Looking at the Larry Doyle Looney Tunes Shorts

I'm gonna be honest, I've been having a really crummy year so far. I mean, it started out okay... not GREAT, but not awful or anything. Then as soon as I got back from Disney World, things went into a downward spiral. I'd rather not go into details. These past few weeks in particular have been really lousy for me, and I desperately need to blow off a little steam.

So, I decided to dust off this post I wrote back in... I'm not sure, 2019 maybe... that I've been holding back on because I've been worried it might come across as a bit too cynical or too harsh. I try not to be too negative on this blog. I don't want to come across as another Nostalgia Critic or the Mysterious Mr. Enter. When I do a review, I avoid saying anything insulting about the writers, director, what have you because I do not personally KNOW them and I don't want to dub them hacks or say they should be blacklisted simply because they wrote something less than stellar. But the guy who's responsible for what this post is talking about, from what I've heard, isn't exactly the greatest guy, so I guess it sort of evens out?

Let's get started... in the 2000s, AOL merged with Warner Bros and decided to can the entire "Classic Animation" department for some reason. This came back to bite them in the rear end around the time Looney Tunes: Back in Action was in production and they came up with the idea to start making new Looney Tunes cartoons. Then somebody suggested that they could send the new shorts to be animated overseas. That's not the bad part. The bad part is that they put Larry Doyle, who was working on Looney Tunes: Back in Action, to oversee production.

If you see "Produced by Larry Doyle" under the Looney Tunes logo, run for your life.

Apparently, Larry Doyle didn't want anybody who'd worked on a Looney Tunes project before to work on these shorts. Instead, he went out of his way to get people who had no experience with these characters. However, these people included like Rich Moore, Dan Povenmire, Jon Vitti... I think even Doug Lawrence. These people have proven themselves more than capable of making quality work. So you'd think that maybe these shorts would be pretty good, right?

Well, the answer to that is NO. No, these shorts are not "pretty good". Far from it, actually. And from what I've heard, the production process was not exactly a picnic either.

For example, let's talk about Bob Bergen. You probably know him best as the current voice of Porky Pig, and he's also a very nice guy. He spoke on the Toonzone Forums (or the Anime Superhero Forums, as the site is now called) about what a lousy time HE had working on these shorts. I am telling you this because I have a lot of respect for Bob and I feel that this should be brought up as proof that Larry Doyle wasn't the right choice to produce these things.

After auditioning (despite the fact that he's done the voice of Porky for years, for some projects he does indeed still have to audition), Bob booked the roles of Porky and Tweety and began to record the first short. Which leads us to problem number one: apparently, the original scripts for these shorts had a lot of inappropriate humor that didn't belong in a Looney Tune. A lot of jokes about sex and bodily functions, for instance. One short had Porky ask "What would Jesus do?"

Now, before anybody says anything, Bob and I are both perfectly aware that the original Looney Tunes shorts weren't intended to be strictly for kids. Here's the thing, though - the original Looney Tunes shorts might have been for an older audience, but they weren't CRASS. They didn't resort to using classless shock humor to get a laugh. Thus, Bob let Larry Doyle and others involved in production know that he wasn't comfortable with the raunchy humor in the shorts, but it didn't do any good.

Problem number two is that Larry wanted Bob to alter the way he played Porky. You see, Mel Blanc's voices for Daffy, Porky and Tweety were sped-up, so Larry took a bunch of old Porky shorts, slowed them down, and told Bob to "do" Mel, then they would speed him up to the same percentage. I get the mindset here, but Bob does Porky just fine naturally (and it's not like his Porky doesn't sound like Mel's, it DOES), so why bother pitching him up? In addition, Bob brought up some other reasons why this wouldn't work - his voice is much higher than as Mel's was, and the microphones used nowadays are very different than the ones used back then, so if Larry wanted to really get that classic sound he should've went out and gotten those old RCA ribbon mics. And on top of THAT, Larry slowed down those old Porky shorts too much. Bob knows this because he has an extensive library of radio interviews where Mel demonstrated what his Porky sounded like before it was pitched up. So this, all in all, was a recipe for disaster.

And a disaster it was... when Bob attempted to do Porky the way Larry wanted and was sped-up, the end result sounded like a stuttering Alvin the Chipmunk. Bob finally, and understandably, decided to call up his agent and quit the project. This was a very hard decision for him, as he loves doing Porky, but if THIS was the direction they were taking the characters in he didn't want to be a part of it. So he called up his agent and told him he wanted off the project... only for his agent to tell him that they'd just fired him. Ouch. Fortunately, it didn't take long for Bob to get the role of Porky back - not in the shorts, but in other projects.

I would not be so harsh if it weren't for the fact that Larry Doyle was ALSO active on the Toonzone Forums when these shorts were in production, and he spread lies about the shorts (claiming that there wasn't any toilet humor when in fact I saw at least one use of toilet humor in these shorts. More on that later...) and picked fights with other members. You're a professional writer, Larry. You should know better than that.

Anyhow, six shorts were completed, and then the higher-ups at Warner Bros. decided to give them a watch. Apparently, they were so appalled that they cancelled the shorts that hadn't been completed yet and scrapped the project. Then Larry Doyle left the company (I'm admittedly not sure if he chose to leave or if they fired him) and they went in and tinkered with the shorts that HAD been completed - taking out much of the raunchier humor, for one thing - in an attempt to make them salvageable before shipping them off to theaters. It didn't work, but at least they tried.

And then Looney Tunes: Back in Action was released, and it flopped because Warner Bros. put it up against movies like Brother Bear and The Cat in the Hat and barely advertised it (don't ask me why The Cat in the Hat did better at the box office than Looney Tunes: Back in Action). So what did Warner Bros. learn from this? Did they learn to promote their movies better? Well, no - movie studios are never willing to admit that they're at fault when a movie underperforms, so instead they came to the conclusion that people didn't like the Looney Tunes anymore. So they decided not to release the shorts in theaters, and over the years they've been released on DVD instead. I've also heard that the shorts not being released in theaters was due to the higher-ups' aforementioned being appalled by the shorts, but I'm not sure which one is true.

