Something seems off. At a glance, life on Earth continues as it always has. People walk the streets, do their jobs, and spend money like good capitalist consumers. But take a closer look, and the disturbing truth becomes clear: an alien conspiracy to subjugate humanity from within has taken root.
The alien takeover has been a popular plotline in cinema since at least the 1950s, when films like Invasion of the Body Snatchers and It Came From Outer Space channeled Cold War paranoia into classic science fiction. In the decades that followed, filmmakers used that same basic premise to tackle everything from the patriarchy (The Stepford Wives, 1975) to economic inequality (They Live, 1988) to teenage rebellion (The Faculty, 1988). But while the power of those original alien takeover stories is sometimes diluted by more modern themes or a focus on special effects over psychological scares, in 2025, one movie brilliantly recreated that sense of pure paranoia by fusing it with an unlikely ingredient: the Looney Tunes.
Looney Tunes does it again
The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie, which crash-landed in theaters last March and is streaming now on Max, perfectly blends the cartoon franchise’s zany antics with the creeping anxiety of 1950s sci-fi. The result is a spectacular cinematic experience that you’ll appreciate even more once you understand the classic films that inspired it.
Directed by Pete Browngardt, a longtime animator making his feature debut, The Day the Earth Blew Up centers its story on Daffy Duck and Porky Pig (both voiced by Eric Bauza). In an interview with Animation Magazine, Browngardt revealed that he chose Daffy and Porky because “they’re two of the only characters that don’t want to eat or kill each other.”
A duo to root for
The duo works well as an odd couple of sorts, and we find them living in a run-down house in desperate need of repairs. In a last-ditch effort to raise the funds needed to save their home, Daffy and Porky get jobs at a nearby chewing gum factory, where they uncover a—you guessed it—alien conspiracy to take over the world via a new flavor of gum that turns humans into walking (and chewing) zombies.
Browngardt initially considered riffing on a variety of genres, including horror and western, before landing on 1950s science fiction. “I have the poster from the Invasion of the Saucer Men in my office,” he told Animation Magazine, adding that he also took inspiration from the films of Tim Burton.
Even the pairing of Daffy and Porky feels like a genre throwback. As the director notes, the same cartoon duck and pig were previously paired in classic science fiction shorts like Duck Dodgers (1953) and Rocket Squad (1956).
‘An homage to classic sci-fi’
The movie’s villain is also a clever homage to classic sci-fi. The Day the Earth Blew Up features a bald, green alien known only as The Invader (voiced by Peter MacNicol) who looks extremely similar to the iconic creatures from the 1957 cult classic B-movie Invasion of the Saucer Men.
“We wanted to make him feel very menacing and threatening and then slowly sort of diffuse as we got to know him more,” Browngardt told IndieWire. “Basically, I took that poster and I put Porky and Daffy running from the poster and I said, ‘I want to make this sort of ’50s B movie.'”
With these subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) references scattered throughout the movie, The Day the Earth Blew Up pulls off a surprising balance between sci-fi paranoia and Looney Tunes mayhem. There are moments of downright tension and horror, along with plenty of hilarious physical comedy and astounding voice acting from Bauza. It’s a testament to just how malleable these characters can be in the right creative hands, and a reminder that Hollywood still has a lot to learn from those 1950s movies that taught us all to fear our friends and neighbors—after all, they might just be aliens in disguise.
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