Although it’s wonderful to see a full-length Looney Tunes adventure done in the retro, hand-drawn style of its ancestor shorts, the story needed to be fine-tuned a lot more.
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| It's an average morning for Porky Pig and Daffy Duck ... but events already are underway that soon will plunge them into a nightmare zombie apocalypse. |
When initially made under the Warner Bros. banner, this film was cheekily conceived as a “post-apocalyptic science-fiction zombie buddy comedy.” That’s certainly accurate, for better or worse.
(Incoming Warners Bros. Discovery David Zaslav damn near shelved this finished film, until relenting in the face of fan outcry, after which he shopped it to replacement distributor Ketchup Entertainment, whom we can thank for being able to see it at all.)
Director Peter Browngardt has modeled his approach after the style of Bob Clampett and Tex Avery, the most manic of the classic Looney Tunes directors. The humor here therefore is hyper and frenzied, every scene a five-alarm fire, rather than — by way of contrast — the quieter, precisely timed, slow-burn humor of Chuck Jones’ Road Runner cartoons.
(Browngardt also developed and helmed the new six-season Looney Tunes Cartoons series, maintaining the spirit of the classic shorts, which debuted on MAX from 2020-23.)
This film also serves as an origin story for Porky Pig and Daffy Duck, adopted as orphan infants by kindly Farmer Jim (voiced by Fred Tatasciore). This imposing sodbuster is weirdly “animated” as a series of still images, their sole movement being his lips when speaking (sorta-kinda hearkening back to the 1959-60 cartoon series Clutch Cargo ... and if you understand that reference, you’re as old as I am).
Porky and Daffy come of age under this benevolent man’s guidance, somehow surviving school among human students, and eventually reaching adulthood (each now voiced by Eric Bauza, doing spot-on imitations of Mel Blanc’s classic handling of both characters, including Porky’s signature stutter).
At this point, Farmer Jim strides off into the sunset — literally — and bequeaths his house to the unlikely duo, promising that they’ll always survive whatever life throws at them, as long as they stick together.
Time passes. Because Porky’s efforts at cleanliness and home maintenance are overshadowed by Daffy’s slovenly, sloppy preference for chaos, their house finally fails the annual “home standards review” conducted by haughty Mrs. Gretch (Laraine Newman), who gleefully looks forward to condemning the place.
The major problem, which our hapless duo somehow failed to notice: a massive hole in the roof, caused by a green, goo-laden something-or-other that crashed to Earth, observed solely by a scientist (also Tatasciore) who unwisely investigated further.
In order to fix the roof, Porky and Daffy need to do something they’ve never done before: get jobs. Alas, Daffy’s madcap antics always ruin Porky’s efforts to work properly, and they keep getting fired. Their last chance comes courtesy of a meet-cute encounter with Petunia Pig (Candi Milo), a scientist working at the town’s Goodie Gum factory.
She alerts them to an opening on the production line, where Porky needs merely to push a button, after which Daffy pulls a lever ... and he’s able to handle that.
After completing their first shift, Porky waits to escort Petunia home; Daffy, however, spots the aforementioned scientist — now behaving very suspiciously — as he enters the plant and heads for the gum production vats. To Daffy’s horror, the man dumps a dollop of green goo into the vat, then shambles away. Daffy tries to tell Porky what has happened, but — given the duck’s tendency toward exaggeration — is dismissed as being paranoid.
The global launch of Goodie’s new gum flavor — Super Strongberry, which Petunia contemptuously sniffs isn’t new at all, but merely a new name — takes place the following day. Daffy happens to be around when somebody chews a strip ... and immediately is transformed into a zombie, with an all-seeing eyeball revealed whenever the chewer opens his mouth.
This kicks off a plot to turn everybody on Earth into gum-chewing zombies, orchestrated by a cackling alien invader (Peter MacNicol) whose appearance is based on the title characters in the schlocky 1957 sci-fi bomb, Invasion of the Saucer Men. He’s assisted by the scientist, himself a zombie able to speak only one word: “Chew.”
The ongoing bit prompted by this poor guy’s attempt to convey information — “Chew-chew-chew!” — quickly becomes tiresome.
Daffy’s subsequent attempt to warn everybody — at the Super Strongberry launch party, officiated by the town mayor (Wayne Knight) — naturally fails, due to the agitated duck’s hysterical frenzy. The zombie takeover expands, and ...
... will Porky, Daffy and Petunia be able to stop it?
Sight gags abound throughout, and — in classic Clampett/Avery style — our heroes’ anatomies often are wildly exaggerated during moments of crisis. (This story has plenty of such moments.) Browngardt speeds along from one catastrophe to another, the situation becoming increasingly dire, despite Porky and Petunia’s clever attempts to stay ahead of things, while also struggling to prevent Daffy from worsening the situation.
The rapid-fire momentum becomes almost overwhelming, even when interrupted by fleeting moments of quieter character interaction.
As always has been his role, Porky serves as the straight man, with Daffy as his zany sidekick. The dynamic shifts a bit once Petunia appears; her role as thoughtful researcher is a welcome update from her vacuous presence as “token girlfriend” in the classic shorts. She also gets in more than a few arch zingers, always with a calculating expression to emphasize the point.
Inside jokes abound, often pointing back to classic moments from vintage Looney Tunes shorts. Many of the one-liners are quite funny: none better than Daffy’s ultimate complaint, after being assigned by Porky to lay eggs for Petunia’s rotten egg extract spray gun.
The tone lurches sharply from lunatic zombie-avoidance to straight sci-fi adventure in the third act, which introduces a narrative hiccup wholly at odds with the first hour’s tone and (admittedly limited) plot logic. The weight of Farmer Jim’s earlier advice also comes into play, and it’s a lesson worth remembering: People can accomplish anything when they stick together.
Joshua Moshier’s screwball orchestral score often echoes Carl Stalling’s music for the classic shorts, along with all-important portions of key themes such as “The Merry Go Round Broke Down” and Raymond Scott’s percussive “Powerhouse.” Well-placed pop tunes include Ohio Express’ “Chewy Chewy” and R.E.M.’s “It’s the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine).”
Children and classic Looney Tunes fans will have a ball with this film, easily ignoring the sometimes clumsy attempt to stitch so many zany bits into a cohesive through-story. That said, I do pity mainstream adults who stumble into this slice of animated insanity.
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