New Looney Tunes Eps Headed to Cartoon Network

And SPEAKING of Saturday Morning Cartoons, Brooks Barnes at the New York Times posted this story on our all-time favorite Rascily Rabbit and pals.

(EXCERPT) LOS ANGELES – Ask a first grader to identify Bugs Bunny and the response more likely than not will be a blank stare. Dora, sure. Mickey, alive and kicking. But Porky who?

Worried that the low profile of the Looney Tunes cast of characters among children is the start of th-th-th-that’s all folks for the historic cartoon franchise, Warner Brothers is embarking on a five-alarm rescue effort.

Bugs + Daffy

A new 26-episode half-hour series, “The Looney Tunes Show,” is headed toward Cartoon Network in the fall and will star Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck as odd-couple roommates in a contemporary cul-de-sac. Yosemite Sam, Tweety Bird, Sylvester, Marvin the Martian and Porky Pig are their neighbors.

Meanwhile, Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote are going back to work in movie theaters in a series of 3-D shorts. The first of these shorts – Warner has approved three, and three more are in development – will play ahead of the movie “Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore,” which arrives in theaters July 30.

The studio’s consumer products and home entertainment divisions are trying to do their share, releasing a new Nintendo game featuring the Tasmanian Devil in September and several new DVD compilations.

An expansion is also under way at LooneyTunes.com.

“We talked at great length about whether we were audacious enough to take on such iconic treasures,” said Peter Roth, president of Warner Brothers Television, who was recently given oversight of the franchise after a restructuring. “It’s both costly and risky, but I think an extraordinary opportunity.”

Warner declined to say how much it is spending on the initiative, but the television series alone carries a cost of about $750,000 an episode, according to industry estimates. “We want to reinvigorate the brand with the best possible execution – high-quality, high-end state of the art,” Mr. Roth said.

Read the FULL ARTICLE HERE.  The full story is spread out over 4 different pages.  I hate when they do that, but somehow it helps their site stats.

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