Looney Tunes in a Theatre

Like a lot of people born in the 80s and earlier, I grew up watching LOONEY TUNES. THE BUGS BUNNY AND TWEETY SHOW, and similar compilation programs, aired regularly on TV, and decades-old cartoons were readily available on VHS tapes.

Of course, as any animation affictionado knows, most of these cartoons weren't created for televsion: they were created for movie theatres. Animated shorts before features is a treat rather than an expectation these days, but if you want to see a classic cartoon in a cinema, you can still sometimes find them at festivals or revival houses.

I recently attending a screening of various LOONEY TUNES shorts at the Bytowne Cinema in Ottawa. The lineup opened with Chuck Jones' RABBIT SEASONING, closed with Friz Freleng's BIRDS ANONYMOUS, and included a great variety of cartoons in the middle.

The biggest surprise for me was the inclusion of a few computer-animated cartoons from the 2010s: the musical short I TAWT I TAW A PUDDY TAT (which is essentially a music video for Mel Blanc's 1950 song of the same name), and a trio of new Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote cartoons. I was hoping to see one of Jones' Wile E. Coyote shorts, but the CGI ones are still very funny and have some amazing animation. Plus, I hadn't seen all of them, so they made a nice change of pace from the nostalgic classics that dominated my afternoon.

I've seen many of these cartoons more times than I can count. Some, I've practically memorized. Yet seeing them as they were intended--on a big screen, in front of a laughing audience--is something I'd recommend to any animation fan. No matter how familiar these cartoons are, they just hit differently in a theatre.

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