The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie (2025) review

Dir. Pete Browngardt

By: Steve Pulaski

Rating: ★★★

Somehow, over their 95-year history, The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie marks the first time that an entirely original, fully animated Looney Tunes movie has hit silver screens across America. It sounds incorrect, but keep in mind that the three previous movies featuring the iconic cartoons had Michael Jordan, Brendan Fraser, and LeBron James in supporting roles, respectively. Ironically, this one lacks any digs at Warner Bros, which is a shocking high-road for the Tunes to take following the tragic, indefensible shelving of Dave Green’s Coyote vs. Acme last year.

Watching The Day the Earth Blew Up, in a lonely theater on a Sunday morning (shoutout to WB for such an illustrious marketing campaign), I couldn’t help but smile at how well the Looney Tunes have been able to weave themselves into multiple generations over the course of their nearly 100-year existence. This film might be the first time you’ve seen Porky Pig and Daffy Duck in quite sometime, yet it doesn’t matter. We all age. We move, our priorities change, and we have a new set of worries and fears with each passing year. These Tunes stay the same, and their energy remains contagious and overzealous.

The opening minutes of The Day the Earth Blew Up show Porky and Daffy (both voiced by Eric Bauza) being adopted and raised by Farmer Jim (Fred Tatasciore), a character who looks like a retrograde, classically painted American archetype. He’d look right at home on a brand of paper towels or another household product. When Farmer Jim passes, he leaves Porky and Daffy the family home. It takes them barely any time to destroy the place, including letting an enormous hole in the roof go unattended. Their Homeowner’s Association threatens to evict them and bulldoze the property if they can’t repair the roof in 10 days.

After trying and failing to secure a job, the two meet Petunia Pig (Candi Milo), a scientist who is working on creating the most delicious and intense flavor known to mankind. Porky romances Petunia, but in their quest to save their home, the three discover a mad-woman’s full-blown alien conspiracy to turn human beings into zombies by way of contaminated chewing gum. To elaborate any further would cause both your brain and mine to break. You simply have to strap in and enjoy this 90-minute ride for yourself.

The film is the directorial debut of Pete Browngardt, a lifelong animator whose credits include everything from Shorties Watchin’ Shorties to Uncle Grandpa. Browngardt’s style is unmistakable. He crafts the first animated, theatrically released Looney Tunes movie like a pastiche of 1950s sci-fi. The spirit of Don Bluth is nigh. The characters are their nimbly, squash-and-stretch selves, and the backgrounds contain simple but delightful Easter eggs. There are even a couple very sharp needle-drops in the music department, including Aerosmith and, of course, R.E.M.’s “It’s the End of the World As We Know It.”

Per usual, when you involve Porky and Daffy in anything, chaos ensues. Their manic, freewheeling energy is something that fits germanely with the speed at which most children’s animation of this day-and-age moves. Dog Man was liable to leave you breathless if you weren’t prepared. That said, kinetic energy feels different when executed via hand-drawn animation. The Day the Earth Blew Up is fluid, and even when its chaos is at its most heightened, still feels digestible as opposed to overwhelming. Similar to Winnie the Pooh (2011), albeit on an entirely different wavelength in terms of pacing, this would make an ideal introduction to moviegoing for young children.

NOTE: This is an ideal time as any for me also to recommend MeTV Toons, a relatively new basic cable channel that airs dozens of classic cartoons, 24/7, including Looney Tunes. If you’re unable to access it via an antenna, you can subscribe to Frndly TV for a very low rate and obtain the channel that way.

Voiced by: Eric Bauza, Candi Milo, Peter MacNicol, Fred Tatsciore, Laraine Newman, and Wayne Knight. Directed by: Pete Browngardt.