elmer fudd no gun
Courtesy Warner Media

By Joe Bartozzi

The streaming service HBO Max is launching a reboot of the classic children’s cartoon Looney Tunes. In doing so they’ve caved to antigun cancel culture with two of the cartoon’s lovable losers.

When the perpetually-failing hunter Elmer Fudd heads out to hunt Bugs Bunny, he’ll no longer carry his trusty shotgun. Instead, show writers decided he’ll need to bump off Bugs with a Grim Reaper-style scythe. Gunslinger Yosemite Sam’s two revolvers were also axed.

Gun Logic Lacking

Rather than using Fudd and Sam to weave in early firearm safety education for kids, the cartoon’s gun ban logic itself is a caricature. Executive Producer Peter Browngardt attempted to explain the decision, stating, “We’re not doing guns. But we can do cartoony violence – TNT, the Acme stuff. All that was kind of grandfathered in.” Apparently, explosions and the occasional anvil drop are just fine.

This news must tickle the likes of billionaire Michael Bloomberg, 2020 Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and antigun groups like Everytown for Gun Safety and Brady Campaign. While firearm ownership is increasing, they’re able to control the cartoon guns.

After all, Fudd chasing Bugs with a scythe reinforces their narrative strategy of squeezing out modern sporting rifles from hunting by falsely claiming they have no hunting application. Maybe U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s (D-Minn.) Uncle Dick can finally find some success in the deer stand with the scythe instead of his rifle.

HBO Elmer Fudd Bugs Bunny Looney Tunes scythe gun
Courtesy HBO

Warner Bros. would not say whether antigun pressure led to the change, but Looney Tunes cartoon animator Michael Ruocco all but confirmed it to be the case.

“Also, think about context about what’s going on in the world…Right on the heels of a record number of mass shootings, particularly the horrific one in Las Vegas. NOBODY wanted to touch guns working in media,” Ruocco tweeted. 

Cartoonish Hypocrisy

The antigun crowd is missing the proverbial forest for the trees. Sure, Fudd’s favored pastime is hunting, but let’s be honest. He’s not very good at it. He’s kept the cartoon gun and ammunition makers busy making sure he’s outfitted.

In the real world, those manufacturers are sustaining wildlife through the Pittman-Robertson fund, to the tune of $13 billion since 1937. That fund helps pay for conservation and wildlife management projects across the country, benefitting everyone, even those of us not living in cartoon fantasies.

If real-life characters in Hollywood and entertainment executives at HBO Max want to show they are serious about not showing criminal violence, they should cancel most of their show lineup.

The hypocrisy of these silver screen elites is that their lives and livelihoods in high-rise lofts and red-carpet galas are protected by private security guards, carrying scythes – no wait…just kidding, it’s guns.

While they dawdle over cartoons, scenes from Seattle, Washington’s Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone look like they were written for a movie. Criminal warlords illegally give away semiautomatic rifles out of the trunk of Teslas while groups of rioters break in and burn down the businesses of lawful hardworking Americans. Two were killed and another wounded in Seattle’s police no-go zone that’s supposedly being kept safe by what can only be described as a rogue element. Residents are literally begging for help.

NSSF, the firearm and ammunition trade association, has focused on Real Solutions to curb criminal and negligent firearm misuse. These efforts have paid off as the number of unintentional firearm fatalities in America fell to record low levels in more than one hundred years since data was tracked.

That’s real. Those are Real Solutions. It’s a stark contrast to the concocted drama of canceling childhood comedic cartoon characters’ guns and gloating over a hollow victory.

 

Joe Bartozzi is the President and CEO of the National Shooting Sports Foundation. 

 

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69 COMMENTS

  1. Will HBO take responsibility when some screwup uses a scythe to commit mass murder??

        • Watch the vid at the indicated link. Slow Poke Rodriguez is a friend of Speedy Gonzalez, and is known as The Slowest Mouse in All Mexico.

          So how does he avoid being eaten by Speedy’s nemeses (who usually think Slow Poke would be easier pickings after Speedy foils their efforts)? “He pack a gun.”

          This clip actually ought to be used by our side a lot more. If you are strong, young, and fast like Speedy, you may be able to rely on your physical skills to defend yourself from those who wish you harm. But with a gun you can also do so even if you are old, infirm . . . or just plain slow.

      • I’ve got 100 hours of the old cartoons. I recorded off of cartoon network 20 years ago. Because I knew the day would come when they would be banned. Raised both of my sons on them. Waiting for Grand kids now.

