Official **LIVE** Questions Transcript --- WB Chat (March 29, 2005) (1 Viewer)

[Robert Crawford]

Really, I didn't know that since every recently released Warner title I've bought was not in a snapper.




Crawdaddy

 

[Cees Alons]

Not to mention the people (like me) who are extremely sad now, because they actually liked the snapper.


Cees

 

[MarcoBiscotti]

Robert, that issue has been discussed and brought up more than any other. Many forum members here have expressed their dissapointment at the lack of follow-up offered from the studio. Every related DVD-animation board from Jerry Beck's Cartoon Research forums to GoldenAgeCartoons.com both of which the majority of members are also regulars on this forum, have been pushing the issue as well. If you saw the number of disgruntled posts on these forums following the recent Warner Bros. chat than I'm sure you'd have to agree with my stance. It IS the prime issue that forum members were hoping to finally clear up. I can speak on their behalf confidently. I personally had my own questions which I felt were more significant (I'm sure you could take a wild guess at what they might have been ) so I'm not suggesting there weren't other prominent issues but this was certainly one of the driving questions that I'm sure we ALL expected to get resolved. That's all I meant by my comment.

 

[Robert Crawford]

I'm fully aware that several members were upset about the lack of animation representation at the chat from Warner. My problem with your comments was the use of word "majority" in regard to the HTF membership and this animation issue.





Crawdaddy

 

[MarcoBiscotti]

majority in referance to the animation enthusiasts on the forum.

 

[Kevin L McCorry]

I've given up all hope that the next LTGC set will be even 50% post-1948 cartoons. Last set, the pre/post-1948 split was almost 50:50, and fans want still *more* early cartoons and by necessity less of the later ones...

As far as I'm concerned, I don't care anymore. Let LTGC 3 be all early cartoons, give the fans what they want, and maybe in 2006, lovers of The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour, The Bugs Bunny & Tweety Show, etc. (what few of us there are, who evidently don't qualify as cartoon fans) will finally see a generous chunk of those cartoons in their collections. For the time being, I have my Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour reconstructions. That's the way I want to see the cartoons anyway, in the sequence and format by which I knew them all through my upbringing.

 

[Robert Crawford]

I just made it through four of the five films in the Errol Flynn boxset and have started watching the extras on the fifth film. One of the trailers in the boxset is Dark Victory which is coming out in June. The other trailers contained on separate discs in the boxset are listed below. It leaves little doubt that each of them are coming out later down the road, probably in boxsets featuring Bogart, Cagney and another Flynn set.

• Virginia City with Flynn, Bogart and Randolph Scott
• The Oklahoma Kid with Cagney and Bogart
• All Through the Night with Bogart and possibly a Vincent Sherman commentary
• A Midsummer's Night Dream with Cagney, de Havilland and Dick Powell

Crawdaddy

 

[Patrick McCart]

Well, what's wrong with that?

In the fist volume, 46 post-1948's and 10 pre-1948's. In the second, 31 post-1948's and 29 pre-1948's.

So, they really ought to focus on pre-1948's on the next set. Come on... only 2 B&W cartoons have turned up so far. Only 5 cartoons from the 1930's!

Only 34% of the cartoons between the two sets are from the pre-1948 period, so it's obvious why fans want more. Even if the next set is evenly split between the two periods, there will still be more post-1948 cartoons overall.

It's not like it's a bad thing if there are more early cartoons, anyways. Warner has never released the Bosko cartoons to DVD. The B&W Merrie Melodies only appeared on the Golden Age of Looney Tunes laserdisc set (Only "Smile Darn Ya Smile" appearing on the VHS counterpart). On TV, you rarely get to see the 1936-1943 one-shots. On the other hand, the post-1948 cartoons have been in regular rotation since the 1960's.

 

[felipenor]

What is the next se to be anounced? Do you guys know anything about it?

 

[Kevin L McCorry]

As far as an even split in LTGC 3 goes, I haven't heard mention of a single post-1948 cartoon mooted for release on GC 3. Scarcely anybody seems to care about them anymore. I wouldn't be surprised to see only a handful of them on GC 3. And if so, 2005 will be an easy year for my wallet.

Let Warner Brothers give full priority to the pre-1948 cartoons as the prevailing wisdom now advocates, and leave the remainder of the approx. 400 post-1948 cartoons that I grew up with and became nostalgically and aesthetically attached to, to the tail end of the LTGC line, assuming the releases last that long. If I'm still alive by that point, I'll buy them. Until then, I'll pass. My BB/RRH reconstructions will have to do, inferior picture quality and all...

 

[Patrick McCart]

Why can't we just have a blend of the four decades? There's 1000+ cartoons, so what's the harm in making the sets eclectic. Making them totally 1950's and 1960's cartoons isn't fair to the fans of the earlier cartoons. Making the sets totally 1930's and 1940's cartoons isn't fair to the fans of the later cartoons.

