This aired on the ABC Saturday Superstar Movie. It's a pretty wild concept: The Groovy Goolies are big fans of the Looney Tunes characters and so, when they hear that a King Arthur movie that Daffy is making, is being sabotaged by a mysterious Phantom character, what comes next? Why, they rush off to Hollywood to help Daffy, Porky, Sylvester, Tweety and the others. Oddly, Bugs Bunny is absent from this project. Petunia Pig plays one of the performers in the movie and a gossip columnist with her own TV show as well. Her voice is a lot different than the one I remember her having. She sounds almost sensual! Oddly, it's Daffy and not Porky who plays her romantic lead. It's interesting to see two widely different assortments of cartoon characters in the same picture together. Come to think of it, how did the producers skirt around the legal issues? The highlight comes near the end when Drac, Frankie and Wolfie chase the villain (who's dressed as Hauntleroy) through a magic mirror and they all emerge on the other side as,,,,,, live action actors! There is then a slapstick chase which may remind you of those Mack Sennett comedies of the 20s. The sequence is so surreal that it may have you pinching yourself to ensure that it's not a dream. The actors soon go back through the mirror and become their animated selves within a few minutes but this part alone makes the film required viewing for anyone who's a fan of the Goolies, who sad to say, do not sing in this outing.
The ABC Saturday Superstar Movie (TV Series)
Daffy Duck and Porky Pig Meet the Groovie Goolies (1972)
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Debatably the Worst Looney Tunes Product Ever Conceived
elicopperman15 June 2019
Warning: Spoilers
After the Looney Tunes ended their run in the 1960s, the characters went through iteration after iteration, and many of them ranged from hits to misfires. For every Roger Rabbit, there was a Space Jam; for every Bugs Bunny & Road Runner Movie, there was a half-assed paste-up special; and for every Tiny Toons and Animaniacs, there was a Loonatics Unleashed. However, if I could ever narrow down what could be the worst appearance of the most beloved cartoon characters post 1969, it would hands down be the Filmation special, Daffy Duck & Porky Pig Meet the Groovy Goolies. With the latter being spinoffs Archie and Sabrina the Teenage Witch, it should be no given that this special is as good as most TV fodder during the 70s, but it somehow manages to be even worse.
The bare bones premise is that Daffy Duck and the Looney Tunes gang (besides Bugs Bunny) are making their own King Arthur movie, but the Phantom of the Flickers threatens to steal their movie, so the Groovy Goolies head out to stop the fiend. Now the plot alone sounds lame and uninspired already, but I can't even say the special has a plot because this movie lacks any structure whatsoever. It can't decide whether it wants to focus on the production of Daffy's awful King Arthur film or the Goolies trying to stop the Phantom, so the film just jumps from scene to scene without any proper transitioning. There are even moments where they head into a live-action world towards the end, as if the film gave up and started making things up as it went along. Even the entertainment value blows; the jokes are as funny as dry wall, the chase scenes drag out, and the scenes in Daffy's King Arthur feature make middle school plays seem enjoyable by comparison.
Now in terms of the Looney Tunes characters, although WB would outsource projects featuring them throughout the 1970s, all of them were made by the former staff of the original studio that made them, like Chuck Jones or Friz Freleng. Filmation is the one exception however, and it really shows, because it's never a good idea to have the whole gang together, unless they're at odds with each other. Also, while it's always great to hear Mel Blanc doing their voices, they screwed up the audio pitch for some characters, as Daffy sounds too high pitched for his own good, and Porky Pig doesn't sound pitched at all. Larry Storch and Howard Morris are also trying their best as the Groovy Goolies, but their talents are sadly wasted on the awful material they're given. I know it's a cliche to say that Filmation made low-quality animation, but even by Saturday morning cartoon standards they were abysmal, from stiff movements, to long panning background shots, to poor lip synch. Even the live-action segment is choppily edited and incomprehensible to stomach.
Quality control is not easy to maintain when it comes to television animation, but whenever you watch something from Filmation, you got to wonder if anyone there even stopped to ask themselves that. No matter how small the budgets are, the Looney Tunes always deserve the proper treatment when it comes to bringing them to life through the art of animation, even if it's a forced in crossover with knockoff Universal monsters. The fact that this special remains obscure and without a proper dvd release is actually a blessing in disguise, as I doubt anyone would ever want to even fathom the idea that the greatest cartoon characters of all time were ever involved in this turkey. And even for a cartoon without logic, I've never seen a Looney Tunes product with a story thus broken before just so the people behind this could get it done sooner. Moral of the day: actually attempt to craft a narrative worth telling, regardless if it's for kids.
The bare bones premise is that Daffy Duck and the Looney Tunes gang (besides Bugs Bunny) are making their own King Arthur movie, but the Phantom of the Flickers threatens to steal their movie, so the Groovy Goolies head out to stop the fiend. Now the plot alone sounds lame and uninspired already, but I can't even say the special has a plot because this movie lacks any structure whatsoever. It can't decide whether it wants to focus on the production of Daffy's awful King Arthur film or the Goolies trying to stop the Phantom, so the film just jumps from scene to scene without any proper transitioning. There are even moments where they head into a live-action world towards the end, as if the film gave up and started making things up as it went along. Even the entertainment value blows; the jokes are as funny as dry wall, the chase scenes drag out, and the scenes in Daffy's King Arthur feature make middle school plays seem enjoyable by comparison.
Now in terms of the Looney Tunes characters, although WB would outsource projects featuring them throughout the 1970s, all of them were made by the former staff of the original studio that made them, like Chuck Jones or Friz Freleng. Filmation is the one exception however, and it really shows, because it's never a good idea to have the whole gang together, unless they're at odds with each other. Also, while it's always great to hear Mel Blanc doing their voices, they screwed up the audio pitch for some characters, as Daffy sounds too high pitched for his own good, and Porky Pig doesn't sound pitched at all. Larry Storch and Howard Morris are also trying their best as the Groovy Goolies, but their talents are sadly wasted on the awful material they're given. I know it's a cliche to say that Filmation made low-quality animation, but even by Saturday morning cartoon standards they were abysmal, from stiff movements, to long panning background shots, to poor lip synch. Even the live-action segment is choppily edited and incomprehensible to stomach.
Quality control is not easy to maintain when it comes to television animation, but whenever you watch something from Filmation, you got to wonder if anyone there even stopped to ask themselves that. No matter how small the budgets are, the Looney Tunes always deserve the proper treatment when it comes to bringing them to life through the art of animation, even if it's a forced in crossover with knockoff Universal monsters. The fact that this special remains obscure and without a proper dvd release is actually a blessing in disguise, as I doubt anyone would ever want to even fathom the idea that the greatest cartoon characters of all time were ever involved in this turkey. And even for a cartoon without logic, I've never seen a Looney Tunes product with a story thus broken before just so the people behind this could get it done sooner. Moral of the day: actually attempt to craft a narrative worth telling, regardless if it's for kids.
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