Hey, I liked Ralph Bakshi's Mighty Mouse. It far exceeds the original concept to me. But I get what you're saying. And Looney Tunes had established "older" people working on concepts for films and television that just didn't pan out. I felt those projects had a lack of focus or chose empty focal points for their story. Sure Space Jam did well, but it is disheartening to many lontime fans, like myself, to see the characters get sold out for cheap sports theatrics. Chuck Jones wasn't even included in any discussions about Jam and he offered his help.
I loved them Mighty mouse: the New Adventures shows too. But it seemed that after that, there was nothing else they bothered to do with the character. Paramount sat on it with it's gigantic Spongebutt for years (I like Spongey too, but for far too long, the Mighty Mouse cartoons were only avaialble on dollar store DVD's of copyright expired fare). Now that CBS split from Paramount, CBS got the Terrytoons library. unfortunately, it looks like they aren't planning on doing anything with that either.
Personally, I feel that the Looney Tune's biggest accomplishments were the 90's cartoon series like Taz-Mania, Sylvester and Tweety mysteries, and the 2003 show Duck Dodgers. While they weren't exactly like the originals, they were, I feel, much better than the 1960's made for TV Looney Tune Shorts done almost exclusively by Friz Freling. Now, I think he was a great director for them, and he made wonderful stuff... but those late 60's ones were just dull and static.
Which is also why I brought up Tom and Jerry Tales. Sure, it lacks with it's Korean animation and synthetic sound track... but it keeps in spirtit the classic T&J shorts MUCH better than the 1970's Hanna barbera Show (where they headlined with some of HB's worst characters like Grape Ape, and a clone of their own Muttley), and the dreadful Filmation series.
I feel the Muppets didn't so much lose their core as much as their sense of direction too. I think OZ was the wrong project for Disney to gauge success on. The core problem with the novel movies is that the Muppets aren't exactly the stars of them, so much as the supporting cast. MCC had Michael Cain. MTI had Tim Curry, and that effeminant kid. Oz had some pop star. The other 2 worked because they chose actors that worked well with the Muppets (and we established actors). Oz was just awkward due to stunt casting. And of course, the rush for Disney to get the project out as soon as they had the Muppets. On both counts it was just uneven.
I have no doubt in my mind that, yes, while we'll get Stoller and Segel's friends as cameos, we just won't see the same stunt casting that dampered OZ, and none of the cameos and pop culture refferences that dulled up VMX. But of course, when it comes to VMX, we have the question... Did NBC shove in series promotional cameos, or did the writers do it to coax NBC to air it?
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