"Animal Icons: Animated Animals" anybody watched it?

[LooneyFan]

I saw the last half hour. It had mostly focused on the LT characters and said this about studio: "Warner Bros. was king of having animated animals" tons of voice actor's interviews (Tom Kenny, June Foray, etc.) and a whole bunch of cartoon clips. I would like to see the reviews and what happened in the first half.

[LooneyTuneLover]

I didnt see this episode maybe it'll be on again

[Geezil]

:confused: Where was this show broadcast and when? Thanks...

[Thad]

It really wasn't good at all. For the scenes 'honoring' our favorite cartoon animal stars, they only played clips from public domain shorts, or just publicity stills (for Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Tom & Jerry). You know it's bad when a special honoring animal cartoon stars has to resort to using clips of how Santa's Little Helper, Snowball II, and Itchy & Scratchy revolutionized cartoon animals...

I'm also curious, how come Animal Planet was only able to use public domain clips for this special? On the "50 Greatest Animal Countdown" they were able to use beautiful clips from various Woody Woodpecker shorts, and even clips from RABBIT SEASONING and NEOPOLITAN MOUSE. Were the high-quality clips for the Lantz shorts in that special due to the fact that it plugged the Universal Studios theme park once every six minutes?

-Thad

[frogboxer]

I caught just a few minutes of the program on Saturday and was upset to learn that it had been on several times last week! I was rather surprised that I hadn't known it was on. What makes matters worse is that it won't be airing again for quite some time.

[mbaker]

What channel was this on?

[LooneyFan]

Animal Planet.
You can read more about it on Cartoon Brew.

[laugh4me]

I saw the show and was underwhelmed by it. As Thad mentioned, they used the same familiar (and often poor-quality) public domain prints for most of the clips.

Most of the commentary was pretty weak also. Do we really need to have a zookeeper explain to us that most pigs are not shy like Porky and that most bunnies really aren't bold like Bugs? And they also warned us of the real dangers of exposing these cartoon animals to children - kids get the idea from cartoon animals that animals are friendly and this could lead to problems when they encounter real animals (sheesh!). That was the type of groundbreaking insight it offered.

The Garfield episode they aired an hour later was MUCH better than this episode, despite the fact that it spent too much time plugging the CGI Garfield movie toward the end...