Daffy Duck and Porky Pig uncover an alien’s plot to take over the Earth in their first entirely 2D-animated original feature film.
The timeless Looney Tunes characters may have won five Academy Awards in the Best Animated Short Film category across their nine decades of gracing screens big and small, but after Space Jam in 1996, their feature film output has been a mixed bag from the box office flop Looney Tunes: Back in Action to the critically and culturally lambasted Space Jam: A New Legacy. Ketchup Entertainment and Warner Bros. Animation look to give the franchise a breath of fresh air with this latest feature, The Day The Earth Blew Up, and the results amount to an exciting and funny return back to its roots, both narratively and within its execution.
The Day The Earth Blew Up follows Daffy Duck and Porky Pig (both voiced by Eric Bauza), who are portrayed here as anthropomorphic farm animals raised like humans by their father figure Farmer Jim (Fred Tatasciore), who one day leaves his farm for the now-adult Daffy and Porky to tend in his stead. When it’s time for their annual home standards review, the two work feverishly to keep their childhood home in ship-shape, only to discover a giant hole in their roof dripping an ominous green goo after an asteroid ran through it on the previous night.
Daffy and Porky try their hand at various jobs to raise money for repairs, only for the eccentric duck’s wackiest impulses to get them fired at every turn, until scientist Petunia Pig (Candi Milo) helps them get hired at entry-level floor positions at the Goodie Gum Factory where she works. But it’s there where Daffy stumbles upon a secret diabolical plot by extraterrestrial The Invader (Peter MacNicol) to take over planet Earth by using the factory’s latest Super Strongberry flavored gum as a mind control device, among other nefarious weapons. With Petunia in tow, Daffy and Porky take it upon themselves to save their house and livelihoods by stopping the alien invasion before it goes any further, at least, without driving each other crazy first.
What makes The Day The Earth Blew Up a special film in this day and age is its dedication to hand-drawn animation. While most of the major studios like Pixar, Dreamworks and Illumination have settled on creating most of their feature-length content entirely with 3D environments and models, Warner Brothers made the unique choice to go back to the literal drawing board and tell this story in the realm of 2D cel animation with stellar results. Not only do the colors of the backgrounds pop with beautiful vibrancy and everyone’s movements are incredibly fluid, but going the traditional route also allows for more defined features on all the characters, from extra lines on The Invader’s bony hands to emphasize his sinister villainy to how big Daffy’s eyes expand while on a descent into one of his zany moods.
The Day The Earth Blew Up also has an engaging character-driven story at its emotional center amongst the enduring versatility of Daffy and Porky’s dynamic; with the former on a journey toward discovering when to take a step back from assisting Porky when the chips are down, and the latter understanding when to rely on Daffy’s unpredictability. Eric Bauza is also game for the dual role as both protagonists, delivering Daffy and Porky’s banter with captivating energy and an uncanny ability to slip out of the voice of one character, into another and back again with the greatest of ease.
The film also excels in being uproariously entertaining and hilarious like the Looney Tunes shorts from days past with their old-school slapstick humor, like a moment where Daffy expresses his guilt over a mistake by repeatedly smashing his head with the door of a car that inexplicably appears out of nowhere. More examples come in one of many subtly funny callbacks to old short films such as a brief instance where Daffy’s head inflates and deflates by the second as it did in 1938’s “The Daffy Doc”, and a well-meaning accident that explains the origin of Porky’s iconic stutter.
As humorous as The Day The Earth Blew Up can be, however, the more juvenile jokes don’t land. One example comes early when Daffy suggests they make money as influencers on the internet, emphasizing the idea by shaking his posterior uncomfortably close to his phone. Other references are tired in execution, like a montage where Porky and Petunia are fighting the mind controlled zombies to REM’s tune “It’s The End of the World (And I Feel Fine)”. It’s also worth noting that the villain is nothing more than a generic alien looking to mine Earth of its most valuable resource, disappointing anyone looking for complexity within the cartoon insanity.
It can also be argued that the rest of the Looney Tunes cast could be missed here, from barnyard animals Foghorn Leghorn and Henery Hawk to housepets Sylvester and Tweety, and that’s before mentioning the absence of the animation icon himself, Bugs Bunny. But between director Peter Browngardt’s unflinching commitment to hand-drawn animation and the film’s old-school levity, the intent of The Day The Earth Blew Up is clearly to return the Looney Tunes back to the roots Leon Schlesinger planted in 1930, when Daffy and Porky were the studio’s top pairing and the focus of the shorts was on making cinematic spectacle out of maniacal animated shenanigans. The ambition of this creative team has paid off, and The Day The Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie adds up to an entertaining return of the classic brand for lifelong fans of the Looney Tunes, and a successful introduction of their comedy to a new generation.