Of Course You Realize THIS Means Podcast - A Looney Tunes Discussion · thismeanspodcast

Director Spotlight: Max Winston - DAFFY IN WACKYLAND + Animation is Film Festival Q&A!

·1 hr 1 min·4 clips

Max Winston argues that Witch Hazel can carry a cartoon on her own.

1. Of Course You Realize THIS Means Podcast centers on Max Winston’s Daffy in Wacky Land, released on HBO Max and discussed as a finished Looney Tunes short. 2. Jonathan Graves hosts the episode, Max Winston is the director of Daffy in Wacky Land, and Eric Bauza joins as the voice performer for major characters in the short. 3. The episode asks how a modern Looney Tunes short was conceived, styled, recorded, and held back before its public release. 4. Jonathan Graves opens by connecting the short’s HBO Max release to the show’s broader Looney Tunes focus and by introducing Winston as the director behind the project. 5. Graves brings up a new Looney Tunes sports game, Looney Tunes Wacky World of Sports, and compares it to Bugs Bunny B-Ball, the Space Jam PlayStation 1 game, Space Race, and Tiny Toons Adventures: Wacky Sports. 6. Winston says he was never big into sports but was always into Looney Tunes and cartoons, and he remembers renting games from video stores. 7. The hosts talk about seeing Daffy in Wacky Land at the Animation Is Film Festival in Los Angeles, where Winston says he usually watches these projects on a computer during production. 8. Winston says the short spent about a year on the festival circuit before reaching Max, and he describes the release delay as Warner Bros. figuring out the best place for it to end up. 9. He says the festival run included Annecy, where the film premiered in a sold-out theater with about 1,000 people, and he describes hearing audience reactions for the first time. 10. Winston explains that Warner Bros. gave the Looney Tunes initiative 1,000 minutes of animation and allowed Pete Browngardt to make more cartoons rather than reinvent them. 11. Winston says the style choice for each short had to be connected to the material, not an arbitrary change in look. 12. He explains that he has worked in stop motion for about 16 years, went to CalArts, and started at Screen Novelties after graduation. 13. Winston names The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack, Chowder, and Uncle Grandpa as early jobs, and he says he met Pete Browngardt while storyboard partnering on Flapjack. 14. He describes an Uncle Grandpa segment where Pete told him there were only two rules: no sex and no gore. 15. Winston says he proposed a solo Witch Hazel cartoon and tied the look to Ronald Searle, mid-century modern design, and Chuck Jones’s influence. 16. He says he blended Daffy’s Clampett-era energy with the later Chuck Jones version, quoting the idea that Daffy Duck is “an archetype of selfishness.” 17. Winston and Graves talk about the recording process, including the pandemic-era move from a studio to Winston’s bedroom closet and then to a personal booth. 18. Eric Bauza describes voice acting as performance, not just “funny voices,” and says he performs the characters as if they are still coming out of the 1940s. 19. People who care about Looney Tunes production history, animation styles, and voice acting craft will get the most out of this episode. 20. Listeners wanting a polished general-interest entertainment chat without animation detail may skip it.

As heard by us

A loose, lively Looney Tunes interview that turns cartoon chaos into real craft.

Max Winston talks with Jonathan Graves about Daffy in Wacky Land, a playful nod to Bob Clampett's Porky in Wackyland that is now on HBO Max, slash Max.

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Want a backstage pass to how Daffy in Wacky Land got from pitch to final product?

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