"Tiny Toons Looniversity" Series Talkback (Spoilers)

[Classic Speedy]

More like miss and miss.

?? I thought you liked the A! revival. That's what I was referring to.

 

[Fone Bone]

Oh, I thought you were referring to THIS show! My bad. I like the new Animaniacs.

 

[Goldstar!]

Animaniacs on Hulu, based on what I've seen, was OK, but a little too shallow and cash-grabby compared to the original. Tiny Toons Looniversity is all right, also. It could be worse, but it could be better.

 

[PF9]

An episode I'd like to see is where Granny is revealed to be an imposter and that the real Granny had passed away several years before, referencing the death of Granny's longtime VA June Foray.

 

[MarshalGrover]

Sounds disrespectful to Candi Milo.

 

[Goldstar!]

An episode I'd like to see is where Granny is revealed to be an imposter and that the real Granny had passed away several years before, referencing the death of Granny's longtime VA June Foray.

So basically, you want to traumatize a bunch of kids by implying that the Looney Tunes characters can die. Not to mention disrespect the vocal talents of Candi Milo.

Also, June Foray passed away in 2017. Why reference it now, 7 years later?

 

[PF9]

I get it now. I'm just not used to Milo as Granny even though it has been 7 years.

Also, 26 episodes for each of four school years would mean 104 episodes overall, enough for off-network syndication. That's where the real money is.

 

[Silverstar]

26 episodes for each of four school years would mean 104 episodes overall, enough for off-network syndication. That's where the real money is.

But that's not where the viewers are. Off-network syndication isn't really a thing anymore. Shows usually go back and forth between cable and streaming, then eventually to OTA or FAST. No studio goes into an animated series planning to make 104 episodes. 26 or 52 are the current magic numbers. The 65 episode package doesn't even happen nowadays.

 

[PF9]

But that's not where the viewers are. Off-network syndication isn't really a thing anymore. Shows usually go back and forth between cable and streaming, then eventually to OTA or FAST. No studio goes into an animated series planning to make 104 episodes. 26 or 52 are the current magic numbers. The 65 episode package doesn't even happen nowadays.

Keep in mind there are still people in the US with only an antenna to provide them TV. That's why I've been saying any half-hour show at least, with at least 100 episodes, regardless of whether it is animated or live-action, or kid-friendly or not, needs to be put on local stations.

A couple of Nicktoons still producing new episodes come to mind.

If WB makes 104 episodes of TTL with a finale that neatly wraps up the show's storyline, then the show could make money for years to come being shown on local stations after its first run on Cartoon Network and max wraps up. Heck they can already do that with Teen Titans Go.

 

[Silverstar]

Again, no studio goes into an animated series with the plan of making 100+ episodes. Do you have any idea how time consuming and expensive that would be? Does that really sound like something that could happen in an era when everyone is pinching pennies and cutting costs? Some shows do achieve that number, but over time, and only after they prove themselves to be mega-popular. Also nobody thinks in terms of local stations anymore; for the few households who don't have cable, satellite or streaming services, the internet exists to fill that void. What you're describing is the product of a bygone era; the industry has changed a lot since then.

 

[PF9]

I mean I did picture the main characters attending Acme Loo for four years much like how most people are in college for four years.

I don't want this series to go along too quickly or end in a fashion that doesn't neatly wrap up the show's storyline. The finale needs to show the characters graduating from Acme Loo.

 

[Silverstar]

^^Great, but you don't own or run the show, so you're not in any position to call the shots. The show runners are under no obligation to cater to your personal whims; it's their vision, not yours. The producers are going to do what they do; if that's not to your liking, there's always fan fiction.

 

[Fone Bone]

(@Fone Bone was right again:

Why does this keep happening? If this keeps up, someday somebody might even listen to me.

 

[Goldstar!]

Tiny Toon Adventures didn't end with the Tiny Toons graduating. Why not? Because no one wants to see that. Warner Brothers studio would want to keep the series open ended in case they wanted to make more episodes, and if the Tiny Toons characters grow up and leave school, they would serve no real purpose. They'd just be clones of Bugs, Daffy, Taz, etc. , and who needs clones when you have the genuine article? These characters are only marketable as kids, so don't expect that to ever change.

Also, when did anyone at WB say that Tiny Toons Looniversity had a 4-year commitment? I only ask because I've never heard anyone who works on the show say this.

 

[PF9]

I'm a huge fan of TV shows having grand finales that wrap up the show's storyline neatly. When this doesn't happen I feel like I am robbed. Take Legends of Tomorrow for example. The last episode ended on a huge cliffhanger and The CW canceled it anyway this was shortly before Nexstar took over the network. This cliffhanger still has yet to be resolved, although there were plans to do so on The Flash.

 

[awinger24]

The rest of Season 2 should premiere some time in the Autumn season.

One of the episodes held back from Season 1, "Things That Go Tweet in the Woods", should premiere then. And I think that they ended up shuffling the episodes because most Max shows can declare a season as no more than 10 episodes.

Reasonable to believe how "Spring Beak" (the Season 1 finale and Season 2 premiere) ended up being separate as a special. There are two more specials left. "Nightmare on Toon Street" and "Winter Blunderland".

These two are holiday specials after seeing the titles from EIDR.

