Review: The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie

Eh-Beh-Dee, Eh-Beh-Dee, Eh-Beh-Dee, That’s Esoteric, Folks

You don’t need to get too far into THE DAY THE EARTH BLEW UP: A LOONEY TUNES MOVIE to figure out it was made for two audiences. One is the general, mainstream, family audience that’s just looking for an entertaining animated adventure. They’ll get that in truckloads, with Looney Tunes legends Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, and Petunia Pig trying to thwart the plans of an alien invader who endeavors to use tainted bubble gum to turn humans into mindless zombies. That side of it is fun, it’s funny... It’s not exactly a radically innovative plot – it’s essentially the same thing as STRANGE BREW but more family-friendly.

The other audience is the one that not only has a fuller appreciation of the history of Looney Tunes, but also a better understanding of how that anarchic brand of comedy led to modern day animated cartooning. Director Peter Browngardt – who has also logged work on the likes of the more recent Looney Tunes shorts and UNCLE GRANDPA – has succeeded in creating a surprising synthesis of past and present. Character animation has the loose, rubbery energy of Bob Clampett, with a sprinkling of Chuck Jones thrown in here and there; World War II references to food rationing are here replaced with gags about stimulus checks, while Petunia has gone from mere girlfriend to flavor chemist at the bubble gum factory; and there are overt nods to the Spümcø-helmed cartoon renaissance that led to the likes of REN AND STIMPY and SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS.

For all that this is a corporate-backed leveraging of intellectual property – even if said corporation tried to abandon the finished product – there’s something idiosyncratically personal that snuck into THE DAY THE EARTH BLEW UP. Maybe it’s the result of the actual animation being farmed out to multiple studios, allowing Browngardt to give the animators their own heads. Aside from some generic-looking background humans, the artists have picked up the challenge: We get stuff like a farmer character who’s mostly a highly detailed still image with animated lips superimposed; or a deco-inspired musical interlude inside the bubblegum factory, set to the chugging beats of Raymond Scott’s Powerhouse (you’ll know it when you hear it); or a zombie astronomer who, as he passes behind some distorting beakers, morphs into REN AND STIMPY’s Mr. Horse. There’s a streak of wildness running under the surface of THE DAY THE EARTH BLEW UP, artists winking at us that there’s more to what they’re doing than just cranking out a brand extension and making their monthly rent.

As I mentioned, THE DAY THE EARTH BLEW UP: A LOONEY TUNES MOVIE was initially abandoned by Warner Bros. after the company’s latest merger, joining the cult favorite likes of THE IRON GIANT and BATMAN: MASK OF THE PHANTASM in the pantheon of animated gems that flummoxed both the WB suits and its marketing department. It’s been picked up by an independent distributor and is making its way to theaters, and maybe this time word of mouth will help it find box office success where its predecessors couldn’t. If not, it still stands as a delightful cartoon renaissance done by people who knew what a priceless gift they were handed and were able to treat it with love and respect. And looniness.