Today, I went to the movies for the first time in nearly three years to see the latest animated feature film being released... "The Day the Earth Blew Up" - a feature-length "Looney Tunes Cartoons" movie! It was originally slated for airing on Cartoon Network and streaming on Max. Unfortunately, Cartoon Network is running out of gas, and Max doesn't really care for animated stuff made for kids and families anymore (today they also removed all the remaining "Looney Tunes" shorts as well as several Scooby-Doo movies, but that's for another post!) But it did pretty well at animation festivals, and Pete Browngardt and his crew at Warner Bros. Animation just had to make sure the American public sees it, so it ended up getting released theatrically... by Ketchup Entertainment! But since it's an indie distributor, it's a semi-limited release that's barely been promoted, so it looks like it may not be making a lot of money (so far this opening weekend it made $5 million), but it was produced on a $15 million budget, which is considered pretty low nowadays. So I'm hoping at least domestically it can make around $30 million. Then it'd prove the public wants to see traditional hand-drawn animation in cinemas, and maybe, just maybe, we can see "Coyote vs. ACME" finally see the light of day!
Besides that, this whole movie was fun! In a way, this is like "Looney Tunes Cartoons"'s equivalent to "Tiny Toon Adventures: How I Spent My Vacation". And it shows when done right, "Looney Tunes" characters CAN carry a feature-length plot. There were a lot of funny jokes (even a classic medium awareness gag with a silhouetted audience member!) some really good animation (they got WB Animation's A-list subcontractors like Tonic DNA and Snipple Animation to work on this!), great music, and more! Not all of it was perfect though, such as a few unneeded butt jokes, some occasional jerky rigged moments to the animation, and the "Rocko's Modern Life"-esque sound effects, but I can overlook those.
I even brought my Daffy Duck plushie I've featured in me and my friend's "Golden Book Video Killers" web series to the movie! Especially since after the movie ended, I made this on the way out:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/QOANY59xtnc
And a couple days ago, among some other animation updates, I had Sam Valentino talk a bit about the movie as well...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOJmeCXIGyM
So I urge all you "Looney Tunes" fans to go see this in the theater, if you can!