship, where various villains they fought in previous episodes of the show are being held. Among them is Otto the Odd (Dee Bradley Baker), who was the bad guy of an episode somebody already did a review of so if you want an idea of what this guy's story is, just read that.
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| Ace and Danger pay a visit to the Joker's younger brother, who for obvious reasons he doesn't like to talk about. |
The three of them trade unfunny barbs for a few seconds, then Ace and Danger meet up with the warden and talk about how Massive escaped. Daffy... I mean, Plucky... I mean, Danger gets electrocuted because like an idiot he decides to touch some sort of electric prison cell bars that the prison ship uses.
Then Ace and Danger head back to the Loonatics' headquarters, where they see a news report about some artist going missing after his paintings were stolen from the Acmetropolis Museum. Elmer's descendant is walking up the side of the building, talking about how he's going to "flush the wabbit out of his hole". Okay, Not-Elmer, you do realize you're not just hunting a rabbit in the forest, right? You're in a futuristic city, hunting a rabbit who has SUPERPOWERS. We saw before that your stupid arrows don't actually DO anything, so it's not like shooting at Ace will actually harm him in any way. There's a pretty good chance that he'll blast you with his laser beam eyes or something. Sheesh, and I thought Beaky Buzzard was a dimwit (no offense, Beaky - you're a fun character. You should've been in Space Jam 2).
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| I mean, Bugs is a force to be reckoned with, but at least he doesn't have superpowers (except for in that one short where he was Super-Rabbit, but Elmer wasn't in that one, so...). |
Before Not-Elmer can fire at Ace, his plan is thwarted when Taz... I mean, Slam goes crazy and does... something in an attempt to get his hands on Danger's food. Then Lexi sees Massive on TV, robbing a western museum where a singing cowboy and his robo-horse live. "Let's jet!" Ace says, and off they head to the museum... except for Slam and Rev, who were left back at HQ to get tabs on Massive. I said it in my previous review, but Rob Paulsen is completely wasted in this show.
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| Plot twist - Rev isn't actually a descendant of the Road Runner at all. He's the great-great-great- great-great-great-grandson of Ogden from Channel Umptee-3. Y'know, since Rob Paulsen voices both characters. |
Ace, Lexi, Danger, and Tech go inside the museum and search for Massive... who, wouldn't you know it, has stolen the robo-horse. Unbeknownst to them, Not-Elmer is there, too.
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| In addition to fine artwork, Massive is also a fan of pony rides! |
I like how Not-Elmer doesn't seem to even notice that Massive is there. Like, sheesh, Not-Elmer, Ace is kind of in the middle of something. How about waiting until he defeats the big blue-skinned guy to blast him? Of course, his attempt at shooting Ace - this time with a net - winds up taking out Danger instead.
Once again, Massive gets away. "That wascally wabbit is pwoving a tougher adversary than I pwedicted!" Not-Elmer complains. "No matter. Electro J. Fudd is the gweatest hunter who ever lived!" See, he actually DOES have a name. But eh, I'm just going to call him Not-Elmer, because that's all he is. Elmer except he's not Elmer. Back at the Loonatics' headquarters, Tech reveals that he did a body-scan of Danger and found something very strange. It's a hair that doesn't belong to him or any of us!
...wait, is the hair supposed to be Not-Elmer's? Seems unlikely, seeing as Elmer is bald so his identical descendant is likely bald too. Or is that helmet Not-Elmer wears actually covering up flowing locks?
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| Or did that hair actually come from Massive? Massive isn't bald, after all... |
Tech ran the hair through his DNA reconstructor, and the analysis tells them that the hair does indeed belong to Not-Elmer... who still appears to be bald outside of his armor, but I'm admittedly not one hundred percent sure if that weird patch of brown on his head is a helmet or if he just has hair the same color as the suit he's wearing. Lexi knows who Not-Elmer is, and that he comes from a long line of famous hunters. Elmer is famous in this world? Lexi even says that "the Fudds have been great hunters since the beginning of time" - anybody familiar with Looney Tunes can tell you that Elmer is not a great hunter. Unless this is one of those times when the Looney Tunes characters are actually just actors, is Elmer famous for being a hunter who never actually succeeds at killing anything?
Does Elmer even want to kill Bugs? He cries or at least feels bad whenever he thinks he's killed Bugs, and whenever he shoots Daffy, Daffy is fine afterwards, he just needs to readjust his bill. Is Elmer's idea of a fun hobby going around shooting animals with completely harmless guns?
Actually, if Bugs has descendants, that's a pretty good indicator that Elmer never actually succeeded in blasting him (again, assuming that he actually WANTS to harm Bugs).
