Looney Tunes star Elmer Fudd is back on television in all new animated adventures, but he's "wabbit hunting" without his rifle. The New York Times reports Fudd is not allowed to carry a gun in the new Warner Brothers Animation series, which begin airing on HBO Max May 27th.
Executive producer Peter Browngardt says the decision to take away Elmer's weapon is in response to U.S. gun violence. Another Looney Tunes character known for gun play, Yosemite Sam, has also had his guns confiscated by the production company. "We're not doing guns," Browngardt told the Times. "But we can do cartoony violence — TNT, the Acme stuff. All that was kind of grandfathered in." There is also no shortage of anvils falling on heads and cannons firing at close range.
Many of the other well known Looney Tunes characters are also featured in the series, including wise-cracking Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Sylvester and Tweety Bird, the Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote, Marvin the Martian, and even Beaky Buzzard.
The HBO series consists of 80 eleven-minute episodes, and Browngardt says all of them have storylines altered with today's audiences in mind.
For comparison sake, we've included one the original Looney Tunes shorts from December, 1950.