First Episodes Review> Tiny Toons Looniversity

In the 1990s Steven Spielberg decided to produce a show for Fox Kids, something he’s not usually known for. Tiny Toon Adventures didn’t make kid versions of the Looney Tunes. You’d have to wait for Baby Looney Tunes for that. Instead the usual suspects took a backseat as mentors to a whole new cast of kids at the high school Acme Looniversity. While being kid variants of the Looney Tunes they were original characters learning to follow in the footsteps of their mentor.

Then the show ended and they disappeared. Remembering the fate of Bosco and Honey, where laughter is what kept a toon young this is not the best news for our young heroes. Maybe that’s why they’re in college now for Tiny Toons Looniversity, the new spinoff featuring the same characters in a new location.

And a new continuity. The original show seems to have no connection to this one outside of the same characters. That’s how you do nostalgia wrong. Nostalgia is all about the comfort zone, which so many not-stalgia shows get wrong, and the only reason this show exists is because of the nostalgia. However, a new continuity alone does not equal not-stalgia. So is this show any good or is it another lame remake that Hollywood keeps churning out?

Let’s start with the issue everyone who loved the original show has brought up:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjpNspUub8w

That’s from an Animaniacs cameo but the “no relation” thing of Buster and Babs’ relationship was a running gag on the show. They had the same last name for obvious reasons and that was it. Buster and Babs were a couple, as shown many, many times in the show. In this version however they’re twins, and many fans are not happy about that. It’s kind of a shame because they made a really cute couple, and made more sense than other couplings. I’m sorry, but Plucky & Shirley and Hamton & Fifi seemed to only exist because their friends were dating. So losing that relationship is disappointing and I wish they had kept it the way it was, new continuity or not.

Coming back to that for a moment why couldn’t they have kept it the same continuity? Buster and Plucky could still not get along as roommates the way they did in high school. The Bunnys’ relationship is not the only change. Plucky’s ego, which being a Daffy Duck clone was already rather big, seems to have been dialed up to where he’s more of a regular jerk instead of an occasional jerk. Plucky was my favorite of the Tiny Toons, and apparently there were enough like-minded people both adult and kids that The Plucky Duck Show came out after an April Fool’s episode (if memory serves) as a full series for at least a season on Fox Kids. It’s not a good luck for Plucky Duck.

Meanwhile Hamton just gains a stronger southern accent, a lack of desire to be a comedian like his mother, famous stand up comic Joan Swhinefeld. Sweetie is promoted to main character, demoting Shirley The Loon to the RA and Fifi Lafume to “there…sometimes”, a status shared with the other Tiny Toons. Buster, Babs, Plucky, and Hamton were the focus characters but the others used to get their own shorts in and out of school. Now they’re just background characters instead of supporting cast. Sweetie is a bit more of a tough girl that the sweet girl with an occasional anger issue. It doesn’t so much feel like they’re different characters so much as variants of the original characters, a surface viewing, and surface viewing is never a good way to analyze something. It’s why I note when it’s all I have to work with.

So I watched the first three episodes, recorded off of Cartoon Network, since outside of HBO Max the only episode released was episode 7, which I haven’t watched yet. Notice how all my complaints are in the adaptation department. That’s because honestly it isn’t a bad show. It is missing some of the original show’s edge and I don’t expect to see an episode where the Tiny Toons make music videos or play parodies of superheroes or anything else that doesn’t follow the somewhat linear adventures of the new roomies trying to get along. I’m going to miss those, but the show itself isn’t terrible. Once you get over the changes, and new audiences won’t know about the Bunny siblings not being siblings (going to seriously scar somebody if they come across Tiny Toon Adventures, as the Animaniacs clip notes, thus making it the only major mistake), the characters are still fun to watch. Buster and Plucky sound way too close to Bugs and Daffy, especially Plucky, but the only classic characters they interact with are Granny and Yosemite Sam, the Dean and I think Headmaster respectively. Actually I don’t know what Sam’s role is after three episodes.

The show isn’t against respecting Looney Tunes’ past, either. In the third episode Buster believes he’s getting Bugs as his mentor, keeping the original’s idolization of the elder Bunny (also no relation but they never made that joke), only to get Merlin The Magic Mouse, a character only slightly less obscure than Bosco and Honey because he appeared during the Nickelodeon airing of Looney Tunes and Merry Melodies cartoons and his shorts came out later than Bosco cartoons. The intro still notes that the teachers “have been getting laughs since 1933”, even drawing them at that part of the song in the old style, or as best as the artists can replicate.

As for the new takes on the characters, they have their charm. Buster and Plucky as rival roommates, with Hamton as the peacekeeper, certainly has its potential, even in the second episode where they actually get along for a short time. Meanwhile Babs and Sweetie are fun to watch as best friends. They have the above argument in the second episode but doing it early shows that the grouping are not as clear cut. Babs and Sweetie hit it off immediately to the point that Babs is able to deal with rooming without her brother because of how well they get along while Buster and Plucky show that they will get along at times despite the more rivalrous association they’re going to have. I did enjoy the three episodes I watched and I didn’t stop the series recording on the DVR so I must have enjoyed it.

While I still wish this was a continuation and I’m as bothered by the change in Buster and Babs’ relationship as many others, Tiny Toons Looniversity is an enjoyable watch. It lacks the edge of its predecessor, which it shared with previous Looney Tunes offerings until Baby Looney Tunes and the more recent Bugs Bunny Builders. These are the only major complaints because they are a step down from the original. This new incarnation has its strong points and I’ll watch more episodes until it gives me reason not to. If you can handle the changes, give it a shot.