By: Jerry Beck,
on 11/15/2016
Space Jam is 20 years old! Our 3-part oral history begins with the troubled start to production, character designs, and how the basketball scenes were shot.
The post The Oral History of ‘Space Jam’: Part 1 – Launching the Movie appeared first on Cartoon Brew.
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By: Jerry Beck,
on 7/27/2015
Now 75, Bugs Bunny remains a towering influence. We look at some of his greatest hits.
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By: Jerry Beck,
on 7/16/2015
The filmmaking essay series "Every Frame A Painting" takes a trip into the wondrous, disciplined mind of legendary animation director Chuck Jones.
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By: Jerry Beck,
on 7/16/2015
By: Jerry Beck,
on 6/30/2015
Time Warner is relaunching its archival animation showcase Boomerang with original content -- and commercials.
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By: Jerry Beck,
on 5/8/2015
In a new Royal Canadian Mint x Looney Tunes collab, Bugs Bunny trades his carrots for carats.
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By: Jerry Beck,
on 3/2/2015
By: Jerry Beck,
on 8/25/2014
Some people say Bugs and gang ain't kewl no more, but Warner Bros. got its bizness figured with this hella wicked 2015 Looney Tunes wall calendar.
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By: Jerry Beck,
on 6/17/2014
Twenty years ago, we had 'urban' Looney Tunes merchandise. Today, we have the characters being pasted on top of human bodies.
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By: Catherine Nichols,
on 4/15/2014
By: Jerry Beck,
on 6/24/2013
We reported last September that comedian and former Saturday Night Live performer Jenny Slate had been hired to script a new CGI/live-action Looney Tunes reboot. She recently updated Splitsider on her progress:
“I don’t know what I’m allowed to say about it, but I will say that I love writing it and I love the research that I did for it, which is basically watch one million cartoons and categorize all the characters. It’s a really, really fun world to be in. It’s just an instant, really fast, punchy fun world, and the people that I work with at Warner Brothers and at [production companies] Heyday and KatzSmith are so nice to me. I’ve never written a movie before, and there are a lot of questions I have to ask that I feel are very stupid. They actually had to give me the new version of Final Draft, and I had to like buy a new computer. They seem to just put faith in my ideas and because they’ve always been supportive of me as a creative person, writing this has been a real pleasure and I’m proud that they let me do it. I love it, and I like the story that I’ve written a lot. You know, we’ll see. I don’t know. There might be somebody else there writing one that’s better, but I like the one that I’m writing. So, that’s all I can say. What else can I do except for like the shit that I’m doing and try to not be an asshole?”
It’ll be interesting to watch what Slate comes up with and whether the producers (which include Jeffrey Katzenberg’s son David) move forward with her treatment. It’s in her favor that the last two Looney Tunes features—Space Jam and Looney Tunes: Back in Action—were comedic duds, and that there hasn’t been a truly funny or memorable version of the Looney Tunes characters since the 1950s. Unlike many other well known properties that are being revived nowadays, there’s no pressure to live up to any contemporary standard for this group of characters because every revival/reboot is seemingly more awful than the last.
Also noteworthy, in the same article Slate says she’s working with her husband, Dean Fleischer-Camp, to develop an independently funded stop motion feature about Marcel the Shell, the character that she co-created with Fleischer-Camp and which became a breakout online hit thanks to the animated short Marcel the Shell with Shoes On.
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By: Jerry Beck,
on 4/9/2013
Amazon’s Gold Box Deal of the Day—good for today only—is an amazing value for anyone who is even slightly interested in classic Hollywood cartoons. They’re offering all six Looney Tunes Golden Collection DVD sets for $65.
By: Jerry Beck,
on 2/5/2013
L.A’s The Cinefamily is hosting a three-day celebration of classic Warner Bros. cartoons (co-presented by The Chuck Jones Center for Creativity) on Presidents Day weekend (February 16-18).
The festivities begin on Saturday afternoon (2/16) with a panel discussion on the work of Chuck Jones (speakers to be announced – but I’m moderating), a big screen 35mm showing of the 1973 TV special A Cricket In Times Square, and the following classic Chuck Jones-directed Looney Tunes shorts in 35mm: What’s Opera, Doc?, One Froggy Evening, Duck Amuck, From A to ZZZZ, Bully for Bugs, Duck Dodgers in the 24th 1/2 Century, Feed The Kitty, Rabbit Seasoning.