Here are some of the Larry Doyle-produced shorts that HADN'T been completed before the project was cancelled...

- "The Pig Stays in the Picture"
Most of the Porky shorts Larry wanted to do had Porky as a Homer Simpson-esque family guy. This one apparently would've focused on him trying to find a movie that the whole family could enjoy. Alas, it wouldn't have worked out that way (presumably because Porky and his family sitting in a movie theater watching a film that appeals to all of them and having a great time wouldn't make for a particularly funny cartoon short).

- "A Very Daffy Christmas"
While flying south for the winter, Daffy winds up at the North Pole. He meets two of Santa's elves, who want to cook him for Christmas dinner. This one sounds like it might've been interesting, although it DID include at least ONE pretty off-color joke... at one point, Daffy reads Santa's naughty list, which not only includes his name but all of the things he did to get on the list, and says, "Yeesh, this guy really DOES see everything. I even turned off the lights when I did THAT one..."

- "Executive Tweet"
Sylvester sneaks into the White House to eat the president's bird, and is aided by the ghosts of the presidental dogs. Uhhhhh...

- "What's Hip, Doc?"
Bugs is saved from Elmer by a supermodel (who apparently would've been voiced by Jenna Elfman) who then attempts to cut off his tail. Jokes apparently included Bugs running her over with a lawnmower. Yeah. Bugs Bunny running somebody over with a lawnmower. Totally in-character, right?

- "Scheme Park"
Porky takes his family to a very strange American history theme park.

- "Beach Bunny"
Bugs goes to the beach and meets a "beach dude" who was apparently supposed to be voiced by Brendan Fraser. It is kinda interesting that they were gonna have Brendan Fraser and Jenna Elfman guest-star in these shorts...

- "Baseball Taz"
The Tasmanian Devil becomes a baseball team's mascot.

- "Dancing Pepe"
This one sounds like it would've been really lame. It was gonna be about a chipmunk with a head cold falling for Pepe Le Pew in a dance club, and then one of her friends gives her some Claritin which makes her realize that he smells bad or something like that.

- "Daffy Contractor"
Porky hires Daffy to fix his sink. Hilarity ensues.

- "Reaper Madness"
Granny goes shopping and, not kidding, gets stalked by a tall gentleman with a black cloak. No. No no no no no. How exactly does one make "Granny is stalked by the reaper" funny? There's dark humor, and then there's... THIS.

- "Guess Who's Coming to Meet the Parents"
Bugs brings a squirrel home for dinner. His mother (who he lives with now, apparently) disapproves for some reason. I really hope that the squirrel was just a friend of Bugs and not his lover or whatever.

Yeah, I think it's for the best these didn't get made. But what about the shorts that WERE made? Why were THEY so bad that Warner Bros. didn't want to see what Larry Doyle would do if they didn't stop him from making more Looney Tunes cartoons? Well, let's start with...

"Hare and Loathing in Las Vegas"

Directed by: Bill Kopp, Peter Shin

In this short, Bugs Bunny (voiced by Joe Alaskey) winds up at a Las Vegas casino that Yosemite Sam (voiced by Jeff Bennett) built over his rabbit hole. He decides to try his luck at a few games, and promptly wins all of Sam's money. Once Bugs leaves, Sam becomes convinced that Bugs was cheating because he has "lucky rabbit's feet".

Now, this in my opinion is the least bad of the Larry Doyle shorts. Is it a GOOD short? Well, no. Does it have its problems? Yes. First of all, the animation is lousy. I recall reading that many of the animators who worked on these shorts didn't care much for how they were turning out either... maybe they didn't bother putting any effort into the animation because they knew the shorts would be crappy anyway? Second, while I am glad that they got Joe Alaskey to do the voice of Bugs here (apparently, it was originally supposed to be Billy West but Joe Dante and Eric Goldberg wanted to keep Bugs' voice in the short the same as it was in Looney Tunes: Back in Action), it wasn't necessary for them to pitch his voice up. Joe was able to do Bugs just fine without being pitched up, and it doesn't do anything to make his Bugs sound more like Mel Blanc. Third, the short isn't very funny - there are some jokes that I did find amusing (Sam claiming that he's down to his last quarter followed by Bugs saying he'll be back for it tomorrow, Sam chasing Bugs through the desert, the ending with Sam calling Bugs on his cell phone), but aside from that it's a very blah and unfunny cartoon. But with all of this said, there isn't anything disturbing or horrific about Hare and Loathing in Las Vegas, it's just bad in a "well, that stunk" way, not a "worst Warner Bros. cartoon ever" way. In other words, it's at least inoffensive. That's more than I can say for the other shorts...

Also, Bugs is frequently off-model in this short.

(Quick question - why are Billy West and Maurice LaMarche listed in the credits? I didn't hear their voices... from what I recall, the only character aside from Bugs and Sam to speak is that woman who counts Bugs' money, and she couldn't have been voiced by either of them...)

"The Whizz-ard of Ow" (geez, what a horrible pun...)

Directed by: Bret Haaland

Two wizards are duking it out in a desert for some reason, and after they destroy each other Wile E. Coyote finds one of theirs' "ACME Book of Magic". He decides that, hey, maybe he can use this to catch the Road Runner. Spoiler alert: it isn't much help.

This short apparently made its premiere at, uh, Wal-Mart stores, then got released as a bonus feature on the Looney Tunes: Back in Action DVD. Wile E. using a spell book MIGHT have had potential, but instead we have a short that it mediocre at best and not funny in the slightest. Jokes have a habit of dragging out... like, there's one scene where Wile E. levitates a boulder and tries to crush the Road Runner with it. The entire time I was thinking, "I know it's gonna fall on top of the coyote, stop dragging the joke out..."

