The old cliche reads: “Times change, but not always for the better.”

Call me an old geezer, but I’m not buying into the latest plan coming out of Hollywood.

Recently, the cartoon machine at Warner Brothers came up with an innovative idea designed to make our old pal Bugs Bunny and his friends more appealing to 21st-century viewers, which makes me think there must be some new kind of designer drug floating around the movie studios these days.

The “new and improved” Bugs now resembles a character something like you’d see in the latest Star Wars epic, and is scheduled to make his appearance on Saturday morning television in the fall along with updated versions of Daffy Duck and Wile E. Coyote.

The new series is titled “Loonatics,” and features the old characters’ decedents as superhero action figures in the year 2772.

Animators have eliminated the bunny’s gray body, the white-gloved hands and the puffy cotton tail for a new look, replacing them with a black spandex suit replete with yellow highlights. The new Bugs, now known as Buzz, stands ready to maim and kill anything that gets in his way and sports claw-like, attacking appendages, sort of like Yu-Gi-Oh! on steroids, and a mask with triangular-shaped eye holes.

Give me a break!

I realize that there was furor in years past about how violent some of the Bugs Bunny cartoons appeared to be, but kids who viewed the sometimes slap-stick action on television knew doggone good and well there was no way anything bad was ever going to happen to the “Long-eared Galoot,” as Yosemite Sam called him. The carrot-chompin’ character, who stood up to everything from Gull-a-Bulls to California highway construction, (and survived), would be back the next Saturday morning to entertain viewers once again.

Enemies the old Bugs encountered during his career included the likes of Elmer Fudd, who couldn’t shoot straight, and all he did was keep Remington and Winchester in business supplying him with shotgun shells for his double-barrel, and the Wicked Witch, (Rock-a-bye rabbit in the hot oven, into my mouth for dinner I’m shovin’), who was never able to get the stove lit and heated up prior to popping old Bugs in a pot along with an ample supply of carrots and turnips.

Even the handle-bar-mustached Sam, with his six-shooters blazing away, never harmed a hair on the “Wascally Wabbit’s” head.

What’s going to happen now?

My imagination tells me Warner Brothers will probably outfit the new and improved Bugs with some kind of futuristic battle car, ala James Bond, that not only flies but also has a complete weapons package included to fight evil.

Folks, there was never any “evil” in the old cartoons, just Elmer and Yosemite, so why now? What has changed so much these days that everyone has become concerned with evil-doers and we somehow need to indoctrinate the little kids about some sort of futuristic wicked world they are “doomed” to grow up in?

Somehow, I can’t imagine Elmer Fudd being transformed into some kind of worldwide crime lord or Yosemite Sam running a crooked casino backed by Red Mafia money coming out of Brighton Beach.

Here’s another idea for the Hollywood cartoonists to try out. How about Tweety Bird suddenly becoming a bomb-carrying terrorist? Wouldn’t that shake old Sylvester up the next time he tried to raid the birdcage at Grandma’s house!

If animators are really interested in updating old-time cartoon characters, why not Popeye the Sailor?

With the recent allegations about illegal drug use in major league baseball, you can bet your last money Popeye was on something other than spinach to get arms like he had!