Ya know...having just watching the ENTIRE movie on HBOfamily with my dad, I've realized that this movie was made to an unprepared generation.
The gags, cartoons, and other such things throughout the movie are from the 50's and 60's when Looney Tunes were still relatively "new". For example, I doubt that many people my age would know about Speedy Gonzales (sp?) ((from the begining scenes of the movie where Porky and Speedy are chatting in a diner about how they are 'unfunny' because they are politically incorrect))...also a good majority of the monsters and robots in "Area 52" are from 50's movies that people brought in today's modern world would NEVER ever have known. "Robbie", the robot that helps out "Mom", is the robot from "The Forbidden Planet" (or something close to that name)...the creaping brain is from a movie called YOU GUESSED IT! "The Creaping Brain". How about when "Mom" asks "Do you know anything about the giant ants?" and the group gives her a WTF? look....well the sound FX that play in the background right after that (that kind of scratchy almost computer-like sound)...that's the soundFX used for the giant ants I believe in the movie "Them". The song Bugs sings along to while he and Jenna Elfman are on their way to Las Vegas is the song Elvis sang in his movie "Viva Las Vega"...which is another oldie. Most of the cartoon characters are also "rareties". Let's take for example most of the cartoons seen in the restaurant where Bugs and Jenna have that "If you don't find a rabbit wearing lipstick funny..." sketch. Michigan J. Frog sings "Hello My Baby", and the two that are fighting in the background are Ralph and Sam (sheepdog and wolf...hence why the sheepdog pummels the @#$% out of the wolf when a sheep appears out of his "Working Man's" old style lunchbox). But let's fastfoward to the casino scenes....The two idiot brute henchmen are quite possibly the two characters you'd least expect to see in a movie working together. The big guy with the black beard and the hat featured in a cartoon with Drippalong Daffy and Deputy Porky Pig in a lawless town...he was the bad guy of course. And Daffy couldn't budge him...but Porky was able to take him down with a little windup toy soldier. The other idiot henchman character (along with his horse...which is absent in this movie), featured with Bugs in a "SuperRabbit" cartoon. Fortified-Vitamin carrots that give a rabbit superpowers anyone? Now lets look at the card tables scenes. Foghorn Leghorn comments "About as sharp as a bowling ball"; this was said during a Chickenhawk + Foghorn cartoon, if memory serves me right. Then lets look at that scene where Brendan Fraser crashes into the card table with that the dogs were playing at. The big bulldog there wearing the bowler hat and the red (?) shirt is the companion of the small dog that is Bugs' "waiter" in the end when Bugs goes into his limo. Now lets fast foward (Skipping some more blatently obvious things that people wouldn't get in today's generation)...Granny, Sylvester, and Tweety. Some people might know that they are connected...but did they know that the trio DID actually live together in quite a few cartoons and that the jungle scene (or a similar one) did occur in one cartoon?? How about the female Tazmanian Devil? She actually was "ordered" by Bugs in a cartoon where Taz came after Bugs (trying to eat him as usual). The kissing and then growling bit...that was part of the "marriage" scene in the original cartoon between Taz and Lady Taz.
Oh I could go on...but really, let's stop for a moment and reread that whole thing.......YES THE WHOLE THING
Now I'd like to bet that most of you people here (with the posible exception of the adults here) would not have known any of that information that I just listed above (or at least would have not known all of it).
THE POINT??
Well for me, I knew most of the gags and most of the characters because I watched just about every single damned Looney Tunes cartoon ever made...but I was amazed time and time again when my dad pointed out references that I would have never known. My dad told me about the old movie monsters, "Robbie", the guy in the video about the blue monkey (he was from Mission Impossible...but I semi already knew that), the Elvis movie reference, and a few of the other things. I'm amazed at this movie...they really went all out with this movie so that guys like me and my dad, who know a lot about these "old" movies and cartoons, can really have a good laugh and say "OMG! Do you know what/who that is?!?" "OMG! I KNOW! @_@
". But unfortunately for everybody else in the world, this movie goes way over their heads and they can only appreciate the slapstick that happens between Daffy and Bugs...and maybe Elmer.
