In The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie, Porky Pig and Daffy Duck save the world from an alien intent on turning humanity into gum-chewing zombies.  Anyone who grew up watching the Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies cartoons will love this movie because it’s hilarious.  That’s all, folks!

I really hate telling you any more about this movie, because I would spoil the wonderful gags in it.  Here’s one.  Porky and Daffy need to fix up their house so that it will pass its annual inspection.  The inspector is a snooty and overwhelmingly busty old lady, but that’s besides the point.  If she finds that the house isn’t up to code, our heroes will be out on their tukases.  So they proceed to fix things up in cartoon fashion, using a pizza box to repair a hole in the front stairs and green paint to cover up a bare spot on the lawn.  The sidewalk also mustn’t have any cracks, so Porky and Daffy go about filling them up.  “D-Daffy, I said No cracks,” Porky reminds his friend, and the camera pans to reveal Daffy’s bare bottom.  It’s a silly joke, one part pun and one part sight-gag, and I laughed.  (The movie never gets any bawdier than this.)

The movie opens with a meteor flying through Earth’s atmosphere, crashing through the roof of a ramshackle home on its descent.  A concerned, square-jawed scientist goes off to investigate the meteor and returns as a zombie with a briefcase leaking green goo.  The hole in the roof is also trimmed with green goo, and you’re probably what all that goo portends, right?  Instead of diving headfirst into that mystery, a flashback introduces us to the home’s residents, which are Porky and Daffy.

Before they became the cartoon stalwarts we know them as today, Porky and Daffy were helpless, shivering little creatures trying to survive in the country.  They’re rescued by Farmer Jim, a kind-hearted and deep-voiced man rendered as a painting with moving lips.  He takes Porky and Daffy into his home and raises them, showing unbelievable patience throughout all of the bedlam Daffy creates on a regular basis.  If you ever wondered why Porky has his trademark stutter, the movie shows us who’s responsible.  (Hint:  it’s Daffy’s fault.)

Despite all of Daffy’s antics, Farmer Jim lets them stay and ultimately leaves the house to them when he literally walks off into the sunset.  The way the film depicts the painted farmer “walking” is another funny sight-gag that cleverly relies on our familiarity with how classic cartoons were a combination of painted and animated elements.  (Dissecting why cartoons is dry stuff, isn’t it?)

Back in the present day, Porky and Daffy’s house fails its annual inspection due to the huge hole in the roof created by the meteor.  The two have little money and need to find jobs in order to play for repairs.  This leads to a funny montage where we see them fired again and again because of Daffy’s wackiness.

Eventually, Porky and Daffy meet up with Petunia Pig, a flavor scientist at the local Goodie Gum factory.  She’s nice and tells them that the factory is always hiring people to work on the floor.  Their new job, which consists of simple, repetitive work on an assembly line, is something they’re actually good at.  Porky and Daffy will now be able to earn enough money to repair their home.  A brilliantly drawn art deco montage (scored to the “Powerhouse” song frequently used by the classic cartoons) celebrates the newfound success of our two loveable nincompoops.  However, just when Porky thinks the two are in the clear, Daffy spies that zombie scientist mixing green goo into the bubble gum.

I never knew this before this movie, but Daffy is absolutely paranoid about alien invasions.  When he sees that the green goo mixed with the gum results in brain-controlling parasites, he freaks out.  Because he’s normally unhinged, his zealousness over warning the townsfolk is ignored and costs him and Porky their jobs.  Fortunately, Porky and Petunia realize that Daffy isn’t nuts but is actually telling the truth.  Overnight, the gum turns everyone in town into zombies who can only say one word, “Chew!”  That leaves it up to our intrepid trio to stop this fiendish gum from enslaving the inhabitants of Earth before it’s too late!

Recommendation

The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie is a love letter to everyone who grew up watching Looney Tunes cartoons as a kid.  This film, the first fully-animated film starring Looney Tunes characters to ever play in theaters, is a stand-alone adventure featuring Daffy Duck and Porky Pig.  Although the movie will certainly invoke feelings of nostalgia for those already familiar with these characters, the movie’s self-contained story makes it enjoyable for fans as well as those experiencing Daffy or Porky for the first time.

From an artistic standpoint, director Peter Browngardt was inspired by the animated shorts made by Bob Clampett for Warner Brothers in the Thirties and Forties.  Although Porky and Daffy look the same, they’re rendered in style that predates the cartoons featured on the Saturday morning TV shows in the Seventies.  The emphasis is less on making the characters cute and cuddly and more on their expressiveness.  One area of consistency is the action, which is always high-energy and frequently explosive.

This version of Daffy isn’t the annoyed, petulant, scheming and selfish Daffy who was repeatedly foiled by Bugs Bunny.  Instead, he’s genuinely daffy, shouting “Whoo-hoo!” when he’s on a tear.  Porky is pretty much the same, serving as a straight man to Daffy’s antics.  While Daffy’s episodes of inspired lunacy are fun, they would become wearying without Porky’s trademark caution and reticence to balance things out.  Porky is not a sidekick here but an equal partner, and his comedic pairing with Daffy reminded me of Laurel and Hardy, where the laughs emerge from their contrasting personalities.

