Looney Tunes Cartoons reveals first-look clips ahead of its HBO Max premiere. Since first premiering in 1930, the classic series of animated shorts has undergone multiple reincarnations over the years as it’s continued to air. The minisodes are known for their slapstick humor, outsized theatrical animation, and iconic characters.
Warner Bros. Animation announced in 2018 that it would release a new batch of the beloved cartoons. Looney Tunes Cartoons, a new series based on Looney Tunes, premiered in May 2020 on HBO Max as part of the streaming service’s debut slate of programming. The toons’ latest iteration was developed by Peter Browngardt, who plans to bring back all of the classic characters during season 1. The new shorts’ animation sticks to the classic style in which many of the series’ most famous characters were first rendered. Like the original theatrical shorts, the new Looney Tunes Cartoons are brief vignettes that all clock in between one and six minutes with the goal of reaching 1,000 minutes worth of animated gags in season 1. With the new shorts premiering today, season 1 has reached 80 installments so far.
Warner Media has shared two first-look clips from the new Looney Tunes Cartoons premiering April 29. The first is from “Pigture Perfect,” which stars Petunia Pig (voiced by Lara Jill Miller) in her first full-length episode. Petunia, a modern pig, is examining her fears in therapy but finds that some fears may actually be justified. In the second clip, from a short titled “High Speed Hare,” a naive Bugs Bunny gets himself into inevitable trouble when he catches a ride with a vehicle-chomping Gremlin (Bob Bergen). “High Speed Hare” also marks The Gremlin’s first full-length short. Check out the clips below:
The voice cast also includes Eric Bauza as Bugs Bunny/Daffy Duck/Tweety/Marvin the Martian, Bob Bergen as Porky Pig, Jeff Bergman as Elmer Fudd/Sylvester, Fred Tatasciore as Yosemite Sam, Candi Milo as Granny, and Michael Ruocco as Beaky Buzzard. Per Warner Bros. Animation, the new episodes use a “cartoonist-driven approach” to tell “simple, gag-driven, and visually vibrant stories.” The mini-season will include ten episodes featuring Bugs, Daffy, Elmer Fudd, Porky, Taz, Tweety, Sylvester, Foghorn Leghorn, Yosemite Sam, Marvin the Martian, Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner. All of the shorts are streaming on HBO Max now.
Looney Tunes have stuck around for nigh on a century due to their simple but solid animated stories that translate with almost any audience. Slapstick humor has been out of style for a while yet never fails to make people laugh when done well, and Looney Tunes Cartoons’ ridiculous violence and tongue-in-cheek jokes are a breath of fresh air among the increasingly intellectual, hallucinatory, and/or allegorical cartoons that are becoming more popular in both childrens’ and adults’ animated programming. By contrast, the Tunes consistently get themselves into the same situations, but rather than analyze or explore their circumstances, they get straight to plotting and tricking one another. Gags, jokes, and laughs ensue.
