With the launch of HBO Max a little while back, the streaming giant offered up a huge variety of programming options to compete with Disney+. One of these was a cooperative effort with Warner Brothers, in which Executive Producer Peter Browngardt was asked to revive the franchise’s classic Looney Tunes characters for an extensive collection of shorts. Those all became available at launch, including one of their best-known pairings, Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd. But there’s one key difference between the new offerings and the original series of hilarious cartoons. Elmer Fudd is no longer carrying his trusty rifle while hunting the wascally wabbit. This is apparently a nod to the gun control movement. After all, you wouldn’t want poor old Elmer shooting someone, would you? (Washington Examiner)

Classic cartoon character Elmer Fudd won’t be holding his famed rifle in a reboot of the Looney Tunes series.

HBO Max premiered the remake of Looney Tunes Cartoons last week, and the executive producer told the New York Times that weapons such as dynamite and other “Acme stuff” will be used in the series but not guns.

“We’re not doing guns,” Peter Browngardt said. “But we can do cartoony violence — TNT, the Acme stuff. All that was kind of grandfathered in.”

Character Yosemite Sam will also not be using guns as weapons, according to outlet Comic Book.

Before we dig into this further, here’s a look at one of the Fudd/Bugs pairings with the charming, totally non-violent name of “Dynamite Dance.” (From the WB YouTube page.)

So if you watched that clip, you probably noticed one striking feature related to the change I mentioned above. In lieu of the long rifle he used to carry, Elmer is now chasing Bugs Bunny with… a scythe. Yes, that’s right. The same weapon carried by the Spectre of Death in all classic renditions of that grim figure. He swings the weapon wildly in a way that would surely result in one of the more gruesome murder scenes in the history of cinema were he ever able to make contact. (Spoiler alert: Bugs Bunny is indestructible, so you don’t have to worry about it.)

Of course, Bugs isn’t exactly an unarmed pacificist himself. The rabbit has a seemingly inexhaustible supply of dynamite, black powder and TNT. I lost track of how many sticks he detonated over those few minutes, but it seemed like it was well into the hundreds. And all of the explosions were depicted in an incredibly unsafe fashion. Of course, Bugs is never injured in the slightest, even when he allows the charge to explode in his hands right next to Elmer’s head. (Or in his mouth, in his ears, down his pants or between his legs.)

If the underlying message is that guns are unsafe and shouldn’t be shown to children, what sort of message are they sending here? Guns are dangerous, kids. Ask your parents to get you some explosives instead.

The most recent iteration of the gun control movement’s linguistic tricks involves saying “gun safety” instead of gun control. If this was supposed to support the “safety” angle, it was a total faceplant. The really strange part of this editing of the Warner Brothers classics for a 2020 audience is all of the other “issues” that don’t seem to be coming under scrutiny. The idea of a hunter carrying a rifle in the woods while seeking game wasn’t controversial in the 40s and it’s still uncontroversial today. Even most gun control advocates make a point of saying that they don’t want to end hunting, provided you’re not using an “assault rifle.”

What should have been far more upsetting to progressives in the modern era was the absolutely blatant racism, sexism and all the rest of the isms found in the original Looney Tunes shorts. If Browngardt and company have no problem leaving these levels of cartoon violence in their offerings, I wonder if they’ll be bringing back those old classic aspects of the cast as well? Probably not, but this might serve as a good reminder that entertainment from the 40s and 50s come to us from a very different era with different sensibilities. Looney Tunes probably isn’t the best fodder for launching a social justice campaign in the modern era.

Before closing it’s worth noting that Warner Brothers is responsible for these decisions, but they are owned by Time Warner, which also owns HBO. Of course, Time Warner is owned by AT&T which apparently owns roughly 38% of the planet at this point. Heck, for all I know, they own Hot Air and I’m about to get called down to the principal’s office.