I suppose the short isn't really that much worse than Hare and Loathing in Las Vegas, but there's one thing that makes me put it below that short - the needlessly brutal violence. Seeing Wile E.'s ears fall off creeped me out. I also could've done without seeing him get his stomach sliced by a jaguar. Or get his nose bitten off by a monitor lizard.

Also, I have a question about the ending... is the Road Runner intentionally trying to torment Wile E., or is he just goofing around with the spell book and not paying any attention to where he's pointing? It's a little unclear...

"Hogwarts, here I come!"

From here, the shorts get much, much worse...

"Museum Scream"
("Museum Scream"? Is that supposed to be a pun of some sort?)

Directed by: Dan Povenmire

Sylvester (Jeff Bennett) is hungry, and he finds out that Tweety (Billy West) is on display at a nearby museum. Thus, he decides to sneak in and have Tweety for dinner.

I suppose I should admit that I'm not a huge fan of Tweety... I don't DISLIKE him, I'm just kind of apathetic towards him. So I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that I'm not too keen about a short starring him.

First, let's talk about the voices. I love Billy West as much as the next person, but I don't care for his Tweety... it sounds very awkward and stilted, and while this obviously isn't his fault they pitched his voice up too much. I've heard much worse Tweety impressions, though. Jeff Bennett's Sylvester is alright, but he overdid the lisp a little (probably just the result of bad voice direction) and I swear that they pitched him up like they did with his Daffy for some reason. June Foray is pretty much wasted. Second, Tweety just seems really snide and unlikable here... I don't know why, but I found him needlessly mean-spirited.

But the main problem with this short is how needlessly VIOLENT it is. A short with Sylvester and Tweety in a museum? Okay, sure, maybe you could get some good gags out of that... but there aren't any gags here. It's just scene after scene of Sylvester being mutilated. I didn't need to see Sylvester get eaten by a snake, attacked by a poisonous wasp, have his head bitten by a baby dinosaur, get sliced to pieces by a buzzsaw, or get impaled by an iron maiden (which then proceeds to explode for some reason). This isn't funny, it's just disturbing and makes me feel sorry for Sylvester.

Not pictured here: the aftermath, where we actually see Sylvester inside
the snake's stomach.

The short's climax, with Sylvester getting split into multiple multicolored versions of himself which then proceed to fight over Tweety is kind of neat, I guess, and the use of the "Thunder and Lightning Polka" is a nice touch... but even then, I didn't like seeing three of the Sylvesters getting electrocuted, and couldn't you have found a way for them to fuse back into one Sylvester instead of ending the short with Tweety shooting them all out of a cannon?

"Color has its harmony and that's like I have said...
Red, yellow, green, red, blue, blue, blue, red, purple, green, yellow, orange, red!
Red!"

But the absolute weakest point in the cartoon is the gag with Tweety sending Sylvester through a digestive tract display. That wasn't funny, that was just gross and disturbing. Oh, and then after Sylvester gets crapped out, Tweety says, "Are you okay, puddy tat? You wook POOPED!"

Yeah. Toilet humor in a Looney Tune. Real classy, guys...

"Duck Dodgers in Attack of the Drones"

Directed by: Rich Moore

Daffy (voiced by Jeff Bennett) creates a group of duck-shaped robots to fight an alien menace. Then once the aliens are defeated, the robots go on a rampage and Daffy must stop them. A lot of people have actually said this is the best of the Larry Doyle shorts. I, on the other hand, think it's one of the worst.

Let me start off by saying what I do like about this short... Billy West provides the voice of this old guy who I guess is the head of a council that Daffy's part of - and he's completely unrecognizable! When I first watched this short, I thought it was Maurice LaMarche. Major props. And here's something neat - near the beginning of the short, we get cameos from Zoidberg, the Great Gazoo, and a Klingon (the short also originally had a cameo from Stitch, but he was cropped out for the DVD release because I guess they were afraid that Disney would sue them if they didn't). How cool is THAT?

Now, what do I not like about the short? A lot of things. I think Jeff Bennett would've made a great Daffy had Larry Doyle not insisted on speeding him up... and again, they pitched him up WAY TOO MUCH. Also, a short about Daffy Duck cloning himself SOUNDS like it would be hilarious, but here's the thing: the drones don't act like Daffy. I mean, yeah, they go "Woo-hoo! Woo-hoo!" a couple times, and Daffy's able to lure them into a trap with fake awards, but they do things like randomly attacking people, beating things up, setting random things on fire... these seem more like things that BENDER would do, not Daffy. In fact, the whole thing feels much more like a really crappy episode of Futurama than a Daffy Duck short.

"An unfunny short, this is!"

Perhaps the biggest problem here is that, again, the short is needlessly disturbing. I think that had this been released into theaters, kids in the audience would've been traumatized by it. When I first watched the short, it really freaked me out. Let's see... first we see one of the invading aliens devouring an astronaut's front half... then Daffy's drones beat up a sentient ATM machine... one of them sets a trash can on fire, and we then find out the trash can is sentient and it runs around screaming... and did I mention how much abuse DAFFY takes in this cartoon? He's blasted in half, impaled by a lightsaber, has his front half eroded (we actually see blood at one point during this gag)… and then there's the ending. Basically, Daffy thinks he's been able to destroy the drones, but it turns out they found the copy machine he used to make them and have started making more. The machine explodes, and Daffy winds up clinging to the top of a building as the city is overrun by drones, many of which start snapping at him from below. This is not funny. I can not be the only one who honestly felt sorry for Daffy, especially when he didn't do anything wrong in this short aside from act like an arrogant idiot.

