HBO Max’s new Looney Tunes Cartoons series will not see Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam or any other character carrying a gun.
In an interview with The New York Times, showrunner Peter Browngardt confirmed that the team behind the new animated series made an active decision to scrub the toon team of their firearms for the rebooted series.
In one animated short, titled Dynamite Dance, Elmer Fudd approaches Bugs Bunny with a scythe rather than his signature rifle. The two characters then proceed to rollick back and forth through a slapstick-driven sequence of classically orchestrated chaos.
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“We’re not doing guns,” Browngardt said. “But we can do cartoony violence — TNT, the Acme stuff. All that was kind of grandfathered in.”
Johnny Ryan, a comics artist who was hired as the story editor for the new series, further added that the team tried to maintain the spirit of the original show throughout production, while at the same time reflecting modern sensibilities in the show’s simple, gag-driven, and visually vibrant stories.
“We’re going through this wave of anti-bullying, everybody needs to be friends, everybody needs to get along,” Ryan explained. “Looney Tunes’ is pretty much the antithesis of that. It’s two characters in conflict, sometimes getting pretty violent.”
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The new series, which is now streaming on HBO Max, features 80 eleven-minute episodes, each comprised of animated shorts that vary in length and include adapted storylines for today’s audience. Fans can also look forward to holiday-themed specials.
For more on HBO Max, check out all the TV Shows, movies and originals you can stream now.
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Adele Ankers is a Freelance Entertainment Journalist. You can reach her on Twitter.
Source: IGN.com Looney Tunes HBO Max Reboot Will Not Feature Guns