I don't see why you want to avoid the older cartoons so much. You must know that a lot of people are just as attatched to the works of Fred Avery and Bob Clampett, as well as earlier Chuck Jones & Friz Freleng, as you are to the later works of Chuck Jones, Friz Freleng, and Robert McKimson.

ADD:

I'm just hoping the same type of complaints don't surface for the Popeye sets Warner will eventually release. We don't need 40 Famous Studios cartoons on one set! That's like making a Looney Tunes set with nothing but Buddy and Daffy/Speedy cartoons!

 

[Kevin L McCorry]

They're a different breed of cartoon that I just have no love for or aesthetic interest in.

But getting back to something you said in your earlier post, I want to respond by saying that in my area, apart from the edited cartoons that were on The Bugs & Tweety Show from 1989 to 1991, there are no cartoons (pre- or post-1948) currently in circulation. And several have rarely, if ever, been shown here. I would point out also that there were more, much more pre-1948 cartoons on videotape and laserdisc than post-1948. True, that was because MGM had a different strategy than Warner Bros. for releasing them, but every pre-1948 Bugs cartoon bar a couple of vastly un-PC ones, did see release.

The post-1948 cartoons, including several from the '60s, have both a nostalgic and aesthetic appeal to me that the earlier ones just don't have. I've never been able to separate the pre-1948s from my long-held perception that they were on the cheap-o public domain videotapes, the characters as crudely drawn in the cartoons as the versions on the packaging, or shown on the TV stations too cheap to buy the syndicated TV compilations offered by Warner Bros.. And when I learned years later that WB threw them away (or sold them ), and that's how Ted Turner came to own them, I still had that image that they were hand-me-downs, cast offs, from before the characters reached their ultimate forms and personas.

I've never even found the humour in them to be particularly laugh-inducing. It's the kind of humor that makes me roll my eyes at how slow-witted the characters are. Zany at times, yes, but in tiresome fits, and often to the ruination of any kind of atmosphere. Awash in racial-ethnic stereotyping. Hamstrung by their overly cloying, far too insecurely self-conscious attempts to get a laugh, and paced all wrong (e.g. a man shouting hello across a canyon for more than half a minute before we get to the gag of a telephone operator telling him he's been disconnected, or a big bully character falling down stairs going ooo, oooh, oooh, ow for what seems like an eternity--- we get it already, guys). The timing of the gags, with multiple layers, in the later cartoons of Jones and Freleng is where it's at, where it's always been at, for me, I'm afraid. Those are the cartoons I collected on VHS. Those are the cartoons I like to watch. Those are the cartoons I want on DVD.

The characters in them are what define Looney Tunes for me. A DVD that skimps on them is unlikely to have a place on my shelf. I'll probably buy them all someday, but not before I buy the ones I really want, and if Warner wants me to wait for those, then I'll wait to put down my money. Customer's prerogative, the only prerogative I seem to have left, as I no longer hold a view of the cartoons that's in vogue.

 

[Patrick McCart]

While the post-1948's were not released completely on LD, nearly all of them turn up on TV. Nickelodeon was showing the 1964-1969 cartoons almost non-stop when they had that package. Basically, the pre-1948's owned by Turner got the best video exposure, while the post-1948's got the best TV exposure.


We know that all of the sets are going to have a blend of cartoons from each of the decades, anyways. Is the whole point you're making is that you don't want the sets unless they leave off the pre-1948's completely, in exchange for making them 100% 1950's and 1960's?

To be perfectly honest, I've actually seen more post-1948's than pre-1948's. I've seen nearly all of the Larriva Roadrunners & Daffy/Speedy cartoons. On the other hand, I haven't seen any Buddy cartoons, only one Bosko.

I want more later Sylvester & Tweety, more Speedy, more RoadRunner, more Bugs (1950's-1963), Taz, a lot of the one-shots (especially The Hole Idea, Now Hear This,etc. But at the same time, the earlier ones, as well. I just don't want WB to get into a rut... I mean, we don't need a disc of 1964-1969 cartoons... and we don't need a disc with nothing but B&W Merrie Melodies, either. We need a blend!

I just don't understand how the post-1948 package is being "neglected" when more than 2/3 of all the cartoons put on the two sets are from that era!

 

[felipenor]

Will the Batman SE come out before Begins hit teathers?