And when the jokes AREN'T disturbing, they're still painfully unfunny. Particularly awful jokes include the parody of the Star Wars crawl at the beginning, Daffy's pathetic flying machine, the mirror routine gag, the nunchucks gag that was straight-up stolen from Robin Hood Daffy (they didn't even try to hide it!) and the ending with the Instant Martian, which honestly just felt like the writers couldn't think of a funnier joke to end the short on.

Oh, and by the way, there's actually an episode of that New Looney Tunes show that does the "Daffy cloning himself" concept a lot better. It's called "When Marvin Comes Martian In". Watch that instead.

All right, four down, two more to go...

"My Generation G... G... Gap"

Directed by: Dan Povenmire

I really do not blame Bob Bergen for not wanting to take part in this short.

Here is an actual photo of Porky watching My Generation G... G... Gap.

The plot of the short goes like this: Porky (Billy West) takes his daughter to a rock concert, and then he finds out how rowdy it is and I guess becomes worried that his daughter will get it on with one of the roadies or something. So he becomes obsessed with getting into the arena and getting his daughter out. And the rest of the short is just an excuse for the writers to make Porky suffer.

Here is a short that straight up did not try. It checks off every box on the checklist for bad Looney Tunes productions. Bad voice acting? Check! Again, I think Billy West is awesome but I do not care for his Porky at all, though again it's not Billy's fault that Larry Doyle insisted on pitching up the voices. It's way too obvious that they pitched it up. It makes Porky sound like he's on helium. Dee Bradley Baker and Greg Burson were also dragged into lending their voices to this thing. That's THREE incredibly talented voice actors, and even THEY couldn't save it.

"Maybe this dollar bill that's totally not a photograph poorly superimposed
into the scene because the animators think dollar bills are too hard to draw
will convince you to let me into your concert!"

Unfunny jokes? Check! There was actually one joke that DID get a chuckle out of me - specifically, when Porky plows through the reporter on his way to the concert arena. And the gag with the talking dollar bill was kind of funny, too. The other jokes, on the other hand? Awful. Why? Well, that brings us to the next item on the checklist...

Needlessly cruel violence? Check! What did Porky do in this short to deserve getting SLICED INTO THIRDS BY POWER LINES, THRASHED AROUND LIKE A GUITAR, AND ELECTROCUTED MULTIPLE TIMES? Do Larry Doyle and the writers just hate Porky or something and wanted to torture him simply because that's how they get their kicks?

And finally, trying too hard to be "hip" and "relevant" and whatever? Check! Porky is thrust into the role of a bumbling dad who isn't "with the times" or some crap like that, and has to be exposed to rock music or heavy metal or... I don't even know WHAT they're trying to do here, but it involves Porky dressing like this:

Seeing this makes my skin crawl.

The short ends with, of all things, a commercial for an album of songs performed by Porky. The entire joke of this scene is "HA HA! PORKY IS SINGING ACTUAL POP/ROCK/WHATEVER IT IS THAT THE KIDS ARE LISTENING TO NOWADAYS SONGS! THAT'S FUNNY, RIGHT?!" Call me crazy, but I'm not seeing the humor in have Porky perform "Bad to the Bone" and "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet". I mean, yeah, they're actual pop/rock/whatever music was popular when this short was made songs. AAAAAAAAND?

Speaking of ain't seeing nothing yet, as bad as this short is, the fact that it got at least ONE laugh out of me puts it above...

"Cock-a-Doodle-Duel" (not to be confused with the much better Garfield and Friends episode of the same name)

Directed by: Peter Shin

Ugh. This is a bad one. It's got Foghorn Leghorn, one of my favorite Looney Tunes characters, in it and yet it still sucks. It features the voices of Jeff Bennett, Tress MacNeille, and Billy West and yet it still sucks. It was written by Jon Vitti, a story consultant for the first Ice Age AND Horton Hears a Who, two genuinely good movies, and yet it still sucks. WHAT HAPPENED? How do you get that many talented people and yet we wind up with THIS?

What's the plot, you might ask? Well, it focuses on Foghorn (Jeff Bennett) feeling threatened when a scientifically-engineered superchicken or whatever (also Jeff Bennett) shows up on his farm and impresses all the hens. Foghorn is all "This is MY farm!" and becomes obsessed with beating the other rooster at SOMETHING. That's the plot. Riveting, isn't it?

Yeah, let's make a rooster "hot" so the girls in the audience will become...
what's the bird equivalent of a furry? A feathery?

This short has it all. The animation is bad. The story is weak. I swear that Tress MacNeille's voice was pitched up for one of those hens, and I think Jeff Bennett's Foghorn was pitched up too for some inexplicable reason. The jokes are all painfully unfunny. Why do so many of these shorts have characters getting electrocuted? Foghorn might not be a rocket scientist, but he's not dumb enough to sit in a cauldron of boiling oil until he was fried. Seeing Foghorn perform the Chicken Dance was cringe-worthy (I know it was likely intended to be pretty lame, but still). And even ignoring the fact that they stole a joke from The Swooner Crooner, if they HAD to steal a joke from The Swooner Crooner why did it have to be the gross Running Gag about the chickens laying eggs when they get turned on?

There's also a joke about steroids. Ha ha?

And once again, the short is NEEDLESSLY DISTURBING. There's a scene where after the other rooster clobbers Foghorn, the Barnyard Dawg (Billy West) says that he'd better make sure he can beat the other rooster at something because the farmer probably won't have a need for two roosters on the farm... and then Foghorn sees an axe sticking out of a tree stump and gets nervous. Yeah, let's have Foghorn spend the short fearing for his life. That's funny, right? And then there's the ending... dear lord, the ending. Do you want to know how this short ends? Well, here it is:

Foghorn, after getting beaten at tic-tac-toe, gets an idea. He tells the other rooster, "I bet I can eat more corn than you!" and then the other rooster eats a ton of corn. Then Foghorn says, "I bet I can crow louder than you!" and as the other rooster is crowing he shoots a hot coal down his throat. That makes all the corn in the rooster's stomach pop, and then the other rooster explodes. All that's left are his feet. Yes, I am not kidding. The short ends with the other rooster being killed. Foghorn actually murders another character and we're supposed to find it FUNNY.

There's a reason why, in shorts like Rabbit Fire, when Daffy is shot in the face we see immediately afterwards that he's fine, he's just singed and needs to readjust his bill. Because seeing Daffy die would not be funny. It would just be horrifying. Likewise, seeing the other rooster die is not funny either. Like, at all. And that's not even going into how out of character it is for Foghorn to kill somebody.

I think I've said enough. All of these shorts were failures. They range from "bad, but not horrible" (Hare and Loathing in Las Vegas, I'm looking at you) to "phenomenally awful" (My Generation G... G... Gap) to "what were they thinking?!" (Cock-a-Doodle-Duel). I don't know how you can get people like Dan Povenmire to direct these things and yet they still turn out this bad. Whatever Larry Doyle was trying to accomplish with these shorts, he didn't accomplish it. What these shorts DID accomplish was giving Bob Bergen a migraine and wasting the time and talents of Jeff Bennett, Billy West, Joe Alaskey, Tress MacNeille, Greg Burson, and Dee Bradley Baker.

You want to watch a "modern" Looney Tunes short that's actually good? I'm actually working on a list of 'em. The new Looney Tunes Cartoons on HBO Max are really good. Watch those instead. But for now, I have this to say: Larry Doyle might be a fan of Looney Tunes, and I'm sure the guy had good intentions, but being a fan of Looney Tunes does not mean that you know how to make a quality Looney Tunes cartoon. I mean, I'M a fan of Looney Tunes, but if you asked ME to write a Looney Tunes cartoon I doubt it would be any good. There are people who know why shorts like Duck Amuck, Rabbit of Seville, Duck Soup to Nuts, etc. work. Clearly, Larry Doyle is not one of them. Between the bad animation, the weak plots, the needlessly over-the-top violence, the unnecessarily pitched-up voice acting, and the painfully unfunny jokes, it's easy to see why Warner Bros. shut down production after these things were made.

Again, I wouldn't normally be this harsh, but from what I've read about Larry Doyle, combined with his behavior on the Toonzone Forums, he's earned this. I mean, I'm obviously not going to say he should be banned from Hollywood or whatever, but hopefully he doesn't go near the Looney Tunes franchise again. As for the people who directed and wrote these shorts... nothing but the utmost respect for you all, but these shorts unfortunately are not your best work. Sorry, guys.

Oh, and Warner Brothers? If Bob Bergen says that he's not comfortable with a joke or two in the script, listen to him. He knows what he's talking about.

Sources:
- https://animesuperhero.com/forums/threads/is-the-fate-of-the-new-shorts.3503071/page-2

Let's Watch This: An Episode of "Butt-Ugly Martians"

You know, sometimes all you have to do is hear a show's name and it gives you a good idea as to whether or not you'd like the show. This is one of those times. "Butt-Ugly Martians"? Who would want to watch a show about "butt-ugly martians"?

Apparently, not that many people, because the show only got one season consisting of only twenty-six episodes. It premiered on the British TV network CITV in Febuary 2001, then popped up on Teletoon in Canada and Nickelodeon in the United States. It was created by Michael Train and developed by Mike Young, Pamela Hickey, Dennys McCoy, and Bill Schultz. It managed to get some video games and a toy line before getting the axe, presumably for being a crappy show.

The premise? Well, some ugly martians named B-Bop A-Luna (voiced by Charlie Schlatter), 2T Fru-T (Rob Paulsen), and Do-Wah Diddy (Jess Harnell) are reluctantly sent to Earth by their ruler, Emperor Bog (S. Scott Bullock), so they can conquer it. But when they get there, they discover that it's a great place and decide to stay there, sending fake progress reports to their boss so he doesn't know that they haven't actually conquered it.

Okay, so the name of the show isn't the only reason why I had low expectations going in. There was also the ugly CGI, the fact that a lot of people online seem to dislike it, things like that. But, it's still an obscure animated cartoon, so of course I was gonna wind up reviewing it for my blog. Per usual, I just picked an episode of the show at random and wound up watching "You Bet Your Planet". Is the show as bad as it looks? Well, let's find out...

The episode begins at the Mos Eisley Cantina. You will never find a more poorly-rendered hive of crude CGI models.

Maybe this looked way more impressive back in 2001, but then again,
Monsters Inc. was released back in 2001 too, and the animation in THAT
still looks pretty good for the most part, so...

The three butt-ugly martians are giving a speech about how they're the champions of the galaxy's most dangerous game, called "Togut" or something like that, but they've decided to stop playing it. This reporter guy named Rinko is all "Noooooooo, you can't quit! I make a lot of money off you guys!", and then some guards come in looking for him. I'm guessing he owes them money or something.

Somebody get this guy some wrinkle cream.

Before running off, Rinko gives the martians some sort of portable gambling device. B-Bop says that they should get rid of it because they're against the law in this sector. Rinko comes back to grab it... just in time for the guards to spot him and arrest them all.

Then we get the show's theme song. It's painful to listen to. The martians can't sing to save their lives (and I know for a fact that Rob Paulsen and Jess Harnell are good singers, so don't ask me what happened here). And yet despite that the song will STILL wind up in your head and never leave. If you listen to it, you'll have "We are the martians, the butt-ugly martians..." echoing around in your brain for the rest of the day.

Just ignore the evil martian in the background there, he doesn't appear in this
episode.

They also keep shouting "B! K-M!" for some reason. What does that stand for? Shouldn't it be "B-U-M"? Y'know, as in "Butt-Ugly Martians"? Maybe the martians noticed that it also spells "bum" and didn't want anyone to think they were lazy slackers or something...

Okay, back to the episode.

"We're just going to judge this strictly by how it looks and assume that you're
criminals without giving you the chance to explain yourselves!"

The Zoidberg-esque guards are all "You are under arrest!" and we get a quote-unquote "epic" battle between them and the martians. Eventually they escape with Rinko in tow, and he promises that he'll never forget this... and sure enough, he didn't! It turns out that this was all just a flashback to something that happened a millennium ago. He's paid the martians a visit so he can trap them in a giant glowing bubble and then make them an offer they can't refuse... because if they do, he'll turn them to dust.

"That stupid Good Witch of the North said this was the only way to travel.
Not ONCE did she mention how cramped it was in one of these things!"

You see, Rinko is in debt and apparently he doesn't have the money to pay what he owes, so the only way he can get out of it is by having the martians play a game of "Togut". Or he could just get a job and get the money he needs by EARNING it, but this guy's clearly kind of crooked so I'm guessing he never even considered that.

The martians agree... but it turns out they only said that so Rinko would let them out of that cramped bubble. Once he does, B-Bop casually says, "We lied." Fortunately, Rinko has another way of getting them to play "Togut" again - he informs them that if they don't win, Earth will be destroyed. The martians agree.

Later that day, the martians get a visit from their Earthling friends. Say hello to Mike (Rob Paulsen), Angela (Kath Souice), and Cedric (Ogie Banks). Mike's the redhead, Angela's the girl, and Cedric's the kid with the glasses.

They look like the mannequins from the Old Navy commericals.

The martians explain to them what's going on, and then we get a training montage. Eventually, they're ready to start... but all of a sudden, some sort of poorly-rendered space rock thing crash-lands on Earth! Then we cut to this guy... uh, hello? What happened to the "Togut" game? The Earth's gonna be destroyed if the martians don't win, aren't the stakes already pretty high? We don't need another plot thread shoehorned in.

"Good lord! I'm getting a reading of over forty megafonzies!"

This is Stoat Muldoon (Robert Stack). He's an alien hunter who keeps encountering the martians on Earth, but every time he does, the martians erase his memory. He's not a bad guy, just overly zealous.

After spending a few seconds with Stoat, we cut back to the martians... so, I guess we're just gonna ignore the space rock thing, then. The martians' opponent for the "Togut" game - a gigantic martian in a robotic suit named Humanga (S. Scott Bullock) - shows up. He and the martians do some trash-talking, with 2T telling him to "Stick the attitude in your piehole!" (whatever THAT means).

"Yes, I know I sound like Yakko Warner. You don't have to keep pointing that out."

So how exactly is this "Togut" game played? Well, according to Rinko, Humanga will try to slam an asteroid into Earth. And the martians will have to stop him. That's it? That's not really a "game", is it? Seems more like the martians stopping some evil dude from destroying a planet. This is what's considered a thrilling sport for martians? Keeping each other from smashing planets with asteroids?

Also, is it just me, or does Humanga kind of look like a Machamp?

Okay, a Machamp is a fighting-type Pokemon, and according to the internet fighting-type
Pokemon are weak against flying-type, poison-type, bug-type, ghost-type, and fairy-type
Pokemon... so, all the martians need is to find a Covisquire, an Arbok, an Alakazam, a Kricketune,
a Dusknoir, or a Clefairy.

Rinko teleports the martians and Humanga onto the asteroid so they can begin the game. Back on Earth, Stoat's device thing alerts him of the asteroid heading for Earth, so he rushes off to destroy it. Which is terrific except that if he destroys the asteroid, he'll also destroy the martians that are playing a rousing game of "Keep the Earth From Being Smashed Like a Graham Cracker" on it.

While Mike, Angela, and Cedric are distracting Stoat, the martians manage to take out Humanga. They win, the Earth is saved, episode over, right? Alas, no - Humanga returns and re-directs the asteroid back towards Earth. So the martians go through some sort of Power Rangers-esque transformation sequence and gain some cool armor.

And they didn't do this at the beginning of the game becaaaaaaaaaaaaause?

And then Humanga beats the crap out of them. Wow. Fail.

Fortunately, back on Earth Angela fires some sort of satellite that sends a flaming Cheeto rocketing towards the asteroid. It lands, cracking the asteroid in half. Humanga falls into the chasm. 2T calls up Mike on his wrist communicator thing to tell him to get Stoat to fire the laser at precise coordinates to take out the asteroid. The martians start collecting disintegrator cells. Humanga manages to climb out of the chasm, but the martians tie him up before getting the heck out of their. Cedric enters the coordinates, Stoat fires the laser, and KA-BOOM goes the asteroid.

"Our whole universe was in a hot, dense state..."

"The Earth is saved once again!" Stoat exclaims. But there's no response from the martians, so the kids think they got caught in the explosion. Spoiler alert: they're actually alive. They give Cedric the portable betting thing so Rinko won't drag them into another game of "Togut". The end.

He kind of looks like Megamind.

What's the Verdict?

I think the only reason why I don't consider this show worse is because I had extremely small expectations going in (again, it's a show called "Butt-Ugly Martians"). That doesn't mean that the show is even remotely good. Problem 1 - for a show with three-dimensional graphics, the characters are flat. The martians have no distinguishable personalities. We get some implications that 2T's the "smart one" of the bunch, but aside from that, zilch. They're just three wisecracking Sonic the Hedgehog/Ninja Turtle wannabes. The kids, meanwhile, are your typical dull as dirt kid sidekick characters. Remember the kids from Wild Kratts? They're basically those guys. Problem 2 - the animation is bad. Really, really bad. The movements, the lip sync, the textures... it's practically on par with The Nuttiest Nutcracker. Even for early 2000s standards, it looks horrendous. Problem 3 - the writing is lousy. The plot - which, need I remind you, focuses on the Earth being at risk of getting clobbered by an asteroid - is unengaging and not one of the jokes are funny. The voice actors do their best with what they're given, but that's the one good thing I can say about this show. There are far better cartoons worth your time. But, to be fair, there are far worse too.

