Bugs Bunny Is Back, and So Is the ‘Looney Tunes’ Mayhem

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/29/arts/television/looney-tunes-hbo-max.html

“We don’t do scripts,” Browngardt said. “I hired cartoonists. So we get them together in a room and we just draw pictures and gags.” Fans of the originals will recognize classic characters (perennials like Daffy Duck and Bugs, of course, but also lesser-seen figures like Gossamer, a large orange beast created by Chuck Jones in 1946, and the odd couple mice Hubie and Bertie) and gags (Bugs dressed as a woman; the physics and gravity-defying falls).

The original cartoons are now considered among the greatest in animated comedy. Launched in 1930, the film shorts were created to run before features in movie theaters before moving to TV in 1960. Over the years, “Looney Tunes,” combined with their sister series “Merrie Melodies,” have been nominated for 22 Academy Awards, winning five; four have been inducted into the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress.

In many ways, Ryan said, the toons are both timeless, and not of this time. “We’re going through this wave of anti-bullying, everybody needs to be friends, everybody needs to get along,” he said.

“‘Looney Tunes’ is pretty much the antithesis of that,” he continued. “It’s two characters in conflict, sometimes getting pretty violent.”