Author silverstar

That’s Warner Brothers!: Gathering the Tune Squad

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I’m not going to pretend that Space Jam: A New Legacy was one of the greatest cinematic achievements of our time, ’cause I know it wasn’t; it was a bloated, blatantly commercial cash grab for Warner Bros. and the NBA.

-But so was the first one.

That said, as a Looney Tunes fan, there were some things about the movie that I really dug. (The Looney Tunes of course being chief among the examples.)

For one thing, I really liked the concept of the WB Server-Verse. The visual geek in me loves the premise that all of Warner Bros.’ various TV shows, movies, franchises and properties residing in their own respective planetoids inside the studio’s giant server. Was it a giant plug for WB? Yes, but I still think it was cool, so I don’t care.

BTW, this image isn’t of the actual WB Server-Verse; it’s a map of the worlds from Video Land from Captain N: The Game Master. I couldn’t find a full image of the WB Server-Verse, but again, I still think the ‘franchise universe’ thing is cool.

I’m not going to recap the entire plot of the movie because a) I’m not a reviewer, b) this ain’t a review of the entire movie and c) it’s been out for a while now, so those of you who have seen it already know the story and those who haven’t clearly don’t care, but my all-favorite sequence in the film, not surprisingly, takes place once Bugs Bunny and the rest of the Looney Tunes show up.

When Al G. Rhythm (get it?) dumps LeBron James into the depths of the Server-Verse, he lands in Looney Tunes World (or just Tune World, potato, po-tah-to)…

Looney, babuh!
BTW, I just love the layout of Tune World. It’s got all of the various recurring settings for Looney Tunes cartoons compressed into a single planetoid. Someone should really consider turning this into a theme park area.
Ah. Nevermind.

…LeBron bumps into Bugs. After some classic toon shenanigans…

Of course the animators had to work Big Chungus in there somewhere. Thanks, internet!

…Bugs relates that he too has a score to settle with Al G. It seems some time prior Al told the Looney Tunes that they were wasting their talents on their home world and convinced them to split to seek their fortunes out in the Server-Verse (what grudge Al G. seemed to have against the Looney Tunes is unclear; professional jealousy maybe? Or perhaps he took them out to dinner one night and they stuck him with the check), causing the other toons to abandon Tune World, leaving Bugs all alone; he opted to stay behind because he enjoys just being a wacky toon and has no other aspirations. Kudos, writers. That is so him. Bugs Bunny is the Alex Rieger of the Looney Tunes. (That’s a reference to Taxi, BTW, kids; ask your parents.)

So we come to my all-favorite sequence in the movie: after Bugs finagles Marvin the Martian into “lending” him his space rocket, LeBron and Bugs embark on an epic journey through the Server-Verse. LeBron thinks they’re assembling a team of WB owned all-stars and heavy hitters to form the ultimate basketball team (such as Superman, Wonder Woman, Gandalf, King Kong and the Iron Giant), but Bugs (who, let’s face it, has gone a little nuts from being on his own for so long) is surreptitiously using this as a means to reunite with his fellow Looney Tunes family.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is: Dude, we’re gettin’ the band back together!

Super, Man!

The first planet Bugs and LeBron visit is DC World, home of — no surprise — the DC Super Heroes.

Can I just mention how awesome the look of DC World is? It’s half Gotham City, half Metropolis, with the two cities connected by a small bridge (makes no sense, but it didn’t make sense in Batman V Superman either) with the DC logo floating in front of it (branding!) and the Justice League Watchtower hovering above its’ surface? No? Well, too bad, I just did.

LeBron expects that since they appear on each planet decked out as famous characters from each world (BTW, whenever they’re on the planet of a live-action property, LeBron’s live-action, but on the world of an animated franchise, he’s a cartoon, nice touch), that here he’ll be somebody dope…

Bugs manifests onto the planet’s surface as Batman (or Bat-Rabbit, I guess) with LeBron as Robin! (“Robin?? I’m freakin’ ROBIN???!?”)

“Hey, who says I’m not dope? Just don’t judge by Teen Titans GO!, OK?”

The entirety of DC World is rendered in the manner of the 90’s through ’00’s DCAU (Detective Comics Animated Universe) cartoons, with the runaway bullet train Bugs and LeBron are pursuing whizzing past the DCAU versions of Dick Grayson, Selina Kyle, Comm. James Gordon, Jimmy Olsen…

Not to mention a certain mild-mannered reporter.