By the way, whatever happened to that flying space rock thing?

Let's Watch This: An Episode of "Hercules: The Animated Series"

In 1997, Disney released Hercules.

Of the animated films that make up the Disney Renaissance, Hercules might be the black sheep. It didn't make nearly as much money as its predecessors, was torn apart - particularly by Greeks - for how inaccurate it is towards the myths it was based on, and Disney hardly acknowledges the film nowadays. And yet, despite all of this, Disney still thought the film had the potential to make a great TV series.

And that's how we got Hercules: The Animated Series (or just Hercules, as it's usually called).

Hercules: The Animated Series premiered August 31st, 1998 and ran for two seasons, making for a total of sixty-five episodes. Unlike Disney's other TV shows based on their movies like Aladdin: The Series and The Legend of Tarzan, the show doesn't take place after the movie but rather in the middle of it - specifically, when Hercules is a teenager, training with Phil. When Herc's not training to be a hero, he's going to high school. Actually, I think this might've been one of the first Disney cartoons where the main character goes to high school (you know how many of those there are).

They managed to get a good chunk of the original voice cast back - Tate Donavan, James Woods, Matt Frewer, Bobcat Goldthwait... alas, Danny DeVito was too busy to reprise his role as Phil. Fortunately Robert Costanzo, the guy they got to fill in for him, does a spot-on Danny DeVito impression. On top of THAT, they were able to get tons of celebrities to lend their voices to this show: French Stewart, Jennifer Aniston, Lisa Kudrow, Merv Griffin, Jason Alexander, Jane Leeves, Jim Belushi, Craig Ferguson, Richard Simmons, Peri Gilpin, David Cross, Kathy Najimy, Steven Wright, Leslie Mann, Vince Vaughn, Cary Elwes, Will Ferrell, Sarah Michelle Gellar, David Hyde Pierce, Mandy Patinkin, Betty White, Jennifer Love Hewitt... this was apparently a pretty big deal back in the 1990s. Nowadays, not so much, what with most cartoon shows' casts being about ninety-percent celebrities and ten-percent professionals (don't get me started on that).

Of course, the show DID give us a plot hole - in the movie, you'll recall, Hades sent Pain and Panic to off Hercules after turning him mortal. They failed, and decided to just TELL Hades that they finished him off. Hades didn't find out he was alive until years later, AFTER Herc had completed his training with Phil. And yet in the show, Hades knows that Herc is alive and makes many attempts to get rid of him. According to TV Tropes, the showrunners knew that didn't make sense but just wanted to have fun with the settings and characters. I've also heard that one of the last episodes addressed this by having Hades, Pain, Panic, and maybe Hercules too get doused in water that made them forget the events of the series, but I could be wrong about that.

Soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo, is Hercules: The Animated Series any good? Disney's always been a bit hit-or-miss with their TV spinoffs of animated movies. Sometimes it works out...

Other times, not so much...

Let's find out which category their Hercules show falls into. We'll be watching the episode "Hercules and the Techno Greeks" (is that supposed to be a pun on "techno geeks"?).

The episode begins with the show's narrator, whose name is Bob, telling us that the Greeks' city-states were the wonder of the ancient world. There was Athens; birthplace of the modern government, Sparta; birthplace of military science (and a meme), and Arcadia; birthplace NOT of video arcades as its name would suggest but people from Arcadia (ga-doy). Then the Muses show up and basically do the same thing that they did at the beginning of the movie - show up and tell the narrator to go suck an egg. I'm guessing this was how every episode of this show began, with them just recycling this joke from the movie in the hopes that people would still find it funny (you might recall The Emperor's New School doing the exact same thing).

Anyhow, the Muses bring up a place called "Abacus Valley" that the narrator claims to have never been to.

Or maybe it's actually "ABA<VS VALLEY"?

The Muses sing a crappy techno song called "Techno Greek" about how in Abacus Valley there lived some guy named Numericles who invented the concept of math. So for those of you, like me, who hate math and weren't particularly good at it in school (and yet I still somehow managed to get good grades?), now we know who to blame for it. Problem was, these guys also existed...

Centaurs really shouldn't go shirtless.

Every Friday, a rowdy gang of Centaurs - half-human, half-horse - pillages Abacus Valley. Numericles is fed up with those rassa-frassin' Centaurs and announces that they'll pay someone to get rid of them.

Cut to... what I'm guessing is supposed to be the school that Hercules attends. They're all reciting poetry, but one student, an Amazon named Tempest (voiced by Jennifer Jason Leigh), isn't really into it. "An Amazon is prime for ACTION!" she boasts. "We strike first and ask questions later... assuming our enemy still has a TONGUE!"

Hello, character who I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess has lots of inappropriate
drawings of her likeness on DeviantArt.

Oh, and say hello to Hercules' two friends, who weren't in the movie and made up for the show. The boy is Icarus (voiced by French Stewart), the guy who, if you ever looked at Greek Mythology in your Language Arts class at some point (like I did), you should know is famous for flying too close to the sun and getting burned. He's Hercules' best friend and a massive idiot. The girl is Cassandra (voiced by Sandra Bernhard), a girl who's basically a prophet and the sanest of the bunch. Icarus has the hots for Cassandra, but for obvious reasons, she's not interested.

I guess Cassandra is supposed to be a stand-in of sorts for Meg, since she couldn't be
in the show what with it taking place before Hercules met her and all.

Actually, there WAS an episode of the show where Meg appeared, but I believe she and
Hercules both got doused with that same water that made them forget the events of the episode.