Sunday afternoon (2/17), a double feature of collaborations between Chuck Jones and author Norton Juster: the 1970 feature film The Phantom Tollbooth and the 1965 Academy Award winning MGM short The Dot And The Line: A Romance In Lower Mathematics.
Monday (2/18) we go insane. A six-hour Looney Tunes marathon – all on film, mostly 35mm, many in Technicolor… all my favorite Looney Tunes shorts – and more: rarities, odds n’ ends and ephemera. I’m not mentioning titles in advance (you gotta trust me on this), but I promise: no 1960s DePatie-Frelengs. Rare behind the scenes footage, oddball material including (at some point during the marathon) bridging sequences from The Bugs Bunny Show (1960) and Tang commercials. Good stuff. Prizes for those who spend the entire six hours with us. NOTE: This event kicks off with a potluck lunch; things like bags of chips and drinks are not encouraged — please bring a dish. Impress us!
MONDAY February 18th
POTLUCK LUNCH: noon-1PM
LOONEY TUNES-A-PALOOZA: 1PM-7PM
Click Here and scroll down for more details. See you there!
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By: Jerry Beck,
on 10/12/2012
Unabashed Plug: Out next week is Vol. 2 of Warner Home Video’s Blu-ray cartoon collection, Looney Tunes Platinum Collection. I’m a little biased because I helped put together the set which includes fifty Warner Bros. cartoon classics, restored to pristine condition, now in glorious 1080p Blu-ray format – containing such masterpieces as A Wild Hare, Book Revue, You Ought To Be In Pictures, the complete Cecil Turtle trilogy, The Nasty Canasta collection, the Chuck Jones’ Bugs-Daffy-Elmer Hunting trilogy, the complete works of Beaky Buzzard, A. Flea and Tex Avery’s Art Deco classic Page Miss Glory. Not to mention a nifty 28-page color booklet (written by yours truly).
The complete contents are listed here. I just got my advance copy and can’t be more pleased about how it turned out, especially as it restores original titles to several films, and a lost ending gag to the seminal Hardaway-Dalton rabbit-hunting cartoon Hare-um Scare-um (1939). Pre-order it now – and yeah, it’s available on DVD (minus a bonus disc and several bonus features). Highly recommended!
By: Jerry Beck,
on 9/21/2012
Aren’t these attractive? Almost everyday some rare oddball piece of vintage cartoon memorabilia or ephemera shows up on Facebook or in my email box. It never seems to end… and each piece raises more questions than answers. Case in point: this pair of Daffy Duck slippers (above) and the super-cool off-model shoe box (below).
Warners art mega collector Eric Calande sent me these images – the latest additions to his superb Looney Tunes collection. I’m guessing it’s from the late 1940′s or early 1950′s – as Charlie Dog is featured as one of the characters and he didn’t appear until 1947. Man, Bugs Bunny looks like he’s eaten too many carrots. And the Daffy slippers – they’re despicable (but I want ‘em)!
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By: Jerry Beck,
on 9/19/2012
The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed a new Looney Tunes movie is in development at Warner Bros., and it will be written by Jenny Slate, a one-season Saturday Night Live performer who most recently appeared on screen in Alvin and the Chipmunks 3: Chipwrecked (see clip embed below). Slate has voiced characaters on Bob’s Burgers and was Ted’s mom in The Lorax. She also co-wrote and voiced the viral stop-motion short Marcel the Shell With Shoes On.
Like Alvin, the Looney Tunes feature is being planned as a mix of live-action and CGI. Harry Potter producer David Heyman, as well as Jeffery’s son David Katzenberg (MTV’s The Hard Times of RJ Berger) and his creative partner Seth Grahame-Smith (Dark Shadows, Beetlejuice 2) are set to produce.
Image at top from recent CG Looney Tunes shorts – which you can now see online.
(Thanks, Liam Scanlan)
By: Jerry Beck,
on 8/6/2012
Looney Tunes mega-fan Matthew Hunter (of the Misce-Looney-Ous blog) has started another worth-while project for the benefit of mankind. It’s a new site dedicated to showcasing Looney Tunes stories from classic (and some modern) Looney Tunes comics, an aspect of the Looney Tunes universe that we can all agree has been woefully neglected and under-appreciated for too long.
