Looney Tunes‘ search for a streaming home has reached a happy ending—and some consolation after being prominently featured on HBO Max initially and then being wiped from the platform. The series has settled on Tubi, where fans can now find over 700 episodes.

After being removed from the HBO Max media library back in March, the majority of the classic Looney Tunes cartoons were in limbo, but thankfully, Tubi swept in to save them. The rescue all but mirrors the prophetic algorithms-are-evil plot of Space Jam 2, where the Tunes’ franchise world was being threatened with deletion off the fictional Warner 3000 streaming service. Like Jordan and LeBron, Tubi is the real MVP here!

It’s really neat to see the Looney Tunes be widely available on a free platform and not a paywalled streaming service; it reminds me of the accessibility of watching them for free when I was little. Looney Tunes cartoons were how I discovered classical music, slapstick heroics, and a love for animation. I’m delighted a new generation has such readily available access now too.

The HBO Max original Looney Tunes Cartoons series, which began in 2020, as well as recent spin-offs such as Bugs Bunny Builders and Tiny Toons: Looniversity, are all that remain on the WB Discovery streaming service. It is also the streaming home of The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie, which enjoyed a theatrical run—pulling in $15 million at the box office—after Ketchup Entertainment stepped in to give it a big-screen showcase. (Ketchup is also giving the upcoming Coyote vs. Acme its theatrical release.)

This Tubi news is a win for animation and free access to the formative classics in pop culture. Truly you can never underestimate the Looney Tunes characters making a cartoony Hail Mary comeback, no matter which corporation tosses an anvil at them.

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.

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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