This is why, in conclusion, I think that the movie was thought to be a flop by a good portion of the people who saw it.
The gags, cartoons, and other such things throughout the movie are from the 50's and 60's when Looney Tunes were still relatively "new". For example, I doubt that many people my age would know about Speedy Gonzales (sp?) ((from the begining scenes of the movie where Porky and Speedy are chatting in a diner about how they are 'unfunny' because they are politically incorrect))...also a good majority of the monsters and robots in "Area 52" are from 50's movies that people brought in today's modern world would NEVER ever have known. "Robbie", the robot that helps out "Mom", is the robot from "The Forbidden Planet" (or something close to that name)...the creaping brain is from a movie called YOU GUESSED IT! "The Creaping Brain". How about when "Mom" asks "Do you know anything about the giant ants?" and the group gives her a WTF? look....well the sound FX that play in the background right after that (that kind of scratchy almost computer-like sound)...that's the soundFX used for the giant ants I believe in the movie "Them". The song Bugs sings along to while he and Jenna Elfman are on their way to Las Vegas is the song Elvis sang in his movie "Viva Las Vega"...which is another oldie. Most of the cartoon characters are also "rareties". Let's take for example most of the cartoons seen in the restaurant where Bugs and Jenna have that "If you don't find a rabbit wearing lipstick funny..." sketch. Michigan J. Frog sings "Hello My Baby", and the two that are fighting in the background are Ralph and Sam (sheepdog and wolf...hence why the sheepdog pummels the @#$% out of the wolf when a sheep appears out of his "Working Man's" old style lunchbox). But let's fastfoward to the casino scenes....The two idiot brute henchmen are quite possibly the two characters you'd least expect to see in a movie working together. The big guy with the black beard and the hat featured in a cartoon with Drippalong Daffy and Deputy Porky Pig in a lawless town...he was the bad guy of course. And Daffy couldn't budge him...but Porky was able to take him down with a little windup toy soldier. The other idiot henchman character (along with his horse...which is absent in this movie), featured with Bugs in a "SuperRabbit" cartoon. Fortified-Vitamin carrots that give a rabbit superpowers anyone? Now lets look at the card tables scenes. Foghorn Leghorn comments "About as sharp as a bowling ball"; this was said during a Chickenhawk + Foghorn cartoon, if memory serves me right. Then lets look at that scene where Brendan Fraser crashes into the card table with that the dogs were playing at. The big bulldog there wearing the bowler hat and the red (?) shirt is the companion of the small dog that is Bugs' "waiter" in the end when Bugs goes into his limo. Now lets fast foward (Skipping some more blatently obvious things that people wouldn't get in today's generation)...Granny, Sylvester, and Tweety. Some people might know that they are connected...but did they know that the trio DID actually live together in quite a few cartoons and that the jungle scene (or a similar one) did occur in one cartoon?? How about the female Tazmanian Devil? She actually was "ordered" by Bugs in a cartoon where Taz came after Bugs (trying to eat him as usual). The kissing and then growling bit...that was part of the "marriage" scene in the original cartoon between Taz and Lady Taz.
Oh I could go on...but really, let's stop for a moment and reread that whole thing.......YES THE WHOLE THING
Now I'd like to bet that most of you people here (with the posible exception of the adults here) would not have known any of that information that I just listed above (or at least would have not known all of it).
THE POINT??
Well for me, I knew most of the gags and most of the characters because I watched just about every single damned Looney Tunes cartoon ever made...but I was amazed time and time again when my dad pointed out references that I would have never known. My dad told me about the old movie monsters, "Robbie", the guy in the video about the blue monkey (he was from Mission Impossible...but I semi already knew that), the Elvis movie reference, and a few of the other things. I'm amazed at this movie...they really went all out with this movie so that guys like me and my dad, who know a lot about these "old" movies and cartoons, can really have a good laugh and say "OMG! Do you know what/who that is?!?" "OMG! I KNOW! @_@
". But unfortunately for everybody else in the world, this movie goes way over their heads and they can only appreciate the slapstick that happens between Daffy and Bugs...and maybe Elmer.This is why, in conclusion, I think that the movie was thought to be a flop by a good portion of the people who saw it.