Fan Pans New Looney Tunes

From the Comments section, Luke weighs in on Warner Bros. new Looney Tunes:

"Saw the show. It was okay, boring, generic, and slow paced. Probably the biggest hit in the face is the sheer lack of background music. It just is not Looney Tunes without the orchestra. I've heard that the budget for each episode was 750,000 dollars. I don't know how hight that is in comparison to, say, Animaniacs, but they have to have money in there for orchestra tracks. The biggest problem is it just does not have energy, or charisma behind it. It is, what it is, Seinfeld with bad timing and no charisma."

5 Pitches, 3 Shows, No Waiting

Three original animated series will be pitched to various people at various studios over the next two and a half weeks during the run up to my latest operation May 25th. As health care is running out, I must accelerate the schedule for my annual surgery. This year I feature the rotator cuff, a change of pace from last year's skin cancer and on par with '09s knee operation.

It's been awhile since I've pitched anything animated, but if you wait long enough the executive deck gets reshuffled and you walk in somewhat fresh. But its important not to mention too many operations. Then you remind the execs. of their own mortality and they'll grow sullen and stop their perpetual smiling.

I'm thinking of hiring someone young to impersonate me at meetings. I'll pay for gas and throw in a percentage of every show sold. Let me know in the Comments section. If this works out, we could be on the verge of a plot for a Disney film.

Shocking Footage

Bad luck? Possibly and yet more seems implied. The lesson, clearly, is do not wear metal underwear no matter how comfortable they are or sexy they make you feel.

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Po Tofu

News overload. No sooner has terrorist mastermind OBL been clasped to the bosom of Neptune, then Kung Fu Panda 2 decides on a previously overlooked product placement.

Bin Laden Dead of Lead Poisoning

Good.

Euro Trash?

Animated offerings from Cartoon Network Europe.

Let's Try This Again

And they are as Warner Bros. gears up for another TV series involving the Looney Toons.
(Image: CBR)

Ruegger Recalls HB-WB Mashup

Tom Ruegger recalls his show idea to combine HB and WB classic characters—and he has the artwork to prove it.

Happy Easter!

Lunch today with my wife and mom-in-law. The only eggs we'll be searching for are the ones on our plates.
(Image: stjohnsmcc.org)

Reunion

After 28 years, my friend Ash and I met at a Denny's with a big windmill on the roof. The staff were neither Dutch nor dressed as traditional Dutch people. Inside were no Dutch decorations, no rows of tulips, no dikes holding back syrup, no Mexican waitresses clopping about in wooden shoes. It was a Denny's and someone thought a windmill on the roof would be shit hot. It kinda was.

Today Denny's offered a number of breakfast dishes rich with hickory-flavored bacon. They called it "Baconalia." I went all in. Ash got fish and chips in which the fish arrived looking very much like a breaded boomerang.

Back in the early 80s we worked together at a security guard company. Ash was a supervisor and I was employed monitoring burglar alarms and making sure guards arrived on-time at our various accounts.

Often the guards were drinking and didn't want to be bothered showing up to their posts. This pissed off the clients, who then called me to yell about the missing guards. I could send the patrol supervisor to cover the post until I located someone to fill in. But the patrol supervisor was moonlighting from his city day job and usually slept in his patrol car—deep rem sleep, impervious to summoning radio. This led to vexing nights but everything usually worked out. Plus I smoked a lot back then and that helped mitigate the tension.

Our company had alarm systems all across LA and parts of Orange County in shops, private homes, studios and factories. In the 18 months I worked there, I phoned in hundreds of burglar alarms to the police. All but one was false. Rats set off a fair number of the motion detector alarms while earthquakes could trigger every bell alarm, causing more racket than a lunatic brigade with pots and spoons. If you wanted to break into a warehouse or a factory 30 years ago, the best time was during a Santa Ana wind. (Alarm signals traveled through phones lines. Wind whipped the phone lines agitating the signals which showed up on our monitoring equipment as multiple break-ins everywhere at once.

We had former movie stars working as undercover employees at various companies to find out who was pilfering what. (Actors and actresses excelled at these masquerades.) Our crack after-hours service department consisted of a 21-year old guy who didn't care to have his pot smoking interrupted by things like fixing busted alarm systems. We worked with people who wanted to be movie directors and comedy writers (me) and others who were happy with dispatching guards and monitoring burglar alarms but had other problems.

Ash and I met at 1:00 and parted at 6:00. My Baconalia was long since digested. But we're getting together in a few months. Hopefully next time we'll locate a Denny's with a sphinx on top. In Los Angeles anything is possible.
(Image: legends.com)

Nate Ruegger Nabs Gold

Nate Ruegger's Another Life continues racking up the film festival kudos. At Worldfest Houston International Film and Video Fest, Nate's offering won Gold for Best Original Dramatic Short.

Coming up next: the Newport Beach Film Festival.

It's a long slog through the festival circuit, but you meet people, pick up some press, and show you've got the persistence and talent to play ball in a bigger stadium. Keep going, Nate.