    • one of the more asinine things they’ve done…Elmer Fudd with a scythe?????….what the hell is he supposed to be…the grim reaper??????????

  3. OK, since HBO’s re-worked Fudd is a joke, maybe a hunting joke is in order:

    Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He’s not breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other guy whips out his cell phone and calls 911.

    “I think my friend is dead!” he yells. “What can I do?”

    The operator says, “Calm down. First, let’s make sure he’s dead.”

    There’s a silence, then a shot. Back on the phone, the guy says, “OK, now what?”

    =======================
    DISCLAIMER: No hunters were killed, injured, insulted or inconvenienced in the telling of this joke.

    • Three statisticians go bow hunting. They wait in the stand until a deer wanders into a clearing. The first draws and fires and misses three feet to the left. The second draws, fires and misses three feet to the right. The third jumps up and shouts, “We Got Him!”

    • Same premise, but the EMT shows up on the scene and says, “well, the gun shot wound wasn’t that bad, but you shouldn’t have gutted him.”

    • Man is married to a good woman for 30 years. He hunts, he fishes with never a word of complaint from her. As opening day of deer season approaches she asks him to go along on the hunt. A first for her. The husband gladly outfits her for deer hunting.

      Opening day and he tells her that he will walk along this side of a ridge and she can walk the other. If he hears a shot from her he will come straight to her to help. Not long into the stalk and he hears her rifle go off.

      Coming to her location the husbands sees the wife talking to another man. The man says, “Lady, it’s mine.’ His wife says, ‘No it’s mine’. The other man insists, ‘Lady, it’s mine.’ To which his wife hefts her rifle up and says,’I shot it, it’s mine!’.

      The man throws his hands up and says, ‘Ok, Lady, it’s yours. But can I get my saddle off it before I leave?’

    • Killing with a scythe adheres to noise abatement statutes. Shotgun blasts are noisy and known to cause hearing loss, after all.

      • But, but, Joe Biden told me to step outside and shoot my shotgun into the air if I feel scared or threatened! Does that mean he’s not telling the truth, or, (gasp), doesn’t know what he’s talking about????

    • According to cancel culture killing a bear with a spear is horrifying and deserving of nonexistence. I don’t know. Maybe that narrative went down the memory hole when it served its purpose and got Under Armor from targeting the hunting market.

      Apparently, hunting with a scythe is the new truth; the truth that always has and forever will be. Until they need a new truth and this one gets replaced.

    • I think maybe your mistake was that you were trying to use reason to understand a policy devised by crying infant children…

  5. There are many hypocrites in the “gun community” who dismissed firearms coloring books, just a few months ago.
    These coloring books, some put out by gun museums themselves, are a way to teach firearms history to children.

    And getting positive gun information into the hands of parents, kids, and schools, should be a priority with everyone who claims, they support civil rights.
    As a gun owner who has worked with the 4H, I don’t care in what form, positive gun information comes in. If it helps with kids I support it.

    But when a animated cartoon has his gun taken away. Now people are getting upset???

    I have news for you people. Rifle teams in high schools were taken away by gun grabbers decades ago. But you didn’t speak out back then. Now they have come for any image a children would see that is positive and humerful about guns.

    • The gun community is synonymous with hypocrite. At least The gun community that hangs on this forum. For years the regulars here have defended large, authoritarian Government control over individual Rights whenever it came to anything else outside of gun rights. Always suspected most profiles here were AstroTurf Profiles to perform exactly this function.

      • Something tells me you have a particular bee in your bonnet about a particular person or persons on this site because, it seems to me, that the general tenor of most in the comments here is something like, “Leave me alone and I’ll leave you alone.” Not a lot of authoritarians even if reading between the lines.

      • You forgot Chris in KT as well. These people can only be described as FUDDS and liars of the highest order. They do love them some big Governement and Governement control. There are a few others too, stick around you will see.

        • Whatever monkey.
          Keep dancing for everyones entertainment.
          Keep running cover for that cousin banger whiner49er too.

        • You need to work a lot harder to get under my skin.
          (smile)
          btw
          Make government smaller by abolishing the police. Our country was much safer when we had no police at all. Because 130 years ago everyone was much, much nicer to each other. Because you could get shot dead for disrespecting someone. As well as get shot for stealing.

  6. So it turns out that for roughly 80 years Elmer Fudd has been trying to shoot Bugs Bunny and he’s been failing to get the job done. Clearly, Elmer Fudd should not be a hunter as he is no damned good at it.

