The Aerie
Okay, you know you're showing your age as a nerd when you can take offense at a Saturday Morning Cartoon. But, seriously, I caught an episode of this when I woke up this morning and it is dreadful.
I never knew imagination could be a zero-sum game, but this cartoon makes me think that somewhere in Hollywood a writer went into the supply closet, lifted the lid off the jar of "Imagination," and only found the dusty scoop inside. So he went back to the drawing board and started pasting together this show from the scraps on his desk
It's basically a bastard grandchild abandoned by its parents. Its grandparents are the X-Men, the Teen Titans, the Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles, and the Warner Bros. 'Looney Tunes' cast, who were held down and DNA-sampled against their will.
The X-Men is the source upon which many of the demonstrated Super Powers are based, including Ace Bunny's optical blasts from Cyclops, Lexi Bunny's telepathic powers from Jean Grey, and Nightcrawler is still hunting Danger Duck to get his teleportation back. Heck, I just realized that the Tasmanian Devil is simply the X-Men's 'Beast,' right down to the color. The Teen Titans were the original builders of the towering superhero dwelling in which the Lunatics reside. At least, it looks like the "T" shaped Titan building after 771 years of dessication and neglect.
The dialog was lifted directly from the Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles, right down to the tiresome and incessant pizza jokes. And of course the characters have a creepy Looney Tunes heritage: a glance at the characters provides a semi-recognition akin to spotting your second grade teacher atop a drag-queen float at the Pride Parade.
Daffy Duck is the truest character to form: egotistical, vain, and not terribly bright.
Bugs, or "Ace", is off somehow: in the first episode they trot out the "Duck season/Rabbit season" joke in an homage to the original, but it doesn't work.
"We WILL take over your world!" says the Mighty Morphin Power Viking villian.
"No you won't!" says Bugs, er, "Ace."
"Will!" "Won't!" "Won't!" "Will!" "Won't!" "Okay, have it your way!" Yeah, heh. Heh.
Hrm.
The most disturbing characters are Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner. As a kid, I always found the British-accented speaking version of Wile E. rather disturbing. Even as a child I understood that the whole POINT of the cartoon was the pantomime. So when Wile E. started talking in a fruity British accent, well, the old teacher-on-the-float metaphor comes to mind.
He's the same here, without the accent, but even worse is the Road Runner, transformed into a high-speed babbling kid with ADHD.
In the Sixties a politically-correct Hanna-Barbera introduced a bastardized version of Tom and Jerry. The two formerly-murderous foes (upon whom Matt Groening based the bloodthirsty "Itchy and Scratchy") began strolling about in synch with each other, smiling vacantly and engaging in Good Deeds. As a child I was concerned that they had been lobotomized with a brace-and-bit. A tech-talking Wile E. Coyote teamed up with a moronic Road Runner, well, it's like the whole world is turned upside down...
I watched this caffeine-and-saccharine program, and I pictured Bugs. He would quietly watch these flying, blaster-shooting crazypeople, gnawing on his carrot, tracking the action. Then he'd peel a banana, toss the skin on the street, and the villain would go down with a crash, landing in a vat of quick-hardening cement. Bugs would walk up to the creatures head, poking up out of the block and say, "What's up, Doc?" No fuss. No need to get stressed out. No need for blasters.
Sigh. Is nothing sacred anymore?
Posted by Albatross at June 17, 2006 4:59 PM | TrackBack