The Day The Earth Blew Up (review)

03-25-25

Hi, this is my first ever movie review on this site, also posting to my personal site as well. I did mention wanting to do reviews before, if you've read my second blog post on my own site. So, I thought I'd give it a try.

This past weekend, I grabbed a friend and watched The Day The Earth Blew Up with him, in an almost empty theater. (mostly due to lack of advertising.)

It was AMAZING. Really proves that 2D animation can still work in a theatrical setting!

Summary

If you're curious what this movie's about, I don't blame you, the advertising's been kinda doo-doo. So, here's a quick summary.

Daffy and Porky are unemployed, and need to find a job to fix their house before they get booted. After numerous failed attempts to land a job, they meet Petunia Pig at the diner, where she gives them a job opportunity at the bubble gum factory, which was perfect for them. But then Daffy uncovers an alien conspiracy where the gum is actually taking over people's minds, and chewing it causes them to turn into mindless zombies as part of an extra-terrestrial invasion scheme. Now the three need to stop the invasion before the Earth blows up!

Impressions

The animation's as great as ever, replicating the Bob Clampett style similarly to the old shorts, the jokes just kept on coming, and they hit every single time, on top of all the layers of comical plot twists that threw us for a loop! Not to mention this being the theatrical debut of the same guy who created Uncle Grandpa, Pete Browngardt, who also directed the Looney Tunes Cartoons shorts from 2020. You can see his brand of wacky humor shine through!

It's incredible how he went from Secret Mountain Fort Awesome to Uncle Grandpa (criminally underrated show)... to eventually making some of the funniest Looney Tunes shorts in years and finally bringing the Looney Tunes in its purest form to the big screen, no live action, no big celebrity cameos, not even a clip show framed as a "movie" (i.e, Quackbusters), just a FULL ON ORIGINAL LOONEY TUNES MOVIE.

(also if you're specifically worried about that daffy duck twerking scene, don't worry, that's the cringiest it gets, nothing more than trailer fodder. the rest of the movie is comedy gold)

A little history lesson...

I've been looking forward to this movie coming out since it was announced several years ago, and for a bit of background-- this movie was originally going to premiere on the late night movie block, ACME Night on Cartoon Network in 2022. But it got pulled at the last second got shopped around to different streaming services, but no one was biting, even when they retitled it as Bubble Brains at some point. (probably to make the title sound less ominous a younger audience?) The film nearly got shelved like what happened with ACME Vs. Coyote, set to be thrown in the Warner Bros. vault, but thankfully, a distributor was able to swoop in and acquire the distribution rights to the film and give it a limited run in select theaters... and then they eventually gave it a wider release on March 14th!

It's genuinely a miracle this movie even came out at all, and I applaud everyone involved in this film for their great work!

There's also been talks about the distributor (Ketchup Entertainment) working out a deal with WBD to acquire the distribution rights to that previously cancelled film, ACME Vs. Coyote, so we'll see if anything good comes from that.

Final notes

I just wish it got way more advertising than it did, this seriously deserved far more beyond word of mouth.

I fully recommend it to animation geeks (like me), fans of the Looney Tunes cartoons, and generally, people looking for a good laugh.

It's also a great send-off to the Looney Tunes Cartoons shorts that premiered on HBO Max, which ended its run of shorts just last year.

Thanks for reading my first attempt at a review, and please check out this film in theaters if you can.

(it would be better worth your time than watching some repackaged nostalgia schlock remade beat for beat into live action...) 

-JPiXeLAnimations

PS: i also dropped a new track if you want to check it out