 

[Petran Markou]

Main reason to watch original TIny Toons and Animaniacs was the amazing orchestral sound track and the synchronizing with the animation. It was this that elevated the voice actors, the characters, the dialogues, the humour and the series.

All this mainly thanks Richard Stone, who back then was considered the successor of Carl Stalling. He added his own unique identity and flavour to the musical tracks, despite the rather not so good animation and script, depending on the studio. Peak moment was the episode of Les Miseranimals , combined with the quality animation of TMS. The whole episodes felt like a continuous musical instead of separate song segments, just like the classic Looney Tunes.

Same goes for the other series he was involved with, like Pinky and the Brain, Freakazoid etc Though Animaniacs was the peak.

One would expect such music to be part of a cinematic movie instead of a cartoon TV series. One reason those series were so expensive to produce back then.
As a result this approach to music has not seen any followers, including even the newer Looney Tunes and a successor to Richard Stone has not emerged since then.

Without that music approach which would surely raise the budget a lot, all the reboots feel like empty shells or something completely different and disconnected.

The rest are minor details as to whether I'll find something likeable in the series or not.

 

[Goldstar!]

I think that it's best to think of Tiny Toons Looniversity as it's own separate thing and not constantly compare it to Tiny Toon Adventures. After all, TTL is a reboot that was made by a completely different team more than 20 years after TTA. Looniversity isn't a continuation of TTA; it takes place as if TTA never happened.

If you happen to prefer the original, that's perfectly fine, but don't slam this new series just for not being the original. The show should be judged by it's own strengths and weaknesses. Looniversity is far from perfect, but one thing that I do like about it is how the show's producers wanted this series to be it's own thing and didn't just make it a beat for beat remake of Tiny Toon Adventures.

 

[Mejo]

Just watched the Spring Break special and I’ve gotta say, I actually think it was better that the OG’s take on that concept. While not nearly as well animated as that special (more on the animation later) I think that this was a lot more funnier and a lot more entertaining than it. The story wasn’t revolutionary but it was still fun nevertheless and had lots of good moments. Probably my favorite part was a short blink and you’ll miss it cameo featuring Bunny and Claude depicted as a drawing on Buster and Babs fridge, always love it when modern Looney Tunes shows reference obscure characters are referenced like that (on a related note, I do find it funny how the OG mostly featured the first Looney Tunes characters in featured roles (Bosko, Foxy and Goopy Geer) while this new series features the last Looney Tunes characters in featured roles (Cool Cat, Merlin the Magic Mouse and technically Lola Bunny) but I digress).

I do have one big criticism with the show though: the animation. It’s mostly restrained and isn’t nearly as wild as some of the other Looney Tunes shows. It’s a big overcorrection of how ugly the Animaniacs revival could get, so instead the animation just looks more mild more often than not. Snipple’s animation also looks surprisingly weaker than normal, only looking slightly better than that one notorious episode animated by Redfrog (much like the OG, there’s probably a truckload of production issues that will never see the light of day). Really unfortunate that WB allowed Titmouse to go all out with the Animanacs revival but didn’t allow them to work on this show (maybe in some of the later episodes, who knows?). I know a lot of people keep dissing Kennedy Cartoon’s animation on the OG (and not without good reason, considering some of their work, it’s amazing that WB took them until the end of Season 1 to fire them) but I think that their more messy animation is actually more interesting than the more milder animation in TTL (not to mention the fact that I feel there’s a lot of good animation from that studio (mostly from people like David Feiss and Jon McClenahan) that keeps getting overshadowed thank’s to a lot of the bad animation, but I digress). It’s even more unfortunate that the show looks this mild too, as a lot of the concept and layout art (drawn by people like Jim Soper, Genevieve Tsai and Robert Griggs) look fantastic:

Here’s a question, since I’m seriously confused on this: If you’re going to hire great and talented industry professionals to work on your show and allow them to draw great art, only for little of their art to show up in the final product (and if it does, it usually is more restrained than that guy’s original art), then what’s the point of hiring those people at all? I know some of you will still probably say that the final product looks fine and whatnot, but tell me…compared to the show, do these look more like what you would envision a Looney Tunes show than that?

(I have a similar problem with the 2014 Tom and Jerry Show, what’s the point of hiring people like Dave Alvarez and Jon McClenahan to work on it, only to have none of their great drawings show up in the final product.)

Despite all my gripes with the animation, I don’t think that this is a bad reboot so far. At the very least, it has most of the original characters in the cast compared to the Animaniacs revival. In spite of how many people don’t like the original, I’ll always like Tiny Toons despite it’s issues, same goes with this show.

 

[Petran Markou]

I think that it's best to think of Tiny Toons Looniversity as it's own separate thing and not constantly compare it to Tiny Toon Adventures. After all, TTL is a reboot that was made by a completely different team more than 20 years after TTA. Looniversity isn't a continuation of TTA; it takes place as if TTA never happened.

If you happen to prefer the original, that's perfectly fine, but don't slam this new series just for not being the original. The show should be judged by it's own strengths and weaknesses. Looniversity is far from perfect, but one thing that I do like about it is how the show's producers wanted this series to be it's own thing and didn't just make it a beat for beat remake of Tiny Toon Adventures.

difference is they wanted it this way because they had a very low budget, not for artistic reasons