Hunter is highlighting the amazing work of artists including Pete Alvarado, Phil DeLara, Vivie Risto, Tom McKimson, David Alvarez, Walter Carzon, and many, many others both credited and uncredited. Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, Daffy Duck, not to mention lesser lights like Henery Hawk, Merlin the Magic Mouse and other favorites are all here, in full color scans of stories ranging from the early to mid 1940’s to the early 2000’s, from Dell, Goldkey, Whitman, and DC… from his huge personal collection and from some “donations”. Check out the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies Comics blog – with the iPad making easier than ever to read comics online, this is a much needed resource – or at least, I think so.
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By: Jerry Beck,
on 8/1/2012
Um, I don’t see any putty tats in this video, but I see a lot of nice girls having a good time. And, after all, isn’t that what Looney Tunes are all about.
(Thanks, John Ryan, on Cartoon Brew’s Facebook page)
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Post tags: Looney Tunes, Looney Tunes Bounce, Mr. Ghetto, Warner Bros.
By: Jerry Beck,
on 11/3/2011
These screen shots were taken with my iPhone off my cathode-ray tube television set. The images are from the new Looney Tunes Blu-Ray disc set, the Looney Tunes Platinum Collection Vol. 1, which I just got my hands on. Don’t judge this set on my blurry shots above. I actually ran out and bought a $79 blu-ray player and hooked it up to my old TV set so I could start watching all the blu-ray discs I’ve been accumulating – even if it’s NOT the correct way to watch them.
That said, the cartoons on this collection look incredibly good. Obviously I’m a bit biased as (#1) I love Warner Bros. cartoons and (#2) consulted on the set and wrote the liner notes. We’ve previously posted about the contents of this collection (official press release here), but seeing and holding the actual packaging in my hands is pretty incredible. It’s almost worth the price of the whole set just for the restoration of the (previously lost, now found) 1955 Chuck Jones Air Force re-enlistment film, A Hitch In Time. It’s got incredible animation and layouts by Ernie Nordli that go beyond what they were doing in the regular Looney Tunes of the time.
I’m not a regular blu-ray collector, but here’s what I appreciate about this technology – and this is something I tell my film collector friends: Blu-Ray the equivilent of the studios selling you a mint 35mm print. As someone who grew up during a time before VHS, when the only thing the studios would sell from their cartoon libraries were cut-down 8mm black and white (of color) cartoons, Blu-ray discs clearly are the gold standard for home video. With proper projection or a huge HD flat screen (two things I still don’t have), watching Looney Tunes at home will never be the same.
So considered this an unabashed plug: Looney Tunes Platinum Collection Vol. 1 goes on sale next Tuesday and is highly recommended – whether you have a blu-ray player or not.
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By: Jerry Beck,
on 10/14/2011
I don’t get out much, but luckily my readers do. Chris Stulz found these Looney Tunes USB flash drives during a recent trip to OfficeMax. These are quite cute and also come designed as Speedy Gonzales (photo below) and the Tasmanian Devil. They store 4GB – and its apparently the first set in a series.
While out shopping, Chris also found these scary Looney Tunes Show Mr. Potato Heads (below center, click to enlarge) at Walmart, as well as these funky Looney Tunes Laplander hats (below, right) at Hot Topic. Looney Tunes merch is back, people! Woo-hoo!
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By: Jerry Beck,
on 8/26/2011
“Fe, Fi, Fo Fat – I tawt I taw a puddy tat!” (a direct quote from Tweety and the Beanstalk, 1957). I dare say this is unlicensed and unauthorized. Yes, that’s what it looks like. It’s a bronze statue by artist Daniel Edwards called “Allegory of a Teen Sex Symbol (Justin Bieber)”, now showing at the Cory Allen Contemporary Art gallery. From their website:
“Daniel wanted to create a work that opens a dialogue about the inevitable exploitation of teen sex symbols as they grow from child stars to adults, like we’ve seen with past celebutantes Lindsay, Miley, and Britney,” said the artist’s representative Cory Allen.
“It would be naïve and hypocritical for anyone to be offended by this simple sculpture, yet be apathetic towards the plethora of images to which they subject themselves on a daily basis,” said Daniel Edwards, “I stand by the work.”