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| Seriously, what is that thing on his head? A helmet? Hair? A wig? |
Making things even MORE confusing, Lexi shows the others some of Not-Elmer's ancestors, the first of whom is Elmer Fudd himself. Apparently, he's known for hunting down the world's biggest squirrel. Though from the looks of it, it seems that the world's biggest squirrel had the upper hand.
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| I don't remember THIS Elmer Fudd cartoon... |
After that, there was Elmer's... son, I guess, who hunted aquatic mammals - before an encounter with a giant walrus who... I dunno, ate him? I know walruses can attack people in self-defense, but I don't think they EAT people. Of course, if you want to bring REALISM into this, rabbits can't talk, so...
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| "The time has come," the Walrus said, "To talk of other things..." |
Then there was Ahab J. Fudd, who hunted a mysterious great whale... and was promptly gobbled up by it. I hear he's living with Pinocchio now.
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| Okay, they literally just gave us the exact same joke three times. A Fudd is pointing his weapon at some cute little animal, unaware that a much larger, angrier animal is behind him. A little variety with your humor would be nice. |
And there was also a caveman Fudd who hunted the woolly mammoth - and was stepped on by one. But what could he possibly be hunting in Acmetropolis? No time to answer that, Massive's robbing a cookie factory now! Because... I guess he likes cookies?
Actually, why did I say that? Of course he does. Everybody loves cookies!
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| Where the heck is Rev? |
Here's another question: is Ace considered a legal citizen in Acmetropolis? I mean, he's a rabbit, but he doesn't live in a hole in the forest like Bugs. If he IS a legal citizen, wouldn't that make Not-Elmer here hunting him illegal? Even if Not-Elmer does succeed in killing Ace, he will go to jail.
Well, anyway, they go to the cookie factory and - you guessed it - Not-Elmer is spying on them. "I wove it when a pwan comes together! That wabbit's pwaying wight into my hand!" he says. How come he's only focused on Ace? Lexi's a rabbit too.
When they head inside the factory, Massive starts pelting cookies at them, which results in Slam channeling his inner Cookie Monster. "Slam, you're despicable," Danger complains. Lay off him, you Daffy wannabe - who WOULDN'T do the same thing if they were in Slam's position? The other Loonatics attempt to fight Massive (which allows Rev to finally have a line in this episode), but they all get their clocks cleaned, with Danger in particular being subjected to shenanigans that are so whacky. Seriously, even Duck Dodgers is more competent than this duck. Tech eventually manages to fire a gun at Massive...
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| "THIS is for shelving Coyote vs. ACME!" |
...which causes Massive to make this face...
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| "HERP-A-DERP!" |
...and then he explodes. Not-Elmer emerges from the giant vat of brown sludge he got knocked into (probably should've mentioned that), and then Ace says "Meh, what's up, Fudd?"
And what does Not-Elmer do? He flees, despite the fact that he has a perfect opportunity to blast Ace right now. It seems that the reason Massive exploded is because he was a robot this whole time, and he has a flash drive in his head that just might contain some useful information for Tech.
Not-Elmer, meanwhile, realizes that whenever he has Ace right where he wants him, Danger screws it up. "Seems that I've been hunting the wong woonatic," he says. "Now it's DUCK SEASON!"
Actually, Not-Elmer, it isn't Duck Season OR Rabbit Season. It's Goat Season. Just ask Bugs...
Ace did some snooping and found out that the singing cowboy who owns the western museum and the woman who owns the cookie factory also vanished around the same time that the artist whose paintings got stolen did. What's the connection between a hunter and a robotic duplicate of a blue-skinned guy? "Well, hunters ARE known for their DECOYS," Ace says. This is the closest that the episode comes to being clever.
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| "Look at what da animation community is sayin' about us on Toonzone.com!" |
So, what is Not-Elmer's goal? Maybe he's got some sort of collection going on, and all that's left to complete it is to nab the top crime-fighter in Acmetropolis. Danger claims that the top crime-fighter in Acmetropolis is HIM, but as we've established, he's not even in the top five. "It's time to turn the tables on the hunter and make HIM the huntEE!" Ace declares.
What is Ace's plan? He'll stand out in the open and wait for Not-Elmer to show up and make his move. The others will just hide until he arrives, giving Daffy... I mean, Danger plenty of time to stew over not being the best crime-fighter ever.
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| Allow me to summarize everything Danger says: "Blah blah blah I'm just Daffy in all but name. Blah blah blah I have an ego the size of the sun. Blah blah blah I'm so incompetent I make Captain Underpants look like the Green Lantern. Blah blah blah." |
As part of his rant, Danger complains that ducks get no respect - all they get is sent to a Chinese deli where they're cooked and sold upside-down in a glass cage. Apparently it's legal to cook and eat anthropomorphic ducks?
