New Looney Tunes, what???

[drquest]

I guess I'm just old now, but Elmer Fudd without his shotgun? Yosemite Sam without his pistols?

https://www.slashfilm.com/hbo-max-lo...ns-avoid-guns/

[Wee67]

I will admit mixed reactions to removing guns. Whatever the decision, I question replacing the shotgun with a scythe?? That feels even more disturbing!

[drquest]

No, all the good hunters use a scythe

[Brown Bear]

Not sure you can pull off Looney Tunes in today’s hyper sensitive society.

[Mikey]

I'll give them kudos for making the animation at least acceptable and fluid

Most modern cartoon animation looks like crap nowadays

[Earth 2 Chris]

I can see why they wouldn't want to promote gun violence and make light of it. It may also partially go back to "what do kids have access to", and most kids aren't going to have access to a scythe or a grass hook. It's why BTAS was able to use Thompson sub machine guns...how many kids had access to those?

It does seem out of character for both, but without me watching them, I can't really make a judgement on it. At least we're past "Loonatics Unleashed".

Chris

[sprytel]

Bugs Bunny is a violent cartoon. They even acknowledge that in the article.

I applaud those who feel there is too much violence on TV and create content without it. But changing a gun to a different kind of weapon? I don't see the point.

[Meule]

No guns, but blowing each other up with dynamite is OK???

[cjefferys]

Jeez, if you're going to mutilate cartoons in order to show them, why bother. HBO Max isn't a kids channel, just put a disclaimer in front of the cartoons like Disney does with some of theirs.

Disclaimer: I don't really have any horse in the pro-gun/anti-gun debate race, but I am against censorship like this.

[enyawd72]

Isn't it amazing that we, as children, watched all these ridiculously violent cartoons and movies, read gory comics and magazines, yet were FAR less violent than today's kids?
When I went to school in the 80's there were no such things as school shootings. They didn't exist.
A real study needs to be done to determine exactly what societal changes occurred that drive the current behavior, because it ain't cartoons.

[ODBJBG]

When I went to school in the 80's there were no such things as school shootings. They didn't exist. A real study needs to be done to determine exactly what societal changes occurred that drive the current behavior, because it ain't cartoons.

I don't want to open any cans of worms here, but there's a very well known answer to this. Relaxed gun laws. It's just that simple.

In the 1980s (and every decade prior) there were a lot fewer guns available to people. Even in the 50s when there weren't many gun laws at all, most people didn't own them beyond the occasional hunting rifle. Average folks didn't have pistols and no one but the military had machine guns. As guns became more prevalent, and more dangerous, more gun laws were enacted, keeping the careful balance of who had the guns and who didn't. Less guns meant less potential for these sorts of incidents. Throughout the 80s gun laws were continually relaxed and more and more guns began to fill people's homes. By the 1990s, school shootings were common place, by 2020 we now have DAILY mass shootings where 3 or more people are shot. It's easier now to get a gun in the US than nearly anytime in human history. It's possible that it was easier to get a gun in the old west, but you'd need a 100 guns and a 100 hands to have the firepower of the types of guns you can easily buy now in stores across the country.

More people with guns, means more potential for them to get into the hands of someone looking to use them to cause other people harm.


As for the Looney Tunes, I appreciate the incredible classic animation style they are going for here and the dedication to doing good ol' fashioned Looney Tunes. I'm not sure removing the guns and replacing them with something else is necessarily the right call, if only because it'll get a bunch of people who probably aren't going to watch the show anyway to bellyache about it. They'd probably done just as well to not even have a "replacement" instrument of destruction and just found other ways to use those characters. Elmer for example, has been depicted as things other than a hunter with a gun, so just do toons with him in that role. Same with Yosemite Sam, for that matter.

Nonetheless, I see why they did it. 1 in 3 people statistically know someone who has been seriously injured in gun violence. Those people may object to watching their children laugh at someone getting shot in a cartoon. But ultimately, cartoon guns aren't an issue. Real ones are.

[cjefferys]

I don't want to open any cans of worms here, but there's a very well known answer to this. Relaxed gun laws. It's just that simple.

Yes, that plus an increase in people with undiagnosed/untreated mental health problems (I won't get into more detail to avoid political or other controversial topics, I'm probably treading on thin ice as it is ). And the internet probably shares some of the blame as well, but again I'm not going to get into that either. You know what hasn't increased the rate of school shootings? Bugs Bunny cartoons from the 1940's and 50's.

[EmergencyIan]

Isn't it amazing that we, as children, watched all these ridiculously violent cartoons and movies, read gory comics and magazines, yet were FAR less violent than today's kids?
When I went to school in the 80's there were no such things as school shootings. They didn't exist.
A real study needs to be done to determine exactly what societal changes occurred that drive the current behavior, because it ain't cartoons.

When I was a little boy, I had a toy M-16. I was at my grandparents. My uncle came over and told my grandmother that she shouldn’t let me play with guns. When I was a kid my go-to’s were action figures, anything fire/rescue related, basic super-hero and any kind of toy guns. I must have had toy gun after toy gun after toy gun...lost on me. But, I just enjoyed them. Never gave it a second thought. Anyhow, my grandmother told my uncle that his point of view was fine. She said that when he had a kid he could set the rules and she would happily follow them, but that I was going to play with them as long as my parents were fine with it.

I never have done anything bad with any guns and he never ended up having kids. Go figure.

- Ian