Anyway, it turns out that Daffy Duck is the one responsible for this impending disaster (so what’s changed?); he’s masterminded this whole crisis so he can get filmed saving the day (well, Porky Pig dressed as Jimmy Olsen is the one doing the actual filming) so, he, Superduck, can get admitted into the Justice League. Unfortunately, Daffy breaks the lever that stops the train, so now it really is zooming out of control, all set to crash into an orphanage! The train (with LeBron and Bugs clinging on to the top and Lois Lane, Alfred Pennyworth and Harlene Quinzel trapped inside) zips by the red-skied Gotham City from The New Batman Adventures and the DCAU version of Atlantis, before finally coming to an abrupt halt. Daffy is all set to shout out to the world that he’s the one who did all of this, until he comes face to face with the guy who actually stopped the train…

…Big Blue himself, flanked by Aquaman (sans the hook hand), Batgirl, Green Lantern John Stewart and the Flash. Suddenly the idea of shooting hoops is sounding pretty good to Daffy about now.

“What a Lovely Day!”

The next stop on our Planetary Product Placement tour is Mad Max World, or to be more precise, Mad Max: Fury Road, where the Looney Tunes’ resident desert dwellers, the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote, are currently residing.

Wile has apparently joined the ranks of the War Boys, using his newfound marauder status to — what else?–

…Catch the Road Runner!

He fails of course, but we do get to see some cool explosions. So that’s 2 more down.

“Yeah, Baby, Yeah!”

Next up is Austin Powers World. Here Elmer Fudd has assumed the role of Mini-Me…

“One hundwed biwwion dowwars! Heh-he-he-he-heh!”

While Sylvester has become Dr. Evil’s bald cat, Mr. Bigglesworth!

What happened to Tweety, you ask? When Elmer and Sylvester board the ship, Sylvester spits out Tweety; apparently he devoured him some time previous. (How long does it take toons to digest, anyway?)

Taz-Mania

I can’t add anything to Taz’s entry into the movie, so I’ll just replay it here. Roll the clip!

“Sing it, Sam!“

We next visit WB Classic Movies World, specifically Casablanca, where Yosemite Sam has replaced Dooley Wilson in Rick’s Cafe.

“You’ve got baggage, lady!”

A Dance with Roosters

Next we find Foghorn Leghorn as Daenerys, riding a dragon outside of Game of Thrones World.

“Winter, I say, winter is comin’!”

-Incidentally, an earlier draft of the script had LeBron and Bugs actually visiting GoT World, and Foghorn was originally going to play Stark. I have no horse in this race because I’ve never watched Game of Thrones. I’ve never watched GoT, never watched Westworld, never watched Deadwood, never watched Boardwalk Empire, but I never missed an episode of Laff-A-Lympics or Freakazoid!. I was that weirdo.

“Matrix Are for Kids”

We next arrive at Matrix World, where the unlikely team of Granny and Speedy Gonzales having taken on the roles of Trinity and Neo, respectively. Here they are in action.

Speedy’s “What’s happenin’, bro?” gets me every time.

Big ups to Gabriel Iglesias who voiced Speedy here. Fluffy knocked it out of the park.

Side Bar: Can I take a moment to point out just how awesome Granny was in this movie? She was only a cheerleader in the first Space Jam (though that didn’t save her from getting tackled by the Monstars when the ball landed in her hands), but here she’s a full-on team member, talking smack, karate kicking, sipping martinis at halftime, taking down the Goon Squad member Chronos and riding her motor scooter through exploding buses being launched by Wile E. Coyote. The producers cranked Granny’s usual spunk up to 11, and I’m here for it. I hope we get to see more of ‘Gonzo Granny’ in future Looney Tunes projects. Fingers crossed. End Side Bar.

This Rabbit, This Warrior

The last Looney Tune to be rounded up is Lola Bunny, who’s migrated to Themyscira, home to Diana, aka Wonder Woman and the Amazons. Wait, didn’t we already go to DC World? No, that was DC TV cartoon world, Lola’s in Wonder Woman comic book world; it’s completely different.

The animation and visuals here are gorgeous. The characters and backgrounds are rendered to look like they came straight out of a comic book, complete with all the scenes being blocked off into panels. The thin outlines on the characters, Wonder Woman’s flowing black hair, the Amazons of all shapes, sizes and colors…(chef’s kiss).

Anyways, Lola is about to partake in a time trial obstacle course in order to become a full-fledged Amazon, not the easiest thing to do when Bugs keeps calling for her attention in the crowd. Bugs and LeBron follow her and nearly fall into a lava pit for their troubles, but when LeBron tells Lola that he needs to rescue his son, she rescues them and agrees to go with them.

Lola doesn’t complete the obstacle course in time, but Wondy informs her that her heroic act cinched her in. Diana declares Lola an Amazon, and she gives her consent to go compete in the ‘ball of baskets’. Yay.

The Looney Tunes are back in da house, baby!