    Then again, Fudd running around in the woods with a sharp object swinging this way and that also strikes me as likely to put an eye out at the very least, and not the wascally wabbit’s eye.

    If Fudd is to be redeemed the first episode should show him attending an NRA Hunter Safety Course. Followed by classes in marksmanship.

    Personally, I have little hope Fudd will do any better than washing out of whatever training is provided.

    But hey … so long as he’s paying for it …..

    • I can’t help but “feel” for the vegetation that will be slaughtered. If he’s clumsy at shooting, he will be worse using a sythe. I’ve used one. It’s especially difficult if you’re shorter than a rabbit….er wabbit.

    • Green Mtn, thanks for posting this. I hadn’t seen it yet. I like Colion Noir and his YouTube videos. I want a hat like that.

      • even kids are going to see this as silly…they would have been better off just banning the cartoons..[like they did with “Song of the South”]…kids today have never heard about brer’ rabbit and the tar baby…something that taught a valuable lesson…..

  8. I’d say boycott HBO max or otherwise but I digress…as Steve sez there’s a chit TON of uncensored WB cartoons on YouTube. Actually Yosemite Sam is “more” offensive. His whole reason for being was his sixguns! Elmer had cartoons where he wasn’t hunting…they’ve already tried to eliminate so-called “racist” cartoons with mammy,steppin fetchit types,Jap WW2 stereotypes and unflattering Nazis(as if being in war to the death with the axis power’s needed “revision”!)

    • My right forearm has a tattoo of Yosemite Sam blazing away and my left forearm has the Tasmanian Devil. If the left doesn’t like either, then TUFF! Where I live long sleeve shirts are rarely needed, if at all.

    • That’s easy. We don’t have cable. Dropped it years ago. $100/mo for basic and only watched weather and news. Old antenna TV has 4 PBS channels. You can watch Downton Abbey re-runs every night…..lol

  9. Grim Reaper-style scythe & Knives are so much better, we will have even more stabbings, then they will take awy our knives, just like the UK & China.

    Knife attacks in China, especially at schools, are not uncommon, with a number of similar attacks taking place in recent years.
    In October 2018, a woman wielding a kitchen knife slashed at least 14 children at a kindergarten in the central city of Chongqing.
    Nine students were killed at a middle school in Shaanxi province in April 2018 by a 28-year-old man who was later sentenced to death.
    In 2017, 11 students were injured after a man climbed over the wall of a kindergarten with a knife and began attacking them.
    https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/04/asia/china-elementary-school-stabbing-intl-hnk/index.html

    • Hell look at Japan, one guy went loose in a nursing home. Blades are much more personal, even Roman legion had a hard getting its soilders to do a thrusting motions instead most did thrashing ( Source On Killing.)

    • And now let me introduce you to the Slash-Spotter. Similar the the Shot-Spotter. But this one has a microphone so sensitive that it can hear a mouse fart at a quarter mile.

  10. While I always thought that the Elmer Fudd and Yosemite Sam cartoons are hilarious, I also believe that they are anti-gun, anti-hunter, propaganda.

    • That is one of the things that makes HBO look so fabulously stupid in this case. Elmer Fudd was already designed to make gun-totin hunters look like fools and Yosemite Sam is designed to make those who romanticize the frontier look like trigger happy idiots. These characters were designed to mock the most enduring images of gun owning americans – the hunter and the cowboy/frontiersman. HBO can’t be content with the original mocking imagery and, thinking themselves more enlightened than the original producers, remove what little impact the cartoons might have had on the culture. Now, rather than mocking the rube with the shotgun or the hot-head with the pistols, they are going to make fun of the fool with the farm tool (such a common sight these days, a guy with a scythe – weed eater would be more relevant) and the hot-head with, I dunno, what is YS gonna carry?

    • yeah,they probably were anti-gun…but in a gentler, more humorous way…now they’ve even lost the value of that…as well as the usefulness of the caricatures to send a message….

  12. So Keanu Reeves is gonna be training with a scythe now!? Didnt thing Taran Butler was fluent in that discipline. If you look up “hypocrisy” in Webster’s, I believe it now has a picture of the Hollywierd sign.

    • avatar Montana Actual aka Suspicious Fisherman, Knowbody, UnKnown, Everyday Carrier, Threeper, 3prcntr, B.D.

