Doodle Toons

Doodle Toons is a 2017 adult computer-animated black comedy fantasy film based on the webcomic series of the same name by Jack Cabhan. An international co-production between the United States, Ireland, and France, it was co-written and directed by Adrian Hancock and co-written by Cabhan, Laurie Craig, and Noah Baumbach. The film follows a white rabbit as his world begins to collapse when a bear summons aliens to butcher the world's rabbit population.

The film was produced by Supreme Entertainment and Clever Clover Productions for Paramount Pictures, and stars the voices of Josh Gad, Brad Garrett, Grey Griffin, David Tennant, Cathy Cavadini, Sarah Silverman, and Steve Blum. The film makes a departure from Supreme's more realistically set films to feature various unique elements, such as aesthetics of twentieth-century 2D animation with warm colors, inconsistent backgrounds, flat character models, and a gradual tonal shift from comedic to dark. It also observes the rising tensions between the prey and the predator, and how their hatred (or in the bear's case, hunger) for one another could ultimately drive one of them into making a decision that would doom their world forever.

Doodle Toons had a limited release in the United States on October 27, 2017; it was later released in the United Kingdom and Ireland on December 6, 2017, followed by an online release on Netflix a week later. Due to the marketing restrictions, the film was a box office bomb, grossing only $113.7 million against its $88 million budget. However, it received universal acclaim from critics for its animation, screenplay, humor, performances, themes, and score.

Plot
Bellybutton (Josh Gad) is a small rabbit living in the forest town of Morning Woods. While setting off to meet his girlfriend Jellybean (Grey Griffin), he is ambushed by a giant Bear (Brad Garrett), who has spent years trying to take him in for nourishment. Bellybutton manages to trick Bear into getting stuck in a barrel covered with explosives; he ignites the fuse and the barrel explodes, sending the bear into the atmosphere. He eventually crashes into a nearby spaceship, where he meets a group of bear lookalikes referred to by presumed fiction as the Grizzles. Discontent with the dinner that they serve (mostly the meat analogue), Bear unwittingly brings up the attention of the race's dictator Gruzzle (Steve Blum), who intends to kill Bear for damaging his banquet hall (and the window he crashed through earlier) and disturbing his tranquility. However, Bear, still craving for a rabbit, offers to make a contribution to their dinner menu as his payment.

Bellybutton arrives at Jellybean's house only to discover that she has lost her sanity from a vivid dream centering on the events of the Grizzles book; he decides to buy an audiobook from Inkblot's (Dave Franco) record store in hopes of helping her recover. As Belly and his closest friend Cruncher (David Tennant) leave with the audiobook 72 Stupidly Enriching Stories to Cure Your Girlfriend's Mental Trauma, they are suddenly chased through the forest by beams of yellow light sucking numerous rabbits into the sky.

After a series of circumstances regarding the tractor beam attack, such as being the only target of rabbit hunters, Belly ultimately suspects that the bear alone could be the cause of all his troubles. After a failed attempt to follow Bear using the same explosives that blew the predator off the planet, Belly apologizes to Jellybean after giving her an audiobook version of the Grizzles, which he mistakenly traded his mouth for with the troublemaking Ringo (Tom Kenny) and took back afterwards. He asks if he can shelter himself in Jelly's house.

Meanwhile, the Grizzles have their large supply of rabbits sorted out and ready to cook for their dinner party, but are uncertain what to celebrate with their meal. Upon hearing from Bear that they have neither collected Belly nor Jelly, Gruzzle devises a plan to track down the remaining two rabbits by sending thick clouds of the race's archived Grizzle consciences into the woods below, which claim the bodies of numerous townsfolk and cause destruction across town. The two rabbits flee to safety in Bellybutton's house, bringing Cruncher, Goldie (Cathy Cavadini), and Pip (Sarah Silverman) with them. As the world disintegrates outside, Belly finds himself at fault for not killing the bear like he should have when he had the oppurtunity. Suddenly, an overweight Inkblot crashes into the house, apparently having eaten all of his records like "donuts". He then reveals himself as just Bear in disguise, with the real Inkblot strapped to his back and gagged. The bear jumps into a gigantic light beam that later sucks the five Doodle Toons aboard the ship and destroys Belly's house.

On the ship, the toons are separated and terrorized by the ship's passengers. Bellybutton and Jellybean are carried off to the kitchen by Bear and Gruzzle -- respectively -- to be cooked along with the other rabbits. Belly flees and reunites with Cruncher, then they wander across the hotel-like interior of the ship while searching for Jelly; they are attacked by a Grizzle family along the way. Goldie and Pip are caught by one of the guards, who shoots a conscience at Pip but misses; the conscience ends up possessing Goldie instead. The toons later regroup and hide away to get the possessed Goldie back on Pip's side. Rather than being expelled from Goldie's body like the others hoped, the alien himself feels motivated to help them. They follow a stampede of Gruzzle's henchmen to the kitchen to rescue all of the rabbits including Jellybean from an oven. Belly, Jelly, and the rabbits escape through a ventilation system, but Cruncher and Pip are taken to have their consciences removed while possessed Goldie is escorted to the furnace (which is never seen) for betraying the race. Infuriated at the loss of his "arrival on a decent planet" celebration dinner, Gruzzle is left with no choice but to skip to his "desserts", which are the consciences of the animals who were possessed back on the surface. By devouring all of these consciences, Gruzzle has now gained enough power and mass to destroy the rabbits.

Bellybutton and Jellybean finally confront Bear, who rants about how he's been famished for years with no one bothering to give him anything satisfying to eat. Belly gladly offers to share some food of his. Before Bear and Belly can make amends, however, a bigger and more monstrous Gruzzle intervenes, revealing his intention to conquer the toons' world once he is finished with them. Then he proceeds to suck Belly and Jelly up into his fiery black hole mouth, seemingly killing them. Bear, in retaliation, pursues the dictator to the ship's weapon room where he shoots him in the stomach with a laser, causing him to regurgitate Belly and Jelly, now both turned into gelatin blobs. The blobs and Bear drive Gruzzle into the path of a directed-energy beam that vaporizes him to death and obliterates the ship, thus returning all of the abductees to the surface and their respective bodies.

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Voice cast

 * Josh Gad as Bellybutton
 * Brad Garrett as Bear
 * Grey Griffin as Jellybean
 * David Tennant as Cruncher
 * Cathy Cavadini as Goldie
 * Sarah Silverman as Pip
 * Steve Blum as Lord Grizzle Gruzzle
 * Tom Kenny as Ringo
 * Dave Franco as Inkblot
 * Jess Harnell, Billy West, Frank Welker, and Peter Berkrot as the Weepy hunters
 * Kari Wahlgren as Grandma Grizzle
 * Danny Mann as Grandpa Grizzle
 * Corey Burton as Chef Grizzle

Additional voices

 * Keith Anthony
 * Greg Berg
 * Bob Bergen
 * Gregg Berger
 * Jack Cabhan
 * David Cowgill
 * Jim Cummings
 * Debi Derryberry
 * Terri Douglass
 * Chris Edgerly
 * Jackie Gonneau
 * Butch Hartman
 * Bridget Hoffman
 * Daniel Kaz
 * Jacob Lenard
 * Jason Marsden
 * Mona Marshall
 * Scott Menville
 * Lara Jill Miller
 * Laraine Newman
 * Kevin Michael Richardson
 * Kath Soucie
 * Fred Tatasciore
 * Harland Williams
 * Matthew Wood

Production
In early 2015, there were rumors of a feature film based on Doodle Toons, with series creator Jack Cabhan uploading his own poster online under the title "Every kids movie these days", which satirizes most modern films based on cartoons. The poster uses modified stock photos of animals to represent live action versions of the series' main cast, along with a tagline describing the many flaws of the modern family film genre.

Supreme Entertainment CEO Brandon Monroe, having gained a fascination with the series for its satirical take on classic cartoons and its character designs, considered it a challenge to adapt Doodle Toons cinematically while breaking free of the stereotypes mentioned by Cabhan. Adrian Hancock and Jack Cabhan accepted the challenge in July 2015, although Cabhan initially refused for the prior two months. Supreme announced the production of their adaptation in August, and a writing team was assembled consisting of Cabhan, Hancock (who also served asv director), Laurie Craig, and Noah Baumbach.

A majority of the film's screenplay was heavily inspired by the webtoon pilot "Rabbit for Dinner". Both of these animations revolve around Bear trying to eat one of the two main rabbits to satisfy his hunger, and Bellybutton has to rescue Jellybean near the end of the story when she is the one the bear takes away to eat. Hancock felt that the bear in "Rabbit for Dinner" would make "[the] perfect villain [...or anti-hero, to say the least] for the movie, because I think his hunger for rabbit flesh and unapologetic gullibility have the capacity to drive his entire world into a fatal situation that only he and the thing he's hunting for can pull the world out of."

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Trailers

 * The teaser trailer was released on October 19, 2016, and was shown before Midgets: Enter the Realm of Giants and Monster Trucks.
 * The first theatrical trailer was released on June 20, 2017 alongside Transformers: The Last Knight.
 * The second theatrical trailer was released on August 18, 2017 alongside Palm City.

Release
In December 2015, Supreme Entertainment announced plans to release Doodle Toons on July 5, 2017. However, the following month, the film was taken off the release schedule, and the new release date was yet to be announced. In March 2016, the release date was pushed to October 27, 2017.

Box office
In the United States and Canada, Doodle Toons was released alongside Thank You for Your Service, Jigsaw, and Suburbicon, and was projected to gross $10 million from 1,612 theaters during its opening weekend. The film placed second on its opening weekend behind Jigsaw, grossing $7.5 million. On the second weekend, it grossed $29.2 million, dropping to fourth place.

Critical reception
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 95% based on 128 reviews, with an average rating of 8.2/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "The Adrian Hancock-directed version of Doodle Toons offers enough visual warmth, fast-paced wit, and retro fare to earn its reputation as a rare adaptation that pleases moviegoers beyond returning fans." On Metacritic, the film holds a rating of 77 out of 100, based on 47 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". On CinemaScore, audience members gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.

Rating
The film was rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association of America for "thematic material including slapstick violence and bizarre images, and some suggestive humor".

Home media
Doodle Toons was released on DVD, Blu-ray, and digital download on March 6, 2018.

Soundtrack

 * Main article: Doodle Toons/Soundtrack

Main
To read the transcript of the film, click here.

Trailers
To read the transcript of the film's trailers, click here.