As a massive Looney Tunes fan, it was questionable whether or not The Day the Earth Blew Up would even see the light of day let alone be released theatrically. Originally conceived as an HBO Max (now Max) original, the company decided not to release it at all.
Unlike Bye Bye Bunny: A Looney Tunes Musical which was canceled mid-production and Coyote vs. Acme which is a fully completed film that was shelved, The Day the Earth Blew Up was shopped around to other distributors where GFM Animation picked it up for theatrical distribution.
In The Day the Earth Blew Up, Porky and Daffy have practically been together since birth. They’re raised by a burly, bearded, lumberjack-looking farmer named Farmer Jim. As the two grow up together, Daffy is the crazier of the two whereas Porky kind of goes with whatever Daffy does without voicing how he feels.
After Farmer Jim waddles off into the sunset (literally), Porky and Daffy are left with his home which they run into the ground over a handful of years. After trying to tend to various minor repairs before a neighborhood standards review, they are given ten days to fix the gigantic hole in their roof that they somehow overlooked. Otherwise, their house will be condemned.
Meanwhile, a meteor has crash-landed on Earth which smashes through Porky and Daffy’s roof upon entry. The meteor brings a strange bright green alien goo with it. After Porky and Daffy struggle to find a job to help pay for their roof, gum flavor scientist Petunia Pig comes along and offers them jobs at the Goodie Gum factory.
However, the scientist who discovered the meteor has been brainwashed by the goo and dumps more goo into the factory’s latest gum flavor batch that is shipping worldwide. Whoever chews this infected batch is turned into a gum-chewing zombie and the only one that knows about it is a lunatic duck that nobody believes.
The Day the Earth Blew Up takes a ton of influence from Bob Clampett; not only from the Looney Tunes shorts he directed but his animation style as well. The film is traditional animation, which means it’s hand-drawn, and every line of dialogue has a variety of memorable facial expressions that feel like they’re lifted straight out of The Great Piggy Bank Robbery (1946).
The animated sci-fi comedy has a long list of influences including several Bob Clampett shorts from 1946 including Kitty Kornered and Baby Bottleneck, old school creature features such as The Thing and Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and surprisingly a meteor drilling story point that feels like it’s lifted straight out of Armageddon or The Core.
The film has a whopping 11 credited writers and four story consultants, which after watching the film isn’t surprising. The film changes course and objectives countless times over an all-too-quick 90 minutes. For those unaware, when HBO Max launched it was the streaming location for animated content. Part of that content was a new batch of Looney Tunes Cartoons that ran for six seasons. These new shorts took heavy inspiration from the original Looney Tunes with crisp animation, were still totally gag-driven, and even had a more adult kind of vibe much like Ren and Stimpy.
The Day the Earth Blew Up was created during that Looney Tunes Cartoons stint on Max, so it has similar high-quality animation. The film toys with lighting in a way that makes it feel like a classic horror film with drastic color changes and heavy shadows. And the monster and alien designs are so much fun. The lead alien, known only as The Invader, has a plan for Earth that is too absurd not to love.
The Day the Earth Blew Up deserves all of the support it can get. The film feels like a last chance for the Looney Tunes franchise to be successful. Traditional animation is also rare these days. When the inevitable embrace of AI is just around the corner and everything animated relies on CGI these days, hand-drawn animation hasn’t looked this good since Cuphead.
The Day the Earth Blew Up is a crazy unique take on alien invasion and zombie films with a Looney Tunes twist that is fun and hysterical. The eye-popping animation is gorgeous and glorious. This is a film for Looney Tunes fans, horror, sci-fi, and film fans alike. It captures the magic of the classics while delivering something entirely fresh and worthwhile.