      Dude even those movies were terribly ruined by hollywood shit. Like the silencer scene in the crowded train station.. I couldn’t even watch the rest after seeing that. They were cool at first but got cringeworthy real quick.

        • Did someone share a facebook meme with some conspiracy theory on it and now you believe everyone is a troll? Or even funnier, paid to do it? Obviously, this was NOT a derailed trollish comment, but yours was. Are you the paid troll? And your last comment to me was “nice to see me living in your head 24/7” yet here you are… Practice what you preach dude. Lastly, didn’t you say you were going to ignore me? And I called you on it too. Here you are.

          See ya next time Ron.

  13. I wonder if we are looking at this the wrong way…. Fudd and Sam are apparently switching to scythes and sickles, which are traditionally used as socialist/communist symbols of agriculture. Not only are individuals being depicted using these implements incorrectly in an attempt to ‘murder a poor innocent bunny’ but they do so badly. Which I suppose is a perfect depiction of socialist/communists; using the wrong tools the wrong way and seeking to kill whomever they have decided is incompatible with their views.

  14. I believe that all those involved in this display of loonyness should be drug tested to determine which drugs are destroying their brains!

  15. Seems to me that the people pushing an “unarmed” Elmer Fudd and Yosemity Sam are just on the far side of stupidl The idea of Elmer chasing Buggs carrying a sickle is ludicrous.

  17. Chasing somebody with a scythe is definitely more psychotic than chasing somebody with a gun.

  18. Hollywood should show just how correct that they are by banning any scene in TV or movie by not showing any human intent, or aiming, or threatening, shooting another human. No more guns allowed to be in anything. That would be a start.

  20. The Cycle: In no particular order, as the order varies depending on the source.

    Virtue signal, as it’s others that are biased and/or racist – not ~me or my company or our employees.

    Censor – edit and remove content, from the recent or distant past no matter, that might be deemed to be ‘racially insensitive’ or might show prejudice or racial bias. Anything deemed pro-gun or anti-gun control, even as absurd as making Elmer’s gun ‘disappear’ is also fair game.

    Denounce – ‘systemic racism’ in all its forms and Acknowledge that systemic racism not only exists but is present in all walks of life, even in statues or in the words or thoughts of those that died long ago, and in many people [in large part in white people/black people, by definition, can not be racist].

    Acknowledge, with emphasis, that BLM; wearing a black t-shirt with white letters that read, ”I Can’t Breath”, is also helpful.

    Last, not least, it’s the most important step, ALWAYS be P.C. in everything you think, say or do. Being ‘Politically Correct’ is the enforcement arm of the multiculturalism movement/coup/indoctrination and the radical left[BLM,Antifa,United We Dream, and other Soros operatives and associates]. Notice that always wearing a mask in public has become being PC, and an anti-Trump, keep the economy down and dead, thing, as well? The list of corporations and people doing [The Cycle] is too long to cover.

    The head of BLM New York has just come up with a new one he named, ‘systemic inequality’, so just add this to ‘systemic racism’ albeit systemic inequality, seems like, could be almost anything the left or BLM does not like or agree with. Time for everybody and everything to ‘even it up’, but guess who decides when or if it’s ever even. No matter what is done to address any inequality, or any perceived inequality, it probably falls short and does not go far enough. So just keep kissing arse and bowing down or taking a knee and hope that, someday, you have done enough. But no matter what you’re probably SOL.

    • ‘systemic inequality’?
      That’s life and life is not fair, never has been , never will be. You can either accept that fact and move on, or wallow in your own shit and squeal like a pig. The life you end up with is what you choose. Personally, my life kind of sucks, but I have no one to blame other than myself. But I sure as hell am not going to accept blame for your life sucking, that’s on you.

  21. HBO was added to my list of places that will never get another dime from me a long time ago, they classify as “Un-American” by my standards. Along with Netflix, K-Mart, Walmart, Starbucks, Dicks, Levis, Nike, YouTube, Google, Facebook…to name a few. As as freedom lover I will hold the line on my choice and not patronize these brands, no exceptions.

    • You should just add all forms of “popular” social media to that list too. They are now censoring “hate speech”… or basically anything they don’t like and supports right leaning mentalities, or any form of pro gun ownership. Seriously, Reddit and many others announced it on Monday. Obviously, facebook and others have already been doing it, but now it’s full scale because DJT called em out on it and signed that executive order – that did nothing btw. So now their goal is to silence everyone who supports, well, freedom.

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