We’ve had Looney Tunes for nearly a century. Leon Schlesinger produced their first short Sinkin’ in the Bathtub alongside animators Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising in 1930. Almost 100 years later, the only Looney Tunes feature films (outside of theatrically released compilations) have been two Space Jams, 2003’s Looney Tunes: Back in Action, the tragically unreleased Coyote vs. Acme, and now the latest offering: The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie.
Directed by Peter Browngardt, this is a charming affair. Modeled after sci-fi B-movies of the 1950s and starring Looney Tunes legends Porky Pig and Daffy Duck (both voiced by Eric Bauza), The Day the Earth Blew Up starts with a UFO landing. The spacecraft takes off on the roof of Porky and Daffy’s broken-down house (bequeathed to them by surrogate father Farmer Jim) just before crashing. It goes on to infect a local scientist (Fred Tatasciore) with a zombifying goo not long after. Soon enough, the goo is in the mix at the gum factory, where Porky and Daffy have taken jobs in a last-ditch effort to save their beloved home from being demolished.
As the entire town––and quickly the entire world!––becomes gum-zombies, matters are further complicated when Porky becomes smitten with factory co-worker Petunia Pig (Candi Milo), fracturing his lifelong friendship with Daffy. Meanwhile, The Invader (Peter MacNicol, doing great voice work here) cackles from his spaceship as his apparent plan for world domination takes shape. The funniest bits in the film come from The Invader’s reactions to ineptitude.
It all moves at a breakneck pace, pausing only for well-timed needle drops (R.E.M. and Bryan Adams are stand-outs) and brief, welcome flashbacks. There’s an extended sequence in the middle of the picture, wherein Porky and Petunia are fighting the zombies before a Daffy mistake forces them to run away, that is breathless and impressive. Browngardt has a deep love for these characters (he’s currently the executive producer and creative director behind Max’s Looney Tunes Cartoons) and does well to develop (and resolve) real conflict in the narrative. For all of the slapstick, meta-commentary, and bathroom humor, there are stakes to the plot and an investment in what happens to our friends Porky and Daffy. It certainly helps that many viewers will have grown up with an inherent fondness for these characters, if through nothing else but cultural osmosis.
While obviously geared towards children of all ages, there is an edge to this film that’s also present in the aforementioned Looney Tunes Cartoons (and frankly existent in most of the Looney Tunes oeuvre) that makes everything a little scary and more exciting than expected. And while the ending loses a bit of its punch and moves almost too fast for its own good, it’s no matter––The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie is an enjoyable exercise in updated nostalgia. Its success begs the question: why do we not have ten Looney Tunes theatrically released feature films by now? Let’s hope this is the first of many.
The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie opens in theaters on Friday, March 14.