Looney Tunes: March 1998
Cover
"Marvin the Martian Destroys the Looney Tunes (Because they didn't get him anything for his birthday.)" The Looney Tunes, looking nervous, are on a slightly fuzzy viewscreen. The view screen is part of a disintegrating ray gun aimed at the distant Earth. Marvin is at the controls (which can be set to toast, deep fried, and extra crispy) turning to the reader and saying, "OOOH! They make me so angry!" A Marvin 50th Anniversary logo is in the lower left corner of the cover.
Credits
Synopsis
The Mars Pathfinder has finally arrived at its destination and the Sojourner rover starts sending pictures back to Earth. Something is amiss as the controllers see an item that doesn't fit the rest of the image, for Marvin and K-9 are holding up a poster of the Martian landscape but are found out. As soon as Marvin realizes this he talks directly, showing an armada of spaceships and giving Earth a vague ultimatum.
A Pentagon meeting leaves some stunned at the solution: Duck Dodgers. Dodger is real after all but is hard to find. Colonel Porky Pig is sent to locate Dodgers whose last address was a soup kitchen. Once located, Dodgers is not immediately convinced he's needed for a real problem. At least not until he's shown a photo of Marvin. Then he starts dealing for perks.
Dodgers prepares for his mission but doesn't do so well with new medical flight requirements, a doctor telling Porky that Dodgers shouldn't fly and certainly not in a new craft. So to make sure Dodgers is comfortable he's given his original ship. After a post-launch mishap, Dodgers gets Porky to wear his original wardrobe as well.
The reminiscing stops as the heroic pair are fired upon. Marvin's and Dodger's ships are both left adrift by the battle and they end up on Mars, Dodger's ship rammed into Marvin's. Marvin points out the armada to the duck but Porky finds the armada is just cheap effects. Since he's there, the Duck starts to claim Mars but Marvin has beaten him to the punch by hiring an attorney and getting legal claim. The Martian demands the trespassers leave his property. Unfortunately there are no working spaceships left so Porky uses Sojourner to send a call for help.
Did You Notice...
The gadgets used by Dodgers and Marvin are all very close to the originals in Duck Dodgers in the 24th and 1/2 Century which was Marvin's introduction 50 years earlier.- Page 1: The dates and terms used to describe the Mars Pathfinder mission are all correct, the only difference is that there was no part of the mission intended to look for any signs of life.
- Page 3: The controllers exclamation of Speilberg fits very well considering Close Encounters among other Speilberg movies.
- Page 4: The newspaper headlines are taken from movie titles: Mars Attacks, War of the Worlds, and Mars Needs Women.
- Page 6: The general's hat has a Star Trek insignia.
- Page 12: That's a nice touch with the narration box.
- Page 12: 4-F was the U.S. military designation in World War II indicating someone was not fit for military service.
- Page 14: Getting the original spaceship at a science fiction and fantasy convention makes perfect sense. You didn't expect to find it in a museum, did you?
- Page 15: An unmanned support ship did collide with the Mir space station in 1997.
- Page 24: Dodgers has seen The Wizard of Oz as can be told by his use of the "and your little dog,too!" line.
- Page 24: Dodger's comment about being reduced to fighting with rocks and stone may derive from Albert Einstein's comment that he didn't know exactly what weapons World War III would be fought with, but figured if there was a War War IV it would have to be fought with sticks and stones.
Technical Nits
Page 1: Earth's closest planetary neighbor is Venus, not Mars.- Page 6: The number of stars the General has changes.
- Page 18: RADAR has been around since World War II so it should be nothing new to Dodgers.
- Page 23: The X items in the landscape refer to the original animated short with Dodgers and Marvin on planet X but they are very out of place on Mars.
Credits
Synopsis
A mouse's eye view shows that a woman has just brought home a chihuahua puppy and that her husband is unimpressed, saying it looks like a rat. Meanwhile Juanita Mouse suggests to her own husband Juan that perhaps they should have a baby. When Juan objects, citing the expense of raising a baby, Juanita starts to cry.
The chihuahua's owner prepares to show him off, but drops the little dog. The pup bounces right into Juanita's arms. At this, Juan calls Speedy Gonzales in to hopefully set things right. Juan only gets clobbered when he tries to point out the confusion of species.
Speedy suggests showing off the dog tricks to convince Juanita, who has them watch her baby while she prepares supper. Juan and Speedy practice with the pup but as Juanita is about to return a game of fetch sends the pup out of the mouse hole again. The man sees the rat-like pup and the fast recovery by Speedy and calls in an exterminator.
The woman sees the exterminator and asks what is happening, while the mice try to think of what to do. Speedy has an idea. The chihuahua suddenly pops out of the mouse hole, to a very mixed reaction. The mice are relieved and Juan even suggests that maybe he and Juanita could have a baby, but after this experience Juanita makes it plain she won't hear of it.
Did You Notice...
- Everything is shown from a mouse's perspective. In fact, we don't even see the people's faces.
Technical Nits
- Juanita's and the pup's eyes are inconsistent in the first two pages, sometimes blue, sometimes not.
- Page 32: What happened to Juanita's feet in the last panel?
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Last updated 12 October 1998