Of course, Ace's plan fails because Not-Elmer fires his net gun at DANGER, not him. He traps Danger in a net covered with "anti-quacking gel" and takes off with him back to the prison ship, where he sticks him in the same cell as Otto... who he was working for, I guess? Okay, sure. We can throw that out there.
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| Wow, the guys running this prison ship gave Otto a pretty large cell... |
This is where all the paintings went. We get cameos from Granny, Sylvester and Tweety (Tweety's has him in drag, so I guess Warner Bros. still couldn't figure out in the 2000s if he was a boy or a girl).
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| That's a nice suit Sylvester is wearing. |
Apparently the warden is a robot as well, allowing Otto to take charge of the prison ship. And Otto also somehow immobilized another clown. In fact, he also immobilized the artist, the western museum owner, and the cookie factory owner. And he plans to do the same to Danger - as the greatest screw-up of all time! With an anvil on his head, to remind us that this is a Looney Tunes production.
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| So, this twist came the heck out of nowhere. Otto's brief appearance at the beginning was not enough foreshadowing. |
And, of course, since he is apparently the galaxy's greatest hunter, Otto's gonna freeze Not-Elmer too. Out comes the machine that Otto uses to freeze people, and with another unfunny line from Danger, he and Not-Elmer make a run for it.
Oh, and Pepe Le Pew and Penelope Pussycat got frozen too. So some Looney Tunes characters still exist in the same time period as the descendants of their fellow Looney Tunes characters? Are Pepe and Penelope time-travelers?
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| So did Otto consider Pepe and Penelope the greatest cartoon characters of all time? I know I'm putting way too much thought into a cameo, but I'm starved for material here. |
Eventually, Not-Elmer gets zapped with the freeze ray, but since he's wearing armor, he's unharmed. And then Ace finally shows up. Just Ace, I don't know where the other Loonatics are. How did Ace find them? He knew someone was collecting the best of all time, and he thought "Who's the best collector of all time"? So the day is saved, right?
Nope. Otto zaps Ace with the freeze ray. Maybe Ace should've just zapped Otto with his laser beam eyes instead of talking about how he figured out his scheme.
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| "I WAS FROZEN TODAY!" |
Oh, wait. Never mind. The Ace who got zapped was just a robot. The actual Ace shows up with Lexi, Tech, Slam, and Rev. They trap Otto in a net and then Ace says "Eh, what's up, Doc?" for no reason other than because he's Bugs' descendant. Honestly, hearing him say that feels wrong to me. This rabbit isn't even fit to lick Bugs' boots, which he doesn't wear.
So the day is saved NOW, right? Nope, Otto was a robot too. Danger blasts Otto before he can use the freeze ray on Ace, and he winds up getting zapped by the freeze ray himself. Oh, the irony.
And even though Not-Elmer did a Heel-Face Turn, he still has to go to jail. Sorry, Not-Elmer. All the frozen people are unfrozen, one of whom Lexi has the hots for despite the fact that she's a rabbit and he's a human being.
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| Of course, if Foghorn Leghorn's descendant is a human, maybe interspecies romance is just a normal thing in this world... |
And then Danger accidentally gets frozen. I assume the others unfreeze him offscreen, because otherwise they'd be super lousy friends.
What's the Verdict?
Well, I will say this wasn't quite as bad as the FIRST Loonatics Unleashed episode I watched, but there still is nothing of substance here.
All the problems I brought up in my first review still run rampant - the jokes aren't funny, the characters are either dull and uninteresting or annoying knockoffs of beloved Looney Tunes characters, it's a blatant Teen Titans wannabe, and Rob Paulsen is completely wasted. Adding in more Looney Tunes characters and references didn't do anything to improve the show, if anything it just highlights even more why the show doesn't work. The Looney Tunes characters, be they the actual characters or their descendants who are just them in all but name, do not belong in an action cartoon where we're supposed to take them seriously. Elmer Fudd is not an evil villain who we want to see brought to justice - he's an antagonist, yes, but he's just too dimwitted and not vicious enough to be a threat and who we like seeing Bugs mess with because it's funny, not because we find it cathartic. I could see Yosemite Sam or Marvin the Martian maybe managing to be threatening (and even then I'm on the fence about that), but Elmer? Not so much. The closest he's ever come was What's Opera Doc?.
Good things about this? Well, the animation is fine and the voice actors are all doing their best with what they were given (although I would hesitate to call Danger one of Jason Marsden's better roles). But as a whole the show has nothing going for it. You want my advice? Watch Duck Dodgers instead. The show, not that aforementioned crappy Attack of the Drones short. Maybe I should do a review of that show at some point...
Speaking of Duck Dodgers, I have a confession to make: you know that episode where Daffy, Porky, and Marvin fought a virus that turned people into Elmer Fudd clones? That episode made me afraid of Elmer Fudd for a while. Yes, really. Go ahead and judge me.
