THE DAY THE EARTH BLEW UP: A LOONEY TUNES MOVIE (2024)
Featuring the voices of Eric Bauza, Candi Milo, Peter MacNicol, Fred Tatasciore, Laraine Newman, Wayne Knight, Carlos Alazraqui, Kimberly Brooks, Peter Browngardt, Rachel Butera, Ruth Clampett, Keith Ferguson, Andrew Kishino and Nick Simotas.
Written by Darrick Bachman, Pete Browngardt, Kevin Costello, Andrew Dickman, David Gemmill, Alex Kirwan, Ryan Kramer, Jason Reicher, Michael Ruocco, Johnny Ryan and Eddie Trigueros.
Directed by Pete Browngardt.
Distributed by Ketchup Entertainment. 91 minutes. Rated PG.
It’s really strange for you to see a Looney Tunes title which is not wearing the Warner Brothers banner. It’s like, what is Ketchup Entertainment? Is that some wacky fictional company like Acme Corporation?
Actually, the serpentine road to the theaters for The Day The Earth Blew Up is sadly made up of more basic corporate interference. This film was originally made by Warner Brothers Animation a few years ago with the plan of WB airing it on their Max streaming service. And sadly, this film got caught up in the corporate reshuffling when Warner Brothers merged with the Discovery Channel, which also led to the infamous shutting down of finished films like Batgirl and the long, long delay and demotion of ‘Salem’s Lot.
In fact, another one of these Looney Tunes films made by WBA for Max was completely trashed like Batgirl. Luckily, Warner Brothers put this title up for outside bids and Ketchup Entertainment – a small indie studio – took over the distribution for the North American wide release of the finished film.
Seeing the final product makes the WB business decision even more confounding. The Day the Earth Blew Up is far from a perfect film, but as modern animation goes it’s actually quite good. It’s rather funny, and the animation – done in classic pen and ink rather than computer generated – is really extremely well done, much better than the animation which is used on a lot of cartoon films which get much wider studio release.
In what seems like it may be a record, 11 people got “written by” film credits for the movie. (11???!!! Really???!!!) And truthfully The Day the Earth Blew Up does have a bit of the schizophrenic feel of too many cooks in the kitchen. Yet, it mostly holds up pretty well as a goofy bit of family entertainment.
The Day the Earth Blew Up is sort of like a classic Looney Tune short put on steroids. It may have worked even better as a short, but the film doesn’t really totally wear out its welcome ever, even if it did perhaps go on a bit longer than necessary.
It revolves around two popular, but slightly b-level, Looney Tunes characters – Daffy Duck and Porky Pig. It is an origin story, sort of, where Daffy and Porky grow up as best friends, watched over by the saintly Farmer Jim. When the farmer must finally leave his charges, he reminds them that their friendship and their home are the most precious things in their life.
Fast forward to years later, where Daffy and Porky are still living in their home – and have given it their own unique stamp. However, when the city threatens to condemn the house, they must find jobs to save their home. And then when an alien spaceship threatens their town, and the two must also try to save the world.
It’s pretty standard cartoon fare, but like I said it is very well done. Porky and Daffy are the main Looney Tune characters here, although Petunia Pig appears as Porky’s potential love interest, and the alien leader is reminiscent of the old Marvin the Martian character, without being a direct copy.
The voice cast is mostly relatively unknown (at least outside of the voice acting world). The closest this film gets to celeb voiceovers are Peter MacNicol (Sophie’s Choice, Ally McBeal), Laraine Newman (an original cast member of Saturday Night Live) and Wayne Knight (Newman from Seinfeld).
The Day the Earth Blew Up is not going to blow up your world. However, the Earth is a better place with it allowed to share its fun disposition, rather than having it hidden away and forgotten in some corporate vault. That would have been deththpicable…
Jay S. Jacobs
Copyright ©2025 PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved. Posted: March 12, 2025.
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