I keep getting e-mails asking what I think of the new Looney Tunes show on Cartoon Network. I think I haven't seen it…which you'd assume would be a perfectly valid reason for not having an opinion about it. It is but that didn't stop a lot of websites and animation fans from condemning it before they'd seen ten seconds of finished program…or even after they'd seen only about that much. I do now see a number of reviewers expressing delighted surprise and a couple even saying, "Gee, I was looking forward to trashing this thing but I kinda like it." Good for them. I hope I like it too when I get around to watching a couple.
And now I'm getting lotsa e-mails from people asking me what I think of news that Seth MacFarlane has been engaged to spearhead some kind of reboot of The Flintstones. Well, Seth MacFarlane is a funny, successful guy and that alone is encouraging. Over the years, a lot of wonderful properties have been entrusted to folks who were neither funny nor successful…and in this case, "successful" may be the more important of those two factors.
I think what's gone awry with a lot of company-owned franchises is too much company-thinking. There's usually a reluctance to let anyone get too much control of a company property. Everyone I encounter within the relevant divisions of Time-Warner seems to want to be the person in charge of Bugs Bunny and doesn't want anyone else to be. Ergo, no one is in charge of Bugs Bunny and I think it shows.
What they need over there is a super-genius who's appointed to supervise, at least in a creative sense, what's right and wrong for the property…someone who can, for example, select one voice artist to speak for Bugs in all venues, all appearances. By my count, ten different people have been the voice of Bugs Bunny on major projects since Mel Blanc passed…and every time a new need comes along, someone there wants to hold open auditions and make all the guys who've done Bugs in the past come in and audition again so he can pick. And while he's choosing the voice of Bugs for a new videogame, someone down the hall from him is auditioning to find the voice of Bugs for a new series of TV cartoons.
That to me is an example of what's wrong with the handling of many classic characters. No one is empowered to make a decision of any lasting value. If they can't all get on the same page as to what Bugs sounds like, how can they agree on what's an appropriate joke for that voice to utter? Or an appropriate new direction for the character's design or storylines?
So they need to have one person in charge and then they need to pick the right person. Handing Seth MacFarlane The Flintstones probably means they're going to do the first. He has the track record and he's very rich so I doubt he's signing onto a situation where he won't have the necessary power to impose a coherent, firm vision on Fred, Barney, Wilma and the rest. I'm also guessing he has some guarantees of proper budgets and ample opportunity to take his vision into the marketplace.
Is he the right person? I dunno. We'll have to wait and see what he does. There are probably other people around who could bring forth a great Flintstones show or movie if they had enough control…but you'd have to have the clout and track record of a Seth MacFarlane to get enough control. I'm eager to see how he puts that control to use.