DVD Review: Tiny Toons Season 1 Volume 1
Warner Bros., Steven Spielberg Cartoon Show On 4 Disc DVD Set
Aug 15, 2008
"We're tiny, we're toony, we're all a little loony . . ."
Thirteen years after it last aired on network television, Warner Bros and Amblin Entertainment's Tiny Toons has finally made it onto DVD. And it's a lot of fun.
Tiny Toons: Looney Tunes for the 1990's
Executive-produced by Steven Spielberg, Tiny Toons was an attempt to revive WB's dormant animation unit after the success of Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Their concept was to develop junior versions of Warner's classic cartoon characters, mentored by their senior counterparts at Acme Looniversity while getting into their own scrapes.
Buster Bunny, along with his best pal Babs (no relation), was a protegé of Bugs Bunny. Plucky Duck was descended from Daffy at his more Clampett-inspired, Hamton Pig was derivative of Porky (minus the stutter), Fifi Le Fume was essentially a female Pepe Le Pew, and so on.
But some of the other new characters were greatly altered from their classic counterparts. Elmyra Duff may have been a nouveau Elmer Fudd, but she was a more effective villain, especially when she promised to "love you and kiss you and squeeze you into itty-bitty little pieces!" Max Montana possessed the same over-the-top histrionics of Yosemite Sam, but more closely resembled an evil Richie Rich.
Is Tiny Toons Any Good?
The biggest change from Looney Tunes to TIny Toons was the fact that Tiny Toons was intended for a Saturday morning crowd, while the classic shorts appealed to a more adult audience. That meant the kiddie humour was more pronounced, and the raunch dialed out.
Despite this, there are plenty of gags for the adult set. Some of the jokes are a little dated (especially the Mike Tyson gag in "Hollywood Plucky," or Shirley the Loon's New Age spoof of Shirley MacLaine) but that was a crime the original Looney Tunes gang committed too (riffing on Humphrey Bogart in "8-Ball Bunny," for instance).
The important thing is that the jokes hit more often than they miss. There's plenty of 4th Wall breaking (a regular feature of the oh-so-self-aware 1990's), but there are plenty of references to the classics as well. For instance, "That move worked for Bugs!" complains Buster, after his attempt to imitate a classic Bugs Bunny maneuver backfires on him.
Some of the early episodes aren't quite there yet (the Tiny Toons gang took a while to hit their stride), but the 2nd, 3rd and 4th discs have some great stuff going on.
Extra Bits
Other than the inevitable trailers, Warner Bros. has added a "From Looney Tunes to Tiny Toons – a Wacky Evolution" featurette to this DVD. There's not a lot of wackiness on display, other than clips from both shows, but mainly senior production personnel (no Spielberg, unfortunately) discussing the show, and offspring of famous animators reminiscing about their parents.
The Final Analysis
Forget about the "bastardization" of classic characters, and accusations of grave-robbing: is Tiny Toons funny? The answer is an unequivocal yes. That alone erases much of the stigma that haunted Tiny Toons during its 5 years on television.
Some of the riffs will fly over kids' heads (particularly The Twilight Zone and Jack Nicholson-in-Batman references), and it obviously took a while for the series to hit high gear, but it's well worth it when it does. Looney Tunes, and other animation, fans should definitely check out this DVD. 8/10.
Fun Fact: In 1994, Ren and Stimpy creator John Kricfalusi infamously blasted Tiny Toons during an interview with Animation magazine, accusing the show of being a "Superbastardization" of Looney Tunes.
"Every character is a 'comedy relief' character, even the ones who were originally straight-man characters," he said. "Glue an exceptionally unirreverent live-action director's name (Steven Spielberg) to it, then plug these stolen bastardization personalities into situations not suited for them. For example - into stolen movie plots. Then commit every single other bad writing crime known to man."
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