Hercules recites his poem, which is all about being a hero. The teacher tells him that he didn't put enough passion into it, so he adds some more and everybody loves it... except Tempest, who says that she hates Hercules and this class. "I don't belong in this pathetic school..." she complains as class is dismissed. "I belong in BATTLE." Then she accidentally kicks Hercules into a statue of Atlas (the guy who carried the Earth on his shoulders, for those unaware), resulting in some WHACKY SHENANIGANS.

I like Hercules' pose here. It's like he's trying to emulate Super Mario.

Then Tempest notices a flyer asking for a "Sword For Hire" (presumably put there by the people of Abacus Valley), and she's totally into that.

We then cut to Hercules, Cassandra and Icarus in Abacus Valley themselves. They're there because Cassandra's abacus got smashed during the WHACKY SHENANIGANS with the statue, and they need to get it fixed. Icarus loves the place because everyone there is an even bigger geek than him.

And also like Icarus, when the guy at the Abacus Store sees Cassandra he immediately has the hots for her and starts acting like a stereotypical dweeb who can't talk to girls. Basically a precursor to Leonard, Howard and Raj from The Big Bang Theory. Although he looks a bit more like Stuart than any of them to me...

"Bazinga!"

Meanwhile, Numericles is interviewing Tempest for the job of Centaur-Beater-Upper. Speaking of which, the Centaurs show up again. Two of them are voiced by Clancy Brown and Bill Faggerbake. Y'know, Mr. Krabs and Patrick Star. Too bad they didn't get Tom Kenny and Roger Bumpass to voice two of 'em too, that would've made the SpongeBob connection even better.

Hercules takes out the centaurs before Tempest has the chance to, which makes her MAD. Hercules is appalled when he hears that she's charging the citizens of Abacus Valley to protect them. "You can't CHARGE to defend the defenseless!" he protests. After thinking it over, Numericles decides to go with Hercules because he doesn't have to pay him, making Tempest even angrier.

"Nerd joke. Nerd joke. Nerd joke."

"My vengeance will be... painfully... agonizingly... VENGEFUL!" she tells Numericles before storming off. "No complimentary tote bag for YOU!" he calls after her. She goes to this place called "The Feedbag", which is run by this goat-esque guy who sounds like the Robot Devil from Futurama.

I can't help but wonder (no pun intended) if Tempest is intended to be a parody of Wonder Woman. I haven't read any Wonder Woman comics, she's an Amazon too, right?

You think this guy is related to Phil?

The Feedbag, as it turns out, is basically a bar for Centaurs. The Clancy Brown-voiced leader of the Centaurs, Blotox, challenges her to a brawl... and promptly gets his horse's rear end handed to him. The other Centaurs are impressed, and the Bill Faggerbake-voiced one says that according to the Centaurs' bi-laws, Tempest beating the crap out of Blotox makes HER their new leader. This gives Tempest an idea - she can use the Centaurs to get revenge on Hercules and Abacus Valley!

Cut back to Hercules, Icarus and Cassandra. Icarus is trying to fix Cassandra's abacus... and fails miserably. Hercules' "beeper" (a bluebird) tells him that Abacus Valley needs his help, so off he heads. Once he arrives, it turns out that the Centaurs aren't attacking the place - they just wanted to test his "response time". Then the Muses show up to sing another crappy Techno song about how the Abacus Valley guys keep summoning him to do miniscule stuff like getting rid of mice and squirrels.

Okay, I know where this is gonna lead... the Abacus Valley guys are gonna keep bothering Herc like this, and then when Tempest and the Centaurs finally DO attack and they summon him, Herc won't believe them. Y'know, just like in The Boy Who Cried Wolf. But, for now, Hercules encounters Blotox, who's crying about how the other Centaurs replaced him with a hot chick.

"Look on the bright side. At least they didn't trap you in a maze."
"No, that's a MINOtaur. They're the ones that look like bulls."

Hercules offers Blotox the chance to be his deputy and protect Abacus Valley. "Blotox, you CAN learn to be good!" he says. We get a training montage, like the one in the movie except Herc has to be the trainer since Phil isn't in this episode. Meanwhile, Tempest and the other Centaurs are preparing for their surprise attack - this time they'll be attacking on MONDAY, not Friday, so the Abacus Valley guys won't know they're coming.

Herc introduces Blotox as his new deputy to the Abacus Valley guys, but they're all afraid of him. "There is nothing in this world that would make me allow a FILTHY CENTAUR to protect our valley!" Numericles claims. Jeez, way to be racist, Numericles. But then Tempest and the other Centaurs charge in, and Numericles immediately does a 180.

"I'M the most attractive character on this show!"
"No, I'M the most attractive character on this show!"
"No, I am!"
"No, I am!"
"No, I am!"

Hercules and Tempest start swordfighting, but Herc decides to cut the fight short when he sees the Centaurs pursuing Icarus and Cassandra. Then that dude from the abacus store pops out of a vase and starts hitting on Cassandra.

Uh, is he starting to turn into Glenn Quagmire?

Hercules takes out the Centaurs via dumb luck, leaving Tempest to face off with Blotox. Fortunately, Blotox manages to defeat her. Tempest storms off, and now Blotox is the leader of the Centaurs again. And now the Centaurs work as security for the people of Abacus City. The end.

WHAT'S THE VERDICT?

Is Hercules: The Animated Series any good? Well, I personally thought this episode was pretty good. Would I go so far as to say it's better than the movie? No. But it's certainly one of Disney's better spin-off shows. I really like the Centaurs, and the jokes all land quite well. The animation, of course, is a massive downgrade from the film. And the episode feels empty without Phil in it, but that's admittedly a nitpick. If you like the film, I highly suggest giving the show a watch.

Just don't go into the show expecting to learn a thing or two about Greek mythology. It's about as accurate to those myths as Frozen is to the original Snow Queen story by Hans Christian Anderson. By which I mean, not at all.

So, what are we reviewing next time?

Hoo boy...