The main challenge with a project like this is taking characters who worked extraordinarily well in seven-to-nine minute shorts and building a ninety minute story around them.  Although the plot does have an episodic feel, the overall story works because Porky and Daffy have  character arcs.  Porky learns to trust Daffy despite his ability to mess things up, while Daffy realizes that there is a time and a place for his chaos.  The newcomers–Petunia Pig, Farmer Jim, the Scientist and The Invader–all have their moments.  In regards to The Invader, the filmmakers get kudos for supplying The Invader with the silliest reason ever for an alien race to take over the Earth.

If you follow movies on social media, you know how little the current leadership of Warner Brothers Discovery thinks of the Looney Tunes characters.  Over the last couple of years, WBD destroyed Coyote vs. Acme for a tax write-off and sold this movie to distributor Ketchup Entertainment.  (Thanks to everyone at Ketchup for releasing this movie in theaters!)  WBD also recently removed all of the shorts from the Max streaming service, with no explanation given.  After watching The Day the Earth Blew Up, I’m dubious that the top brass at WBD could have seen this movie and dismissed it as not worth their trouble.  Whomever is running the company must be a cartoon villain in disguise, ala Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

The Day the Earth Blew Up is funny, visually inventive and, unlike Warner Brothers Discovery, honors the legacy of the Looney Tunes cartoons.  The movie is a testament to what hand-drawn animation can achieve when in the right hands.  Although 2025 is only three months old, this movie is already the front-runner for comedy of the year.  Highly Recommended.

Analysis

As someone who grew up watching Looney Tunes cartoons, characters like Daffy Duck and Porky Pig hold a special place in my memory.  Whenever I watch classic cartoons starring them and the rest of the gang, it’s like seeing old friends.  I could always count on Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Elmer Fudd, Sylvester and Tweety and the rest of the Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies characters to make me laugh regardless of the ups and downs of my childhood.

Before writing this review, I never had reason to count the number of WB animated shorts I watched back then.  Wikipedia tells me that the Saturday morning program rotated shorts produced between 1948-69, which by my count is approximately 485.  If I were to watch any of them again today, I could tell within seconds if I’ve seen it before.  They hold a privileged place in my memory, not out of nostalgia, but because they are comically brilliant.

This is why I’ve resisted watching the Looney Tunes gang in anything new for decades.  What little I’ve seen of them since their glory days hasn’t been as good.  I’m very protective of my happy childhood memories, and don’t want an inferior, watered-down version of the funniest and visually inventive cartoons ever made to contaminate them.

Accordingly, I avoided both of the Space Jam movies.  Aside from being a lifelong Detroit Pistons fan (you couldn’t pay me to watch a movie that genuflects before Michael Jordan or LeBron James), I didn’t want to watch something that turned Bugs and Company into second bananas.  (Who Framed Roger Rabbit? is an exception, which I’ll get to.)  These characters don’t need to be propped up by a celebrity or a sports legend to be funny or relevant.  They were funny for decades, and the only thing keeping them from being funny is the milquetoast approach taken by creatives afraid of offending anyone.

Who Framed Roger Rabbit? magically recreated the spirit of the Looney Tunes shorts within a larger narrative.  While the characters only appeared briefly, all of their cameos worked because the movie let them be scene-stealers.  Incredibly, Roger Rabbit remains the only movie that not only pays tribute to the classic cartoon characters of my childhood, but allows them to be funny and anarchic in the same way I remembered them.

Which brings me back to The Day the Earth Blew Up.  Instead of coasting on nostalgia, it wants to make us laugh.  It doesn’t rely on a celebrity for “drawing power” and crafts a story around Porky and Daffy and lets them do their thing.  The movie is funny because the emphasis is on putting those characters in funny situations.  Although the humor is safe for little kids, it’s as manic and edgy as the classic cartoons.  (I can imagine some little kids asking their parents for an explanation behind some of Daffy’s lines.)

After years of kowtowing to those who argued that the Looney Tunes cartoons inspired violent behavior in kids, this movie acts as a long-overdue raspberry to that crowd.  Although no guns are used by any of the characters in this movie, that’s not out of caution but because they wouldn’t work within the context of the story.  (Hard to kill a goo monster with bullets.)  Daffy wields a huge mallet with glee, while Petunia Pig fries countless alien symbiotes with a flamethrower.  If kids watching this movie ever attack others with hammers and flamethrowers, let me know.

The only misstep in the movie, and it’s a minor one, is when it includes a reference to modern times.  One could argue that Porky and Daffy should be familiar with smartphones and social media in 2025, but the Kim Kardashian-inspired gag felt out-of-place.

Memories…

I’m dating myself here, but The Day the Earth Blew Up reminded me of Ren and Stimpy.  The latter was the last animated show I watched, so that could be the explanation.  However, there were several things about Earth that felt influenced by that chihuahua and cat duo.

For example, there’s an early scene with Porky and Daffy sitting at home in their kitchen surrounded by filth.  It’s the only scene of its kind in the movie, but filth played a huge role in the Ren and Stimpy cartoons.

Earth mostly shies away from the vulgarity Ren and Stimpy reveled in, but it does include a scene with Daffy’s bare butt.  Also, the inspector’s bust is so huge she can barely squeeze back into her car.  And busty women are featured in several crowd scenes.

Like Ren and Stimpy, Porky and Daffy have a friendship that alternates between affection and antagonism.  In both instances, the friends get along despite frustrating the heck out of each other.  And when they come to a heartfelt understanding, there are rivers of tears, just like Ren and Stimpy.

Finally, the cartoon show and Earth both share a love of Fifties science fiction.

What this all means is…I need to start watching cartoons made after 1992.