The Underappreicated CG Looney Tunes Shorts

 As a big fan of Looney Tunes, I would say I know a good amount of Looney Tunes content out there. 

From shorts, to specials, to movies I know a good amount of the history and different eras these characters have went through. 

One of these eras was an extremely brief time to try and get the characters back into the theaters. I call this short era the "Reel FX Shorts Era". 

As shown in the image above, what made this era of shorts distinctive from the countless Looney Tunes theatrical shorts that came before them was that they were completely CGI. The first time that a handful of these characters had entered the 3D realm. 

These were made around the time that WB was trying to bring the Looney Tunes back to the big screen in some way and using computer generated imagery. I remember around the time between 2008-2012 WB was announcing Live Action/CGI hybrid films starring certain characters. Movies based on Bugs, Marvin, Speedy Gonzales, and Pepe Le Pew were all announced but never seemed to get off the ground and get these characters into the world of CG. Not even another hybrid film meant to be a full on reboot film for the entire cast written by SNL star Jenny Slate seemed to get the greenlight. 

These shorts were the only offerings made through 2010-2012 to transition the characters to CG and actually happen. 

There were a total of six shorts made, all handled by Reel FX. A CG studio who haven't done a lot of notable work (as of now, their most notable work is "The Book of Life"). 

There were four Wile E. Coyote and Roadrunner shorts, one Sylvester and Tweety short, and one Daffy and Elmer short. Surprisingly there wasn't a single Bugs short made during this brief run. 

I feel there were two things that made these shorts so much better than than they had any right to be: Mel Blanc and extremely cartoony CGI.

When it comes to Mel Blanc, two of these shorts both featured archived audio from the legendary voice actor from two songs he sung during the 50's when he was alive. These songs "I Tawt I Taw A Putty Cat", a Tweety song, and "Daffy's Rhapsody", a Daffy song, were the starting point for Reel FX to make two shorts that could be bring that "classic" feeling back with the man who gave these characters their voices. 

Since the Coyote and Roadrunner shorts didn't require  voices, they were easier to make and didn't run the risk of using different voice actors for the characters who could sound "off" to the audience who saw these shorts. 

Secondly, and the important, the cartoony animation. The CG artists and animators really did their homework to capture the distinctive look, style, and expressivenss of the 50's era of Looney Tunes because each short looks absolutely fantastic.  What makes this even more surprising is that these shorts were being made a couple years before few studios were making the push to make CGI this expressive and cartoony. To really go back to the basics and principles of 2D. The only studio to do something similar was Sony Pictures Animation with Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs in 2009 and eventually Hotel Transylvania in 2012. 

I feel the reason these shorts didn't get the love they deserve at the time came to two big factors: 

One, the fact that WB was sticking thee in front of their awful family films that no one saw or remembers like "Yogi Bear", "Happy Feet Two", and "Journey 2: The Mysterious Land". 

Two, during the the time these were released, people had a weird stigma against any 2D characters becoming CG. Regardless of how well it was done. I believe this most likely was because of films like Alvin and The Chipmunks and Smurfs. 

Nonetheless, I love these shorts and I think they did great things with the characters for the short time they were being made. I honestly wish they made more with the rest of the Looney Tunes cast. Who knows what they could've pulled off.