(Thanks, Devlin)
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By: Jerry Beck,
on 8/24/2011
Here’s something I’ve never seen before – and you won’t be seeing it on DVD (or in color) anytime soon yourself. Cartoon historian David Gerstein is one of several animation archaeologists (along with colleagues Steve Stanchfield, Tom Stathes and Thad Komorowski) determined to hunt down lost Hollywood cartoons the major studios have long abandoned or forgotten. This includes missing bits and pieces – like title sequences and cut footage – and all have succeeded in recent years by locating such footage, both important and obscure, found collecting dust in private collections or neglected at major archives.
Gerstein’s latest find is the original opening titles and credits (albeit in black and white) to Warner Bros. Oscar winning 1947 short, Tweetie Pie. Even Warners doesn’t have this opening – having been cut from the original negative long ago, for a 1955 Blue Ribbon reissue. Let David tell you about it (and see it and hear it) on his blog. And keep his page book marked – David’s found several more which he’ll post in later weeks.
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By: Jerry Beck,
on 7/21/2011
At a special Comic Con panel today in San Diego, Warner Bros. Senior VP George Feltenstein announced the forthcoming release of the first Blu-Ray collection of classic Warner Bros. cartoons, The Looney Tunes Platinum Collection. The panel, moderated by yours truly included writer Paul Dini, and directors Spike Brant and Tony Cervone, included a video presentation comparing a standard DVD image against the new blu-ray transfers. Two cartoons in blu-ray were also shown, Bob Clampett’s The Great Piggy Bank Robbery and Hanna-Barbera’s Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Mouse. Information about the Tom & Jerry Golden Collection was posted here.
The Looney Tunes Platinum Collection contains 50 classic cartoons in high definition. Disc #1 includes Hare Tonic, Baseball Bugs, Buccaneer Bunny, The Old Grey Hare, Rabbit Hood, 8 Ball Bunny, Rabbit of Seville, What’s Opera Doc?, The Great Piggy Bank Robbery,A Pest In The House, The Scarlet Pumpernickle, Duck Amuck, Robin Hood Daffy, Baby Bottleneck, Kitty Kornered, Scardy Cat, Porky Chops, Old Glory, A Tale Of Two Kittie, Tweetie Pie, Fast And Furry-ous, Beep Beep, Lovelorn Leghorn, For Scent-I-Mental Reasons and Speedy Gonzales.
Disc #2 includes One Froggy Evening, The Three Little Bops, I Love To Singa, Katnip Kollege, The Dover Boys, From A To ZZZZ, Chow Hound, Feed The Kitty, Hasty Hare, Duck Dodgers in the 24 1/2 Century, Hareway To The Stars, Mad As A Mars Hare, Devil May Hare, Bedevilled Rabbit, Ducking The Devil, Bill Of Hare, Dr. Devil and Mr. Hare, Bewitched Bunny, Broomstick Bunny and several others to be announced.
Bonus material includes several Behind-The-Toons pieces and Chuck Jones documentaries, numerous bonus cartoons including Chuck Jones’ FDR re-election film, Hell Bent For Election (1942), a rare Air Force re-enlistment film, A Hitch In Time (1955), and Ken Mundie’s expressionist anti-war animated short, The Door (1967) – plus two all-new documentaries on Marvin The Martian and The Tasmanian Devil.
Additionally, the collection comes in a sturdy plastic box, which will include a 52 page booklet, a commemorative magnet and mini collectible drinking glass. The Looney Tunes Platinum Collection will go on sale in November.
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By: Jerry Beck,
on 5/4/2011
A College Humor commentary on NBA player LeBron James that shows what would happen if he was in Space Jam instead of Michael Jordan. Probably makes more sense if you follow basketball. It’s an interesting day and age when unsanctioned cartoons using the Looney Tunes characters stay truer to the personalities of the characters than the official product that Warner Bros. is producing.
CREDITS
Director: Matt Pollock
Animation: Mike Parker
VFX: Gloo Studios
Director of Post Production: Michael Schaubach
Post Production Producer: Lacy Wittman
Editor: Drew Nissen
Producer: Creight Desimone
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Post tags: LeBron James, Looney Tunes, Space Jam
By: Jerry Beck,
on 3/31/2011
Artist David Schwen says “That’s All Folks!” on his T-Shirt-of-the-Day for woot! If interested, you have 24 hours to order this limited edition.
(Thanks, Campbell Evans)
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Post tags: Looney Tunes, T-shirt, Tshirt, Warner Bros., woot
