The iconic picture of Elmer Fudd wielding his double barrel shotgun will be a thing of the past, say the latest cartoon's creators.
Remember those images of Elmer Fudd pointing a firearm in the face of Bugs Bunny? A finger in the muzzle was all it took to reverse Fudd's fortune. The images were as common as an over-ambitious Wile E. Coyote falling off a cliff or a pants-less Porky Pig stuttering his way through his lines.
But those clips, featuring Fudd and his hunting shotgun, are now a thing of the past thanks to a revamped series and a response to the modern day societal opinions on guns and gun-related crime.
The new HBO Max series, dubbed "Looney Tunes Cartoons," premiered last week on the streaming service with a noticeable difference from the early versions of the show. The reboot features the cartoon's typical level of violent mayhem-think dynamite, booby traps and anvils-according to a report from The New York Times. But one major theme will be missing.
Peter Browngardt, series executive producer and showrunner, told the NYT, "We're not doing guns. But we can do cartoony violence — TNT, the Acme stuff. All that was kind of grandfathered in."
The move is reportedly due to the increase in U.S. gun violence in recent years.
The new series isn't doing away with the notion that Fudd is a hunter, but the shotgun will be replaced with a scythe (which doesn't seem any more ethical in the hunting arena, if you ask us). Overall, the gun scenes never focused on any element of safety, neglected to educate, and depicted a vision of gun owners as numbskulls, unable to fulfill the responsibility of firearm ownership in any shape or form. Maybe, from that perspective, it's the right move to ditch them completely.
Here's a full episode of the new Warner Bros.-commissioned series, which we've embedded to start with a quick Bugs and Elmer scene at the 6 minute and 44 second mark:
Another character known to traditionally use a gun, Yosemite Sam, is featured in the new Looney Tunes Cartoons as well. Odds are he won't be shown with any of his familiar revolvers, either. Again, he wasn't exactly the epitome of "responsible gun ownership," but these classic characters certainly won't be the same without their familiar accessories.
As for Fudd, he'll need to find a gun-free method of capturing that wascally wabbit, as the classic cartoon shifts into a new generation.
If you need some of the classics for your home theater, there's always some available.
NEXT: JERRY MICULEK REVISITS THE FIRST HANDGUN HE EVER SHOT, THE CZ MODEL 27
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