DUCK, COVER, AND TRY
NOT TO THINK TOO HARD

A loving homage to Bob Clampett
that never quite matches the originals

When I first heard about Looney Tunes: The Day the Earth Blew Up, my immediate reaction was, “Oh no, why would they make a Porky and Daffy feature for today’s audiences? There is no way that it could work.” These are severely troubled characters. Porky has a horrible stutter, something that you simply can’t portray or even discuss in today’s world. Daffy—or rather specifically THIS Daffy (more on that later), undiagnosed with various and sundry neuroses—really does belong in the “Looney Bin.” You can’t show or even mention this kind of stuff in today’s world. It’s not PC… or WOKE (I still can’t quite figure out what that word means beyond recognizing social injustice).

What we get is basically just a buddy picture, maybe like Hope and Crosby, but Porky and Daffy are no Hope and Crosby. (Maybe Martin and Lewis? Abbott and Costello? Yes, I like that.) Then, without warning—well, except in the title—the film takes a sharp turn and becomes a ’50s sci-fi film, with welcome loads of filmic references. In comes Dorothy Lamour, er… Petunia Pig, not just the love interest, as was usually the case in the old days, but the scientist hero to offset the inept failures that Daffy and Porky have been. Pepper this with lots and lots of Easter eggs and… well, I think you might get the picture.

It doesn’t take long to see what the creative team is doing here. This is very clearly a valentine, an homage to the great Bob Clampett. Now, my generation knew him as the creator of the animated TV show Beany and Cecil, and the earlier daily TV puppet show Time for Beany (Albert Einstein’s favorite show). For our purposes today, Bob started out as an animator at Warner Bros. and had a hand in creating and developing the original characters of Porky Pig and Daffy Duck. It is quite clear that it is Bob Clampett’s Porky and Daffy that we see here.

Back in the old Warner Bros. days, the animated characters were thought of more as actors, and each director seemed to have their own vision of how to use them. Their personalities varied greatly, depending on which unit their films were coming out of. For instance, today’s audiences are far more familiar with, say, Chuck Jones’ Daffy—a scheming, greedy, self-obsessed foil for Bugs—than with Bob Clampett’s wacky and zany depiction. Let there be no doubt about it: this is most definitely Bob Clampett all the way, perhaps the best creative decision that these filmmakers made.

The film is directed Peter Browngardt—co-writing with 10 other scribes—who had previously worked with these characters on television and does seem to know them intimately. The voice actors all do top-notch jobs. Eric Bauza does an excellent job channeling Mel Blanc as Porky and Daffy, Candi Milo gives us the best Petunia to date, and Peter MacNicol (who I once saw as Romeo opposite Cynthia Nixon!) has completely outdone himself as the Invader. The music by Joshua Moshier works very well and makes frequent use of familiar Looney Tunes favorites like the ubiquitous “The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down.” Perhaps my favorite part of the film was an entire production number (definitely a takeoff of “Be Our Guest”) of Raymond Scott’s “Powerhouse.” This, for me, was a highlight.

OK, now the disclaimer. I LOVE the original Looney Tunes. I was protective of them as a consultant for Warner Bros. back in the ’90s. I even had the privilege of spending a day with Bob Clampett, where he, I, and about half a dozen other USC students spent hours watching 16mm prints of his shorts with his live commentary. (Don’t ask me how I got to do that. I have no idea, but it’s a day I’ll never forget.) Can anything at all today live up to those original films? Well, the answer is no. That would be impossible. First of all, it was a different time, almost a hundred years ago. They created something wholly unique, different from Disney or Fleischer or any of the other companies producing cartoons. Those films were just PACKED with laughs. I still laugh at them today, even after repeated (and repeated, and repeated) viewings. I would not expect anyone today to replicate what they did.

Also, today it’s a different world. People are different, and humor is different. No matter how hard the filmmakers worked to create a loving homage to Bob Clampett and the Looney Tunes world, they still needed to craft a film for today’s audiences—or who would want to buy a ticket? Did they succeed? Well, not fully. It was not quite the picture that I could have hoped for, but then, no one could have made the picture I would want, other than those original creative forces. So I try to look at it from the standpoint of a typical audience member of today (which I am not). Is it fun? Yes, it is. Would kids love it? Yes, I think so. What about older kids? Well, lots of potty humor and gags, so yes, I think they just might. What about adults? There certainly are tons of references that only adults would get—that’s always amusing—but were there any laugh-out-loud moments for me, my wife, and my adult son? That would be a no. Look, it’s no Citizen Kane, but I do think that it has a lot of lighthearted pleasure in it, and it clearly was fully crafted with care and love. For me, I’ll just stick to the originals.

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stills courtesy of Strike Media

Looney Tunes: The Day the Earth Blew Up
PG | United Kingdom, Canada, United States | English | 85 minutes
Animation, Comedy, SciFi/Fantasy
released in the UK February 13, 2026
for screening locations, visit Vertigo Releasing

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