Looney Tunes play area coming to Woodfield

Woodfield Shopping Center announced plans to open a Looney Tunes-themed play area, hoping Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck will lure more shoppers with children.

The Schaumburg mall has formed a partnership with Warner Bros. Consumer Products to create an innovative play area with larger-than-life, three-dimensional Looney Tunes character favorites, including Bugs, Marvin the Martian, Yosemite Sam, Pepe Le Pew, Sylvester and Tweety.

The play park is set to open Nov. 7 - the same day Santa's set to make his annual debut.

The new play area allows children to climb aboard a super-size teeter totter with Yosemite Sam, jump in a raft with Pepe Le Pew and his girlfriend, Fifi La Fume, and play hopscotch with the Tasmanian Devil. A simulated sandbox and giant marbles to shoot are other attractions.

Alexian Brothers Children's Hospital is sponsoring the 1,600-square-foot play area in the mall's lower-level Macy's Court.

"The play park will provide an ideal place for young families to gather, have fun and get to know their neighbors," said Lisa Stricker, Woodfield marketing director, in a release.

The Looney Tunes concept evolved from a national alliance between Taubman Centers Inc., the manager of Woodfield, and Warner Bros. Woodfield is the fifth mall to house one of the play centers.

Woodfield has teamed with Warner Bros. for the past couple years for the mall's holiday snow-globe display.

"Polar Express" is the theme of this year's display, which will feature 20-foot walk-through snow globes with 300 pounds of swirling theatrical snow; life-size sculptures of characters from the film; and music from the movie soundtrack.