Saturday mornings are such a let down since all the networks have gone with running their news shows. Even the series that get run appear to be cable retreads. The stuff on Nick and Cartoon Network are their usual suspects that run all week long.
Hopefully this won't be a culture shock to today's youth.
I would definitely be interested to know if certain titles listed -- Atom Ant, Quick Draw McGraw, Magilla Gorilla -- represent the original show format (with three separate cartoons featuring different characters), and the show openings, closings and interstitials. If so, this is an opportunity to make good on the Magilla Gorilla show opening and closing missing from the "complete series" set.
The trouble with shows like this is:
(1) All the elements are archived separately (according to someone familiar with the WB archives).
(2) To reassemble them, it would take someone familiar with how the shows originally ran -- or access to some kind of records of same. This situation has the annoying result of, say for instance, the "Huckleberry Hound" show running on Cartoon Network with two or three Huckleberry Hound cartoons and one Quick Draw McGraw. There are plenty of opportunities to screw this up (especially if Earl Kress isn't involved) but I'm gonna be optimistic.
Re Tom & Jerry -- has anyone "in the know" said for sure whether this is the 1960s or 1970s Tom & Jerry? (Either way, it would be cool to see the original show openings, closings and interstitials if they can be found. I'm not sure the 1975 Tom & Jerry/Grape Ape and/or Mumbly open/close have ever resurfaced -- I'm sure AH3 would know. I know the syndicated revised "Tom & Jerry Show" intro and close have been seen from time to time, but that's not how it originally was.)
I'm a little bummed that they feel a need to "double dip" with episodes of shows already out on DVD rather than stuff yet to be released at all, but beggers can't be choosers, I guess.
Note, however: Teletoon in Canada has aired some of the WB television shows, notably the old Road Runner show in its original format, with the opening, closing, interstitial clips, and the original versions of the short TV titles with the original audio (a short clip of "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down" from the late 1960s WB cartoons). I'm told at some point in the past, The Bugs Bunny Show was airing on Canadian TV well past the point where those segments would have been chopped up in the US. But if anyone would know, it would be Jerry Beck...and if that material was obtainable, it would have made the DVD collections.
Well it's encouraging to see the image of Squiddly Diddly being used on the press advert as that was originally a segment of The Atom Ant Show, which bodes well for the possibility of complete episodes.
Complete, three-cartoon full shows (with opening and closing credits) for QuickDraw McGraw, Magilla Gorilla, Atom Ant, and Secret Squirrel WOULD be most representative of the true Sat AM experience that WB is trying to sell us…
…I’m just not completely confident in their ability to fully realize this.
Either way, I’ll be there for at least the Sixties volume. Perhaps it may presently surprise me. If not, at least it may encourage them to do more and better next time.
You know what would be cool, even if it would never happen. They should add a few "In the News" and "Time for Timer" segments to really give it that 70s Sat. morning vibe!
I remember a