THE DAY THE EARTH BLEW UP: A LOONEY TUNES MOVIE (2025)

Genre: Animation
Director: Peter Browngardt
Cast: Eric Bauza, Candi Milo, Peter MacNicol 
Runtime: 1 hr 31 mins
Rating: PG
Released By: Shaw Organisation
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 13 March 2025

Synopsis: That’s not all folks! Porky Pig and Daffy Duck, one of the greatest comedic duos in history, are making their hilarious return to the big screen in the sci-fi comedy adventure, The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie. From Warner Bros. Animation, director Pete Browngardt, and the creative team behind the award-winning Looney Tunes Cartoons, The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie stars Porky Pig and Daffy Duck as unlikely heroes and Earth’s only hope when facing the threat of alien invasion. The movie unfolds a rich Porky & Daffy story that fans have never seen before: In this buddy-comedy of epic proportions, our heroes race to save the world, delivering all the laugh-out-loud gags and vibrant visuals that have made the Looney Tunes so iconic, but on a scope and scale yet to be experienced. 

Movie Review:

There is probably good reason why there has not yet been a fully animated ‘Looney Tunes’ movie in the cinemas; and ‘The Day the Earth Blew Up’ is a good reminder of why that is.

Commissioned for HBO Max before being unceremoniously abandoned by the studio, it is at best a nostalgic throwback to your childhood when ‘Looney Tunes’ was a staple of American pop culture and dominated the Saturday morning cartoon belt on TV.

If you’re hoping for appearances by Tweety, Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd or any other of the better-known Looney Tunes characters, we regret to say that you’ll be sorely disappointed; instead, the movie lets Daffy Duck and Porky Pig (both voiced by Eric Bauza) take centre stage.

Following a short prologue that tells of how both these characters were raised by a gruff but lovable farmer Jim (Fred Tatasciore), the movie kicks into high gear from start to finish as an irradiated green spacecraft rips a hole in their dilapidated house, that forces them to take up employment at a creatively stagnant bubblegum factory; it is at that factory that they uncover a conspiracy by an alien (Peter MacNicol) to turn humans into mindless zombies with contaminated gum, and also where Porky meets his love interest Petunia Pig (Candi Milo).

True to the ‘Looney Tunes Cartoons’, the proceedings are fast, furious and zany. Director Pete Browngardt is a veteran of the series, and in making the transition to feature-length, orchestrates the madness with the same manic energy. That is both a good and bad thing – on one hand, it is true to the spirit of the characters, in particular the comic duo of Daffy and Porky; but on the other, it also is exhausting seeing what would be contained within short-form stretched out for one and a half hours.

To be fair though, Browngardt and his screenwriting team of 11 contributors approach the endeavour utterly liberated – in particular, the last third goes completely bonkers, as the alien reveals a much larger plan that involves a giant bubble over the entire Earth’s surface, an even more menacing threat involving an asteroid hurtling towards Earth, and last but not least, how the ultimate solution to save the Earth and humankind lies with Petunia’s bubblegum invention. It is out of this world all right, but as wacky as it does get, there is no denying that it gets tiring very quickly.

Like we said, there is probably good reason why the ‘Looney Tunes’ animations have thus far been restrained on the small screen, and as enjoyable as it is to the cartoons those in our adulthood grew up watching, ‘The Day the Earth Blew Up’ simply reinforces why certain types of pleasures are best enjoyed in moderation. So even though it is a good dose of nostalgia, it is hardly enough reason to make you hope for more of the ‘Looney Tunes’ on the big screen. 

Movie Rating:

(Fast, furious and zany, this feature-length 'Looney Tunes' is good for nostalgia, but gets exhuasting very quickly)

Review by Gabriel Chong