Looney Tunes Bans Elmer Fudd’s Shotgun and Yosemite Sam’s Revolvers in HBO Max ‘Looney Tunes’ Reboot
OutdoorHub Editor: Keenan Crow 06.08.20
Elmer Fudd and the rest of the Looney Tunes gang are getting back together for a series on HBO Max, the new streaming service combining shows and movies from the Time Warner entertainment empire, which includes HBO, TNT, TBS, CNN and Warner Bros. film and television, among other properties.
As someone who grew up watching these cartoons in the mid to late 90’s, this news excited me – at first. The short animated video “Dynamite Dance” featuring Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd will bring back (almost) all the same looks, feels and chaotic mayhem of the classic “Looney Tunes” cartoon us 90’s kids know and love. Notice I said ‘almost’ all the same looks..
Anyone who’s ever watched a classic Looney Tunes cartoon will immediately notice a glaring difference in two of their popular characters, as the reboot will no longer feature guns in any of the episodes.
Yup, that means Elmer Fudd will no longer tote his famed side-by-side shotgun through the woods, and Yosemite Sam won’t carry his trusty double revolvers. What in tarnation is happening to this world?!
Browngardt reportedly told the New York Times the shows will still feature “cartoony violence,” like the iconic TNT explosions which were “kind of grandfathered in” to Looney Tunes.
According to NYTimes, “The crew is currently working remotely, wrapping up production on the first 1,000 minutes of cartoons from home. That comes to about 200 cartoons in all; the first batch on HBO Max features Porky vigorously sucking snake venom out of Daffy’s leg; Sylvester haunted by the “ghost” of Tweety; and a cameo from Satan. A few of the cartoons, said the creators, are still in limbo.”
“Some of them have maybe gone a little too far, so they might come out in a different format,” Browngardt said. “Maybe they’ll come out packaged for an Adult Swim type of thing.” (Cartoon Network, home of the gleefully absurd Adult Swim programming block, is part of the Warner Bros. empire.)