Credit: Warner Bros. Animation
A still image from Season 1, Episode 3 of "Looney Tunes Cartoons" on HBO Max.
- St. Petersburg, FLA
Elmer Fudd and Yosemite Sam are sporting different looks in the "Looney Tunes Cartoons" that launched on the new streaming service HBO Max. While their outfits remain the same, both will no longer be carrying guns. The cartoons will still have plenty of sticks of Acme dynamite and cartoon violence, but Fudd will no longer carry his oversized hunting rifle and Sam won't have his pistols.
"We're not doing guns," executive producer and showrunner Peter Browngardt said in an interview with The New York Times.
"But we can do cartoony violence -- TNT, the Acme stuff. All that was kind of grandfathered in."
In a short titled "Dynamite Dance," Fudd uses a scythe as he chases his nemesis Bugs Bunny. Bugs Bunny responds by using explosives to blow Fudd up multiple times. No mention is made of whether or not that the guns being removed was a response to gun violence and school shootings in the US.
While the animosity remains between the classic characters, Fudd's signature rifle never makes an appearance. And that's on purpose. "We’re not doing guns," said Peter Browngardt, the series executive producer and showrunner to The New York Times. "But we can do cartoony violence — TNT, the Acme stuff.
"All that was kind of grandfathered in."
The Times last month reported production on the cartoons, some 200 in all, had been wrapping up. At least 30 of them currently are on the streaming service. Bloomberg reported the most popular show on the service at launch was "Looney Tunes Cartoons" -- more than 16-times more in demand than the average show.
- DM/TEGNA
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