Looney Tunes Cartoons

All is well. The new “Looney Tunes Cartoons” are “good for kids,” as my 7-year-old consultant concluded, but they also honor the anarchic spirit of the original “Looney Tunes”—and “Merrie Melodies,” which were basically the same. ... Most importantly, though, the voices are right: Mel Blanc, who was Bugs Bunny from the start (“A Wild Hare,” 1940) and did so many voices for so many animated classics, was incomparable. And yet Eric Bauza—the new Bugs, Daffy, Tweety and Marvin the Martian—comes very close to what Blanc did and, significantly, has the same energy.

There’s something loving about this homage.

Looney Tunes Cartoons feels right. ... Flaws are more of the personal-preference variety. ... Mostly, though, these are good, solid Looney Tunes entries packed with colorful zaniness, wink-and-nudge references for older viewers, magnificent silent comedy ingenuity for younger audiences and an unquestioned admiration for the property.

Some people will look at “Looney Tunes Cartoons” and think that just copying greatness isn’t that much of an achievement. They’re wrong. Nailing the tone of the original Looney Tunes shorts in a way that can impress a diehard fan like me is not nearly as easy as it looks.

Kudos and [three stars] to the actors doing spot-on voice-work, to the animation team for capturing the distinct visuals and slapstick spirit of the classic “Tunes” cartoons — and to the writers for creating timeless stories with no winking references to modern times.

Overall, the updates made to the new "Looney Tunes" don't feel intrusive, but help smooth the transition from what used to play before features in movie theaters to at-home streaming. These energetic and bite-sized distractions are silly and fun, good for a mental break before moving on to something meatier

Just enough modern references so these new 10-minute episodes don’t feel like reruns.

We wish that the multi-level humor of the original series was here, rather than just a series of bug eye gags and heavy items falling on the characters.

Inspiration is drawn from older Warners cartoons (the 1940s, broadly speaking) with the old cartoons studied so closely, and so closely followed, that, references to “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and modern sports shoes notwithstanding, what results is more of a pastiche than a reboot. ... Ultimately the new shorts will stand on their own merit. What I have seen so far is not bad.