As I mentioned in the last post, I took the family to Coyote vs. Acme on opening night, this past Friday. To be clear, “the family” means my Ethiopian (US Citizen from Ethiopia) wife and our two young kids, 4 and 6. This was the kids first trip to a movie theater and the main reason for the delay is I won’t take them to anything that even smells Woke/DEI/Commie. Naturally this eliminates nearly everything not produced by Angel Studios or Uwe Boll. And neither of them have made anything I want to show the kids.

When my brother, nephew (18), and I went to Mortal Kombat II, I nearly chuckled audibly as I turned the corner to see the small-ish crowd was comprised of a bunch of men my age. How embarrassing that I expected a regular smorgasbord of folks.

On Friday, the ticket-scanner dude was sure to chuckle when he saw what we were headed to watch what he called, “The funniest movie of the year. You’re going to love it.” I agreeably told him that from what I saw I was thinking that his assessment would prove correct.

This time, as I turned the corner, and probably a bit earlier in the movie-going experience if I’m honest, I was again surprised. There were no kids. There were no children in the theater. Maybe a tween was there. But otherwise, it was old farts like me. Unlike MKII, this time I was a bit perplexed. Why wasn’t this movie becoming the next Nemo?

Watching partly through my eyes, and partly through my wife and children’s eyes, I discovered the reason. Despite my best efforts, despite my every effort the world has gone soft. It is impossible to find comedy in destruction. Anything that is attacked is soon defended—and defended as the most worthy cause ever.

To be clear, the entire storyline of the very funny and enjoyable film is that cartoons do not suffer. The premise is that the same rules that would apply to people do not apply to cartoons. In short, Coyote loses. (Keep in mind, Coyote always loses.) Practically, this means that we can do things to cartoons that we cannot do to people (or animals, plants, oceans, prisoners etc). Sometimes we can even benefit from having tortured, destroyed, blown up, annihilated, dropped, glued, electrocuted, abused, squished, smooshed, and killed cartoons. And, of course, they never actually die. Why? Because they are drawings.

But here in 2026land, the weaker a person is, the stronger. The lamer, the more perfect. The more injured, the most healed. The uglier, the more beautiful. The dumber, the smarter. The more shameful, the more noble. The fatter, the hungrier. And to beat all, the stronger is the meaner. The unfunny result, not that you need to be told, is our drawings have Civil Rights. The failure of Coyote vs. Acme is another birth pang of Civil Rights 2.

In the end, despite Mr. Green telling a whole story, a complete story, and a story which made sense (or as Twain put it–the story “accomplished something and arrived somewhere”), he killed the Looney Toons. Or we killed the Looney Toons. Hard to say.

****

I have to add before I go to press that I see the path forward–not the particulars, but the general way. The Looney Toons need a Frank Miller The Dark Knight Returns treatment. I doubt that I am the individual to do more than espouse hope for such a project. But I mention it in case any true artists reading this are facing writer’s block. I’m picturing, a la Bruce’s fireball ending to the car race opening, an even slicker Bugs Bunny initiating the larger comeback story by–all timed to absolute bangers–battling Elmer Fudd as usual, but this time it’s all modern. Fudd is wearing real hunter’s camouflage patterns. He is using some AR variant (school shooting/mass shooting type)—way too powerful for his intended prey. And then Bugs points out all the problems with Fudd’s myriad decisions, which infuriates Fudd, to the point that Fudd really tries to kill Bugs only to find him—not slipping down a rabbit hole—but becoming some oppressed minority. And it has to be the most spectacular version of the minority. Burka wearing, bruised face Muslim woman. Super fat woman at the convenience store. Liberal, childless professional in remote work with a dog walking into the Teams meeting. I am talking the most obnoxious depiction of our twisted Civil Rights 2 reality. But it must be hilarious to kids. Like all the stereotypes are plainly funny in all the ways that make kids laugh. The kids laugh at the ridiculousness of Hunter Fudd giving up when he sees what kind of rabbit the suave Bugs is at heart (but we know is a disguise). And then you go through all the Looney Toons characters and bend them to contemporary versions of the spirits which gave them a heartbeat in the beginning.

But until and unless this happens, the Looney Toons are toast. Even a fan of this movie knows that.