Tuesday, September 17, 2013

No great idea should go without being tried

Someone started a thread on ToonZone the other day asking if it was possible that Scooby-Doo would ever meet Bugs Bunny or any of the other Looney Tunes characters. As it turns out, five years ago, a prominent writer-producer who'd worked with both had an idea that would've-should've-could've gotten on the air, if it wasn't for the fact that the suits at Warner Bros., who'd initially green-lighted the project, had a sudden change of heart.

Tom Ruegger, one of the masterminds behind WB's resurgence in animation in the 90's, had a project in development that would bring Bugs, Scooby, et al, together under one roof, taking full advantage of the resources that WB had available to them. Tom outlined his plans on his blog 2 years ago, which was linked in the thread in question at ToonZone. As Tom explained it, after current WB executive producer Sam Register came aboard, Mixed Nutz, the Hanna-Barbera-meets-the-Looney-Tunes project that Tom was working on, was scuttled, all because Register had what he thought was a better idea on how to use Bugs and his pals. One must assume that Register's pitch ultimately led to The Looney Tunes Show, which has wrapped production.

Given that WB has fielded and produced a myriad of bad projects in recent years (i.e. Coconut Fred's Fruit Salad Island), what's stopping them from fulfilling the wishes of generations of cartoon fans? Lord only knows.

My message to Tom is this. Don't give up the idea. In this day and age, there's a chance Mixed Nutz may still see the light of day. Register had his chance, and got 2 years out of The Looney Tunes Show. We know Cartoon Network is run by morons, but WB can always shop the project to one of the other networks that would actually give a tinker's dang. We know Disney won't be interested, but The Hub might. Ya just never know.

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