Day the Earth Blew Up, The: A Looney Tunes Movie (Blu-ray Review)
Director
Pete BrowngardtRelease Date(s)
2024 (May 27, 2025)Studio(s)
Warner Bros. Animation (Ketchup Entertainment)- Film/Program Grade: B
- Video Grade: B+
- Audio Grade: B-
- Extras Grade: D-
Review
In early 2025, HBO Max announced that it would be scrubbing classic Looney Tunes cartoons from its streaming service. Not only that, but negotiations for the distribution rights to the previously-trashed live action/animated Coyote vs. Acme were underway, now with a tentative 2026 release date. Anyone who’s been a fan of these cartoons must surely have scoffed at the complete disregard for this content, and feeling more and more compelled to support it in any way possible. Looney Tunes has never really ever been missing from our lives, especially since the Warner Archive Collection has been releasing collections of these cartoons on Blu-ray, and MeTV Toons continues to successfully air them, but kicking a completely finished, hand-drawn 2D animated film like The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie to the curb, was asinine.
Having been raised by the kindly Farmer Jim, orphans Daffy Duck and Porky Pig now occupy the old farmhouse, which has since had urban sprawl creep up around it. Years earlier, a UFO damaged their home and it’s come under scrutiny from their landlady, who tells them that if they don’t repair their home, it will be condemned. They soon go out and try to find jobs, eventually finding work at the nearby Goodie Gum factory, where they meet Petunia Pig, a flavor scientist at the factory, whom Porky falls head over heels for. After an alien goo is mysteriously added to the latest batch of gum at the orders of an alien invader with secret plans, it’s up to Porky, Daffy, and Petunia to save the world after everyone who chews the gum turns into mindless zombies.
The plot of The Day the Earth Blew Up is very simple and straightforward, some might even say too simple and maybe a little predictable, but for a Looney Tunes movie, it shouldn’t get all that complicated anyway. It functions quite well as a film, with a story that’s intelligible, has frequent setups and pay-offs, raises the stakes as it goes along, and features actual characterization. It’s a fairly tight narrative, as silly and over the top as it often gets, with various twists and turns that the previous synopsis doesn’t even begin to cover. And besides just being hilarious with patented Looney Tunes-style humor, you actually care about the characters and want to see them succeed. It’s true that starting Daffy and Porky off on the bottom as directionless nobodies with good intentions that become heroes in a larger story is a narrative cliché as old as the hills, but in an era when new IP is often nonsensically written to appease committees, it’s refreshing.
It also looks good in an almost classic sort of way, paying homage to the quintessential hand-drawn animation of old without resorting to straight nostalgia or constant references, and actually serving a purpose in the storytelling. On top of all of that, the voice actors are spot on, all of them capturing the sound and feel of these classic characters for a modern day audience. They ham it up, to be sure, but in a way that never insults one’s intelligence. It just goes to show that the filmmakers behind the film actually cared about making something that audiences could latch onto, without being spoon-fed one loud comedic set piece after another with no structure.
The most ink that The Day the Earth Blew Up received prior and during its theatrical release was the fact that it was sold by Warner Bros. to Ketchup Entertainment, seeing no value in it at all. It was also not marketed with any aggression, and most of the people who ended up seeing it in a theater (myself included) didn’t learn about it until it was already in general release. That word-of-mouth certainly pushed the film’s box office take, but it wasn’t a smash hit by any stretch. To be fair to Ketchup Entertainment, a relatively young distribution company, they likely didn’t have a large budget to promote it the way a major studio would, and relied on that word-of-mouth push for it to do well. One hopes that lessons were learned for the upcoming Coyote vs. Acme.
Regardless of how it got released and who released it, The Day the Earth Blew Up is a very entertaining romp that hearkens back to the classic Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts in a way that feels novel, without overtly depending on useless modern day ingredients to muddy the waters.
The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie was animated by hand in a digital realm, likely finished as a 2K Digital Intermediate, and presented in the aspect ratio of 2.39:1. Ketchup Entertainment debuts the film on Blu-ray on a single-layered BD-25. It’s a largely pleasant and appealing high definition presentation, with a bitrate that often ranges between 25 and 40Mbps. The encoding is mostly strong, aside from some definite evidence of banding and gradation issues, usually in backgrounds. However, it’s still a strong picture with beautiful color, sharp lines around characters and objects, and deep blacks with excellent contrast. The film was released in theaters with Dolby Vision HDR grading, so one hopes that a future 4K Ultra HD pressing, as well as a dual-layered BD-50 pressing, will improve upon some of the more minor flaws.
Audio is included in English 5.1 Dolby Digital with optional subtitles in English SDH. Since the film was released theatrically in 7.1, this lossy track is definitely a step down. That said, it’s been encoded at a higher bitrate, so you at least get the most out of it. It’s a very active soundtrack. Dialogue is prioritized well, and sound effects, score, and the music selection has some nice push in the surround channels. There’s also plenty of panning and ambient moments, as well. A Dolby Atmos or a simple 7.1 mix in lossless quality is most definitely needed here, but this isn’t a bad sound experience at all.
The Ketchup Entertainment Blu-ray release of The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie sits in a blue Amaray case with an insert and slipcover featuring the original theatrical poster artwork. Only a single extra has been included in HD:
- Theatrical Trailer (1:01)
The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie is a lackluster though fairly solid Blu-ray release, but demands a more thorough presentation in a higher quality container with some extras in tow. Even so, the film itself still comes highly recommended.
- Tim Salmons
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