Our current IP-obsessed age is doing anything possible with old properties, but that’s not as new a trend as you’d think. Such a practice was around in the early and mid-2000s, just in small droves—case in point, do you remember when the Looney Tunes were superheroes?
Yes, that really happened in a show called Loonatics Unleashed. The Kids’ WB show launched on September 17, 2005, and was the franchise’s first foray into the action genre. Our premise? It’s 2722, and the Loonatics were normal people given superpowers as the result of a meteor hitting the city-planet Acmetropolis. Some of the heroes had whatever powers seemed cool at the time, like laser vision or teleportation; others had powers calling back their Looney ancestors, like Tech E. Coyote being functionally immortal and Rev Runner running really fast.
Loonatics lasted only two seasons before it got dropped and it’s not really remembered, but it’s been forever burned into my brain since 2005. Part of that is because I recall just how negative its initial reveal was, where spilled ink on Looney Tunes art transformed them into pupil-less, angular beings in all-black suits. The show’s final look was already decided upon before that video went up, but that didn’t stop the internet from demanding a visual change, further spurred by a pair of videos from TLG Media back then that had some thoughts on both visual styles, and they’re …interesting, put it that way.
That reveal subsequently gave the series a reputation of being dark and edgy, which isn’t really backed up by the show itself. (Even by the generous curve of being a Looney Tunes spinoff, Kids’ WB had other series, such as The Batman and X-Men Evolution, which were more deserving of that moniker.) Its first theme song was probably the edgiest thing about it; otherwise, each episode had a variety of jokes—one even ends with a riff on the classic “That’s All, Folks!” sendoff—and the show never seemed to have any greater aspirations beyond giving the Loonatics a bad guy to fight each week.
Back then, there was a certain charm in watching the heroes go up against a bounty hunter riff on Sylvester the Cat or a psychic dolphin voiced by Mark Hamill (it was that kind of cartoon) or kill Tech at least once an episode to reference his predecessor. That kind of disposable fun works both ways, and at a time when action cartoons were starting to take themselves a little more seriously, it’s not too surprising something this light was cast aside. (WB hasn’t drawn attention to the show since its cancellation, save for Teen Titans Go! parodying the show back in 2024.)
As a piece of Looney Tunes media, it was one of many attempts WB made in the 2000s to keep the characters relevant with younger audiences, first preceded by Baby Looney Tunes and Duck Dodgers, then succeeded by the more straightforward Looney Tunes show.
In a larger TV context, it’s also an example of how IP has become so malleable as to chase whatever’s popular or target niche subgroups. You can chart a straight line from Loonatics to James Bond being shaped into Batman Begins and Marvel (and Hitman in the near-future) and Riverdale becoming a bonkers cultural phenomenon to more recently Velma. (Despite their seemingly similar natures, Loonatics is arguably less cynical about its source material, if at all, by a considerable margin.)
DC published several Looney comics up until 2024, including a crossover series with its superheroes, and spent the last decade creating different Elseworlds offshoots aimed at fans of mechs, dinosaurs, and high school stories. Even Looney Tunes itself is no stranger to this, as its own TV history over the decades has shown.
None of that makes Loonatics Unleashed secretly brilliant or some kind of Simpsons-level prophet ahead of its time. The best thing that could be said about it was how it helped WB realize the Looney Tunes have an upper limit on what audiences will accept with them before crying foul, preventing even stranger swings from occurring. Undoubtedly, coming out in the mid-2000s saved it from a harsher fate in the 2010s when fandom would make concentrated efforts to sink things they didn’t like instead of letting them pass on by.
So here’s to you, Loonatics: you got in and out while the getting was good. Maybe you’ve gotten better with age, and if anyone wants to determine that for themselves, both seasons are over on Prime Video.
Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
Read the full article here
