The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes movie review- Old fashioned animation that’s sure to make you smile

Still from the film

Cast: Eric Bauza, Candi Milo, Peter MacNicol, Fred Tatasciore, Laraine Newman, Wayne Knight, Ruth Clampett, Andrew Kishino
Director: Peter Browngardt
Rating: 2.5/5
Runtime: 91 min.

This old fashioned animation slapstick comedy begins with vignettes from Porky and Daffy's childhood days and there's added montage of their disastrous attempts to find employment, typically classic Looney Tunes in style. The script for this film is credited to 11 writers, and involves an outlandish plot involving an alien mind-control scheme by which chewing gum infected with extraterrestrial goo threatens to turn earthlings into zombies. The screenplay manages to remain elastic and spry. It's strip-happy and loony enough.

We also get to know that the stuttering pig and duck-billed blabbermouth, share a two-story house bequeathed by Farmer Jim, the supportive father figure who took both of them under his wing when they were kids. Then

a planet-endangering asteroid and a CG flying saucer, which sends a big glob of glowing goo smashing through Porky and Daffy's roof. The employment search happens because they have to fix the roof which costs much more than their accumulated savings. Porky and Daffy eventually get jobs at a bubblegum factory. And that's where all that world destroying action originates from.

To top that a mad Scientist dumps a briefcase full of goo into the formula for Goodie Gum's latest flavor, Super Strong Berry.The goo apparently has the power to turn humans into zombies. So that's another catastrophe about to happen.

Soon the entire world is sampling Super strong berry, thus taking over their brains and making them susceptible to Invader's commands. Daffy, a hysterical conspiracy nut, is unable to convince the world that Goodie Gum has been compromised by space aliens. So Daffy, Porky and newfound love interest Petunia Pig (Candi Milo) have the onus of saving the planet themselves. Together, they make a great team.

The feature directorial debut of Peter Browngardt is animated in the typical classic loony tunes style. It's not consistently funny but it has its moments of hilarity, is imaginative, and sometimes borders on brilliance. The animation has strong background and fluid, expressive movement.

"The Day the Earth Blew Up" has striking imagery and is inventive about its sci-fi/disaster/zombie movie trappings.The wit and humour hare may not be uproarious but the wild story and antics are sure to bring a smile to your face.