OK, enough gushing. I do have some gripes about this. For one thing (and this is more of a general gripe I had with the film), I really wish could’ve gotten the screwball version of Daffy and the funny version of Lola here. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed their scenes well enough, but think how much cooler those scenes would’ve been if we had the insane version of Daffy just messing with everybody, and would it have killed them to have Lola crack one joke? They had a blueprint for Lola right there from The Looney Tunes Show and New Looney Tunes, and they didn’t use it, why? Even if they wanted to make Lola a jock and a warrior wannabe, I would taken that (though I like scatterbrained weirdo Lola just fine), but even going that route with Lola doesn’t mean she couldn’t be funny. DBK of Toonland Inquirer is right: seeing the Looney Tunes revert back to their 1950’s personas after 2 shows with them adhering to the 1940’s style (which I prefer overall) was a bit of a step down for me, but I still enjoyed them overall.

Finally, my other beef with this sequence is that there was a major glaring omission. Somebody got passed over.

No, not him.
I’m talking about Gossamer.

Of all the Tune Squad, we never saw which planet/franchise Gossamer ended up on; he just poofed onto the deck of the ship during the montage. A companion graphic novel version of the movie depicted Gossamer in the world of Scooby-Doo…

“Jinkies! That’s not Professor Hyde-White, that’s an actual red-orange furry monster in sneakers!”

And you know, I’d like to have seen that. If it was was animated, maybe it can be bonus footage on the Space Jam: A New Legacy Blu-Ray.

The again, knowing Warner Brothers, they’d probably just release it as a DVD crossover.

iViva Los Straitjackets!

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A big shout-out to Los Straitjackets, my favorite instrumental surf-rock band of Luchadores!

If you haven’t heard the following tracks from this band, you’ve been leading an empty life:

Rockula

Squad Car

Tsunami!

Wrong Planet

The Mad Scientwist (with The World Famous Pon)

They’ve also done a pretty cool cover of The Munsters‘ theme for the collaborative album Halloween Hootenanny. (And how often do you hear the word ‘hootenanny’ nowadays?)

If Rob Zombie doesn’t call these guys so he can use their rendition of the theme in his new Munsters movie, then I guess he’s not the auteur we thought he was.

Rise of the Mash-Up

silverstar 1 Comment

Hiya, folks.

Story time: Years ago Jason had considered starting a second blog called The Mash-Up. It would’ve been a more abstract, less rigidly structured and more freeform blog focusing on whatever was going through our minds at the time. I dismissed the idea because I felt it was unnecessary, that there was no need, that nothing could be better than what we were doing on Twinsanity at the time.

I was wrong.

Before I go any further, I just to assure you all that Twinsanity 2.0 is still our long term goal for this site. We haven’t thrown in the towel on that, nor have we given up the dream. The Razzle Dazzle Show and webtoons are still this site’s future, that hasn’t changed, but Twinsanity 2.0 has proven to be such a huge undertaking that we’ve had to move the goal posts back a bit. The process and preparation for the videos and webtoons is taking a little longer than we anticipated, and I don’t want to do nothing in the meantime. For a long time, I just wasn’t inspired to do anything, but in recent weeks and months I’ve seen things, shows, ideas and concepts that I’d like to express my thoughts and opinions on, and I’d rather not have to wait until Twinsanity 2.0 is ready to roll to get them out there; you’ve got to strike while the iron is hot and all that. Long story short, I/we may be putting up some new blog posts in the upcoming weeks and months. These will not be Twinsanity 2.0, nor will they be made instead of Twinsanity 2.0; just something to tide you (and us) over until Twinsanity 2.0 is ready to roll.

However, these new posts come with a slew of caveats; it’s not going to be a continuation of what we’ve been doing up to the point where we left off. Real life, my current schedule and energy levels just won’t allow that, plus I just plain don’t want to work at that pace or continue the kinds of posts we were making then. Going back to what I said at the top, this new slew of posts will follow a different formula: they’ll be done in the Mash-Up format.

“What does that entail?” I’m pretending to hear you ask. I’ll tell you:

For one thing, the pace of the output will be greatly reduced and much more relaxed. I used to make lists of everything that I was planning to do per month. Those days are over. One of the reasons I got out of blogging was that it was starting feel like a job, I was working myself to death trying to put out content. No longer. Starting now I’m only going to pour my attention in a single post at a time, and once that’s done, I’ll move on to something else. I’m only going to make a post when I have something to post, and I’m only going to put something up when I have something worth posting. It doesn’t matter if I only make 2 posts in 6 months as long as those 2 posts are good and entertaining. Quality over quantity. I don’t want to be a posting machine; those days are over.

The upcoming posts will also follow a much looser structure than before. It’s not going to be like before when I would tell myself “I have to do a new Talkin’ Nerdy or TV Special Showdown because I haven’t done one in a while”. I don’t wish to be beholden to all of these fancy categories we created; if something fits into one of the little boxed we’ve created, then I’ll check off said box, but that’s no longer a requirement for a post. It’s a pretty simple formula, really:

I’m going to post what I want to post.

