{"id":46896,"date":"2025-03-25T15:59:07","date_gmt":"2025-03-25T19:59:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=46896"},"modified":"2025-03-25T15:59:07","modified_gmt":"2025-03-25T19:59:07","slug":"the-day-the-earth-blew-up-a-looney-tunes-movie-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2025\/03\/25\/the-day-the-earth-blew-up-a-looney-tunes-movie-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"THE DAY THE EARTH BLEW UP: A LOONEY TUNES MOVIE [2025]"},"content":{"rendered":"

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In <\/span>The Day The Earth Blew Up, <\/span><\/i>the first 100% animated <\/span>Looney Tunes<\/span><\/i> theatrical movie in our lifetimes<\/span>, <\/span><\/i>Porky Pig, Daffy Duck, and Petunia Pig fend off an alien invasion. The full-length film is a hand-drawn, 2-D throwback of pure enjoyment and hilarious insanity, holding with the best of the generations-long series; an utter delight from start to finish.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Hey, a Looney Tunes post here not written by Phil Hall! Forgive my intrusion, Phil!<\/span><\/p>\n

Porky Pig and Daffy Duck (both voiced by Eric Bauza) need to raise money to repair the roof of their house. Shenanigans ensue. They meet Petunia (Candi Milo), trying to establish herself as a taste scientist at a local gum factory, but has the worst taste; attempting to find flavor from sponges, eggs, and the like. The three of them are the only toons who can fend off a full-scale \u201850s B-movie-style alien invasion, the main plot after the mostly enclosed first-act arcs to set up the big story. No biggie, they can handle it, right?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Of course, they can; using all their anarchic <\/span>genius, <\/span>er, stupidity.\u00a0 The main plot, an alien invader (Peter MacNicol) puts a mind control slime into a gum, is a bevy of 50s-style sci-fi: referencing, commenting on, parodying, and pulling from the various incarnations of <\/span>Invasion of Body Snatchers<\/span><\/i>, <\/span>The Thing<\/span><\/i> (especially Carpenter\u2019s take), <\/span>I Am Legend, Invaders from Mars,<\/span><\/i> and <\/span>The Blob<\/span><\/i>, etc. As a big fan of that sort of film, it hit my sensibilities, but even without understanding the backing, <\/span>The Day the Earth Blew Up<\/span><\/i> is accessible and enjoyable.<\/span><\/p>\n

Note there is no \u201cthe Looney Tunes are real, interacting with live-action humans\u201d in that plot. This is entirely in the universe of toony mayhem, no awkwardly working with Michael Jordan or amazingly with Brendan Fraiser.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s be honest, neither<\/span> Space Jam <\/span><\/i>is good. The first is awkward, and the second is a terrible journey through WB IPs. I love Joe Dante\u2019s <\/span>Back in Action<\/span><\/i>, but we\u2019re working with Looney Tunes as a meta-IP, dealing with human issues.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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By living in a toon-world, and only there, <\/span>The Day The Earth Blew Up<\/span><\/i> revels in the freedom of the style of <\/span>Merry Melodies<\/span><\/i> and <\/span>Looney Tunes<\/span><\/i>.\u00a0 Akin to, but not going as far as, <\/span>Spider-Verse, LEGO Batman,<\/span><\/i> and <\/span>TMNT: Mutant Mayhem<\/span><\/i>, it draws from across their ninety-five years, with a variety of styles and jokes from the originals of the 30s to the more modern stylings. Among the eleven (YES ELEVEN, usually a bad sign but works here) writers and director Peter Browngardt, there is an obvious love of the property, and care is taken to meld the new entry in with the classics.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

All the classic directors are represented in visual gags and designs (along with references by business signs): Freling, Avery, Clampet, Jones, et al. Perhaps there is a tad too much of the influenced-by-John K (he never worked Looney Tunes – influences go back and forth) with a few \u201cgross-ups\u201d and the overly detailed, over-emotional \u201chuman\u201d acting. I will note one running gag done in a style K was fond of, riffing on semi-static images, for the adopted father of Daffy and Porky, Farmer Jim slayed every single time it was used.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Thus, <\/span>The Day The World Blew U<\/span><\/i>p is everything you\u2019d expect from culling from nearly a hundred years of these characters- anarchic humor, visual gags, puns and other wordplay, going small for effect, going big for effect, going even bigger for even more effect, set-ups with the exact payoff you expect, set-ups with a very different payoff, violence against everything; it\u2019s all there and tossed at the screen. Most of it sticks. Some more modern humor doesn\u2019t quite land (Daffy as an influencer – though it does have a great button), but those are few and far between. There\u2019s a little less wanton violence but that\u2019s fitting as a Porky and Daffy story, over Bugs Bunny, or Wile E. Coyote.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Yes, it is just Porky, Daffy, and Petunia. Not another Looney Tune is seen or mentioned. It allows a focus on this story, not leaning on cameos. After it finished, another viewer said he wished it was Bugs and Daffy, and could have played the same. I disagree. It was refreshing to move away from the most famous. It functions better as a story. Bugs is a trickster god. He\u2019s aware. He\u2019s ahead. No one gets anything over on him. He\u2019s in control. Porky and Daffy can be more grounded (as best a Looney Tune can be), reacting to the plot until eventually getting ahead in becoming heroes.\u00a0 Bugs by nature can\u2019t have much growth in his stories, but Porky and Daffy can. Also, this character combination allows for old-school Daffy; the insane WOO HOO WOO HOO duck rather than the surly foil to Bugs. I loved seeing this version of Daffy smashing hammers across the screen.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Hitting all the marks of <\/span>Looney Tunes<\/span><\/i> without ever feeling cloying to audience expectations of said marks – while kids will love it and can\u2019t wait to show it to my toddler – <\/span>The Day The World Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie<\/span><\/i> was definitely made with adults who grew up on and loved Looney Tunes in mind (while not mining adult wink wink humor besides maybe a line or to. <\/span>The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie<\/span><\/i> is wonderful and hilarious from start to finish.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now release <\/span>Coyote vs. ACME<\/span><\/i> you cowards!<\/span><\/p>\n

The Day The Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie; <\/em>Directed by Peter Browngardt; Written by Darrick Bachman, Peterbrowngardt, Kevin Costello, Andrew Dickman, David Gemmill, Alex Kirwan, Ryan Kramer, Jason Reicher, Michael Ruocco, Johnny Ryan, Eddie Trigueros. Featuring Eric Bauza, Candi Milo, Peter MacNicol; Distributed by Ketchup; 91m. PG; Theatrical release March 14.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In The Day The Earth Blew Up, the first 100% animated Looney Tunes theatrical movie in our lifetimes, Porky Pig, Daffy Duck, and Petunia Pig fend off an alien invasion. The full-length film is a hand-drawn, 2-D throwback of pure enjoyment and hilarious insanity, holding with the best of the generations-long series; an utter delight […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[99,340],"class_list":["post-46896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-animation","tag-family"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46896"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46896\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46924,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46896\/revisions\/46924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}