Bugs Bunny gets an extreme makeover

updated 7:19 p.m. ET Feb. 17, 2005

NEW YORK - Bugs Bunny and his pals are being updated for the future — way in the future.

The WB network will take the famed Looney Tunes characters as models for a new children’s series, “Loonatics,” that will air on Saturday mornings starting this fall. The characters’ descendants — Buzz Bunny and the like — will be superhero action figures for the cartoon set in the year 2772.

FREE VIDEO Daffy? WB makes over Looney Tunes Feb. 17: Warner Brothers have “re-imagined six of their Looney Tunes characters for a new series called “Loonatics” which is slated to air next fall. MSNBC

The network’s animators have re-imagined Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and Wile E. Coyote as sleek new figures for a modern age.

“We all flipped for it,” David Janollari, president of the Kids’ WB, said this week. “We just said, ‘Wow, what a great way to take the classic Looney Tunes franchise that has been huge with audiences for decades and bring it into the new millennium.”’

Janollari said both boys and girls enjoyed the new action figures in test runs of the show. Their parents may be a little surprised, however.

“I think the legacy is intact,” he said. “If anything, it’s an homage to the legacy instead of a destruction of the legacy.”