I’m no longer going to feel compelled to make a Retro Bin or a Cartoon Couch or a Talkin’ Nerdy or a Beyond the Background just to fulfill some imaginary quota. I’m going to post whatever I want, whenever I want, however I want. (Sidebar: I won’t be continuing the Animal Jam Pop Dream right now; I’m just not feeling it at the moment. I may get back to it one day, but right now it’s just not on my mind. It’s way too much work to be making something you’re not even into. End sidebar.)

Third, expect less snark posts and more general geeking out on stuff we like, and definitely less review-type stuff. I never wanted to a reviewer; that’s just not where I’m at. I don’t want to be known for snark. I like cartoons. I like to make jokes. I like to have fun. The blog posts were starting to not be fun for me, that’s why I stopped, so these new ones are going to be of a more lighthearted nature. I don’t care if it’s something only I know or care about; if it makes my happy or I’m really interested in it, then I’ll make a post about it. I also plan to reduce the amount of fact-checking and research, because that also became a drag for me. Of course I’m not going to post something that’s just plain factually wrong (like saying that Wally Gator was a champion surfer and railroad tycoon who married Jennifer Lopez), I’m still going to keep my facts straight, but I’d much rather joke around and have fun than write up an essay.

Finally, there’s no minimum requirement for the length of these new posts; they’re going to be as long or as short as they need to be. A post can be a lengthy bombastic diatribe or it can be a quick bite no longer than a couple of sentences. We don’t need to be anchored to one specific structure; I likes muh freedom!

So keep an eye out for some new stuff coming soon. You’ll see the new posts, whenever they happen.

rAnDoM tWiNsAnItY!

silverstar 250 Comments

First, wow, the Animaniacs Something Something Whatever Post now has 237 comments! Kudos! Seriously, thanks for sticking around to keep juice flowing here while we’re undergo reconstruction.

That said, The A! reboot has already happened now, and it’s not really big news anymore, so I don’t think we need to connect the assorted comment post to that anymore. So I’m un-pinning the A! Blah Blah Blah Post and Pinning this one instead. Use it the same way you used the previous one. As always, the same rules for comments still apply: Keep your comments, news and announcements relevant, clean, verified and attitude-free; anything that violates those rules ain’t gonna be published, so don’t try it and don’t try us. OK, now have at it!

Quick Twinsanity 2.0 Update: Cartoon Country Gets Re-Branded…Again!

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Hey, y’all.

Remember back in 2020, when we said this?

“Cartoon Country will not be making the transition to videos, at least not entirely. Damon believes that CC too closely resembles a conventional review show, which we’re trying to steer away from. Meanwhile I’ve been concerned for some time now that Cartoon Country and my miniseries What The Funny are too similar to one another for them both to coexist as separate entities, but WTF is too popular and we both enjoy doing them, so there was never the thought of dropping that segment. I was going to bring CC back as something else, but I have no idea what that something else could be. If Cartoon Country were to continue, I think it would need to have some sort of specific theme (such as Tony Goldmark’s Escape From Vault Disney, Doug Walker’s Disneycember, Austin Hardgrave’s Zelda Month or Allison Pregler’s Baywatching) rather than just be a grab bag of cartoons in general, since that’s basically what our show is; having a mish-mash segment on our mish-mash show would be quite redundant.”

Well, we may have found that special niche for the segment formerly known as Cartoon Country to embody. Jason and myself have been kicking the idea nut around, and it’s looking like going forward we’ll be re-re-branding Cartoon Country as a new segment called (drum roll, please)…That’s Warner Brothers!

What will That’s Warner Brothers! be about? I’m glad I pretended you asked. TWB! will be presented in the same manner as the Cartoon Countries, but as the name implies, instead of them being a grab-bag which focuses on a random show or franchise each time, TWB! will exclusively focus on the works of Warner Bros. Studios specifically. There will of course be segments spotlighting Looney Tunes (the most obvious example), but it will also encompass other shows and franchises under the Warner umbrella such as Hanna-Barbera (this includes Cartoon Network’s Cartoon-Cartoons such as Dexter’s Laboratory, Johnny Bravo and The Powerpuff Girls, as well as HB-Adjacent works like Space Ghost: Coast to Coast and Cartoon Planet), Tom & Jerry, Silver Age WB shows like Tiny Toon Adventures, Animaniacs and Freakazoid!, and works based on or derived from Detective Comics (DC).

In addition to doing Cartoon Country style deep dives into WB produced shows and franchises, That’s Warner Brothers! will also spotlight commercials, shorts, toys, consumer products, TV specials and whatever else we feel like, as long as it somehow pertains to the works of Warner Bros. Studios.

So it looks like Cartoon Country will be making the jump to Twinsanity 2.0 after all, just under a different name and with a modified theme. When? I can’t say right now, but we’ll keep you posted on our progress and events as they happen. Stay tooned!