A new report has indicated that the Bugs Bunny-hunting Elmer J. Fudd is not allowed to carry a rifle in the “Looney Tunes” cartoon reboot currently streaming on HBO Max.
In the new versions of the cartoons, Fudd instead uses a scythe. The weapon change is a modification done in response to US gun violence and decided upon by the showrunners. Aside from the choice of weapon though, Fudd remains fairly unchanged and is still hunting the ‘Wascally Wabbit’.
Peter Browngardt, executive producers of the series, tells The New York Times: “We’re not doing guns, but we can do cartoony violence – TNT, the Acme stuff.” He adds that otherwise the cartoons aim to stay true to the originals: “I always thought, ‘What if Warner Bros had never stopped making Looney Tunes cartoons? As much as we possibly could, we treated the production in that way.”
That includes a central ethos of many of the cartoons that goes against some modern sensibilities: “We’re going through this wave of anti-bullying, ‘everyone needs to be friends’, ‘everyone needs to get along’. Looney Tunes is pretty much the antithesis of that. It’s two characters in conflict, sometimes getting pretty violent.”
Warner Bros Animation will produce the new cartoons which consists of 80 eleven-minute episodes, each comprised of animated shorts that vary in length and include adapted storylines for today’s audience
HBO Max also includes the original catalog of the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies animated shorts featuring Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig and their pals – some 250 shorts in all. Reports have suggested the access to “Looney Tunes” titles has so far been the service’s biggest hit with subscribers.
Source: Deadline