 

[MarcoBiscotti]

If really to see those god-awful 60's cartoons, subscribe to Teletoon. I'd give you my subscription if it weren't part of my local cable package! I think there are very few people around as Patrick already mentioned, that would ever care to watch those cartoons again. I wouldn't mind seeing Normal Norman in an upcoming set, but Patrick's math is dead-on... we need more early LT/MM to round out these sets! Some of the greatest and most innovative works of the studio were produced in these early years and it's shameful that the company's first lasting animated star is so poorly represented and rarely even acknowledged on these sets. The abundance of classic one-shot Merrie Melodies and early Porky/Daffy, Bugs and Elmer cartoons are infinite and yet we've seen almost none of them on DVD. I hope that eventually you get to see the cartoons that you want released to DVD, but I will be the first to post in frustration if we see any Rudy Larriva cartoons presented before the classic works of Clampett, Avery and the soon to be obscure early masterpieces of Harman & Ising, etc. The Bosko shorts I could live without since they are all in the public domain and have been previously released... but the fact the we have only seen TWO black & white cartoons to date is inexcusable! These are the films that paved the way for the future of not only Warner Bros. animation but the industry as a whole! We need to have a better representation of the early works of the studio on DVD, period!

 

[Kevin L McCorry]

I've had Teletoon for years. Indeed, when I heard that The Road Runner Show was on it, I was thrilled, and was anxious to get it. And it's with all those cartoons in their old CBS format that I put my BB/RRH reconstructions together, with other cartoons added from other sources. Those are how I prefer to watch the cartoons, inferior picture quality and all.

When I was a kid, a Road Runner cartoon was a Road Runner cartoon. Some had a recurrent music motif and rather samey visuals while others were more musically eclectic, had freeze-frames and Latin species identifications, and variable colours to skies and mesas. But a Road Runner cartoon was as good as any other, to me. If a cartoon was on the BB/RRH, I accepted it was good and reveled in it. They were all part of the overall package, each one adding something to the experience.

I realize that children of the '70s are a rare thing to find on the Internet these days, but surely I can't be alone (am I?!?) in my kind of fascination with the cartoons as they were presented to me for more the first 25 years of my life.

Getting back to the issue of pre-/post-1948 cartoon representation, I would advocate a 40:20 post-/pre- ratio, with maybe a 30:30 ratio on an occasional set (for as long as the slow pace of 60 cartoons annually stays in place). That I could live with, happily buying every DVD set.

 

[Eric Peterson]

I'm a child of the 70s, and I have almost ZERO interest in the later cartoons. I agree completely with Marco & Patrick about wanting more early cartoons. I haven't viewed the entire content of either Golden Collection yet, but I make sure to watch all of the earlier cartoons, especially Clampett & Avery (My Personal Favortites).

In my book, everything about the early cartoons is better (The animation is smoother, the backgrounds are better, the music is better, etc....etc....) Nearly all of the cartoons that stood out to me as a child were from the pre-1948 Looney Tunes catalog, Early Tom & Jerry's (Pre Chuck-Jones), the early B&W Popeyes, & the the Holy Grail of animation (Tex Avery's MGM output). I watched those cartoons over and over again, while the newer ones, I watched with a passing interest. By my mid-20s, I started to research the cartoons, and everything I listed above were the cartoons that stood out from the pack, and I still have very strong memories of watching them as a child.

I know quite a few people in my same age group that love the same cartoons that I've mentioned, and we never discuss the later stuff.

 

[MarcoBiscotti]

I'd also like to point out that if your only exposure or point of referance to the early animated WB films are of Bosko and Buddy, than you are completely misrepresented. By 1936 Bosko & Buddy cartoons weren't even in production anymore, and inbetween that time period there was still an immensely large production of one-shot films that didn't feature any of the now established, reoccuring characters yet still exhibited the utmost charm and humor that WB cartoons have become renowned for. It's THESE shorts, along with the early Porky Pig and Daffy pairings, etc. that we fans would like to finally be offered. These are no longer broadcast in any syndicated packagings and have not been seen on cable or satelite networks in many, many years. We have no other exposure to these gems, outside of the few cartoons that have found their way to Warner's classic DVD releases as extras by way of the "Night At The Movies" features. As much as I cherish those, and wish they'd be a more common accompaniment to Warner's DVD library, they simply aren't enough!

 

[Patrick McCart]

To be honest, while there is not as much of a concentration of non-stop classics like the period between 1942-1958, there's plenty of gems. Off the top of my head, most of the Fred Avery, Frank Tashlin, and Bob Clampett B&W cartoons hold up extremely well. Avery made classics like "The Blow Out" "Porky's Duck Hunt", and "Plane Dippy". Tashlin made "The Case of the Stuttering Pig", "Scrap Happy Daffy", and "Porky Pig's Feat". Clampett made "Porky in Wackyland" (on V2), "Porky's Poppa", "The Daffy Doc".

 

[Charles Ellis]

Shouldn't there be a separate thread on the WB animation issue? That would help a lot of people. Just a thought.....