Six months after it first aired, writers of a Looney Tunes episode have revealed just how Guns N’ Roses frontman Axl Rose wound up having a starring role.
Late last year, cartoon lovers got a bit of an unexpected surprise when an episode of New Looney Tunes was revealed to feature none other than Guns N’ Roses’ Axl Rose.
During the episode, Axl Rose’s tour bus is crushed by a giant pig en route to a show at the Civic Centre. However, Bugs Bunny and co. claim an asteroid is about to hit the Earth and that there will be no show after all.
Between quips about his younger years (questioning if he should “go back to wearing a mesh jersey and a kilt onstage again”), Rose helps to save the Earth by teaching the other characters about the saving power of music.
During this impressive process, listeners are treated to ‘Rock The Rock’, the first new track from Axl Rose since 2008’s Chinese Democracy.
Check out Axl Rose on the New Looney Tunes:
Of course, while Axl Rose’s love of cartoons is well-documented (including being late to a Guns N’ Roses show due to watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), fans soon wondered just how this collaboration that no one asked for came to be. Now, we have our answer.
Speaking to the Appetite For Distortion podcast recently (via Ultimate Classic Rock), writers Rob Janas and Kevin Fleming explained that the idea for Axl Rose’s appearance came after Guns N’ Roses’ members appeared onstage during the Not In This Lifetime tour as the Looney Tunes rang out around them.
“The next part was trying to figure out an idea for him,” Janas explained, noting Snoop Dogg and “Weird Al” Yankovic as previous celebrity guest stars.
“We had a whiteboard in our office and we would always scribble up different ideas on the board, and I think one that had been living up there for a while that we hadn’t written – we just hadn’t figured it out – was the Looney Tunes gang has to destroy an asteroid.”
Eventually, they entertained the notion that Axl Rose rocked “so hard that he literally saves the world.,” with Fleming joking that, “The only thing more powerful than a laser beam is rock and roll!”
Apparently, the problems didn’t quite end there, with Axl Rose’s reclusive nature nearly seeing the appearance scrapped in favour of Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler, while Rose’s team were reportedly pretty hands-on in regards to how the rocker should be portrayed.
“He was able to laugh at himself and that was the coolest thing about it,” Kevin Fleming noted, “and that’s why you think, ‘No wonder this dude is so successful and so cool.'”
While we’re not too sure if ‘Rock The Rock’ will make an appearance on the forthcoming Guns N’ Roses record, it appears as though recording sessions for the new album will be getting well and truly underway later in the year.
Check out ‘Welcome To The Jungle’ by Guns N’ Roses:
