the looney tunes: a reunion

prologue.

"I'm sorry..." there was a long pause, awkwardly strained with the deafening silence of the room, "but it's over."
There sat the producer as he faced the subtlety shocked faces of the rabbit and duck. Gently, in a rhythmic beat, he tapped each individual finger on the hard oak of his table, waiting for a response, waiting for anything at all. Lightly, the muffled noises of traffic could be heard outside the office studio, giving more life than the two performers in front of him.
"Whatd'ya mean it's over?" the duck suddenly questioned, scorn and confusion lacing his voice as he perked up from the cushioned leather seat below him, his beak arching closer towards the producer, eyebrows furrowed.
"The ratings just aren't high enough, I'm sorry, but the same thing happened last year – except back then we at least managed to push another season, even if just by a little," the man began to slightly stumble over his words under the gaze of the duck, whose beak still presented a prominent frown. The producer's eyes began to look up to the side, as if he was trying to think through the depths of his brain on how to say what he was planning on, in the nicest way possible.
"People just don't care anymore. Or at least just don't care enough to tune in every week..."
"This is bullshit!" the duck yelled back in reply, any lingering formation of formality or civility was long gone as he became more careless and negligent as the meeting furthered, "we've – 𝘐'𝘷𝘦 – been the star of the stage for as long as I can remember! We are the renaissance of comedy, the birth of surrealism and well... looney!"
"There's nothing I can possibly do, returning for a third season would be insanity, I'd be asking for bankruptcy! I have to think business here."
Throughout this whole interaction between the two, the rabbit, for once, sat in silence. His eyes quickly darted between both the duck and the man as the lingering tension had erupted into traffic louder than the streets of his hometown in New York. There was no quick-witted remark he could make, or even an outlook of his carefree philosophy. For once, in a long time, he felt scared. And when he felt scared, he couldn't find the gut to say anything.
"Again I'm sorry, but Bugs," he looked over to the rabbit with sympathy as her then turned to the other, "Daffy, you're fired."

After that short-lived meeting, the rest of the morning was a blur. Moments of time merged into one another as all the cast members began to pack their belongings and eat their final meal which had been served by the crew in the studio. Bugs felt empty, those last words spoken hung in his mind, more prominently than he favoured. But most importantly, that statement:

People just don't care anymore.

Nobody cares anymore. That idea. That speech of unfortunate truth. The inevitable realisation of his eventual downfall was finally being processed. As he analysed the oh so-familiar faces around him, he noticed that even despite their noticeable wavering melancholy, in their eyes still lay a thick foundation of hope and optimism. Besides Daffy's, who he hadn't actually seen since the exit of the dreaded meeting as he swore and blasphemed, violently locking himself in his personal office.

The thing is these circumstances had happened before. Shows had been cancelled, for one reason or another. But as the curtains call, another overture begins. They are given another deal, join back together, and the show goes on. However, something about this all seemed different to Bugs. His intuition found itself repetitively jabbing the back of his head, a headache began to form. There he sat on the side of a set of the panoramic of the first floor of the house located in the show, two boxes of his belongings and memorabilia, and a grimace.

Slowly he crooked his head to the location of the unequally stacked duo of carboard boxes beside him. There lay the scripts of some of his personal favourite episodes, several fan letters that had been sent to him which kept him motivated throughout the show's run, spare merchandise he had been given over the course of several years, and a couple of framed pictures of cast members, well his friends, and distant family which darted from the heavy streets of Brooklyn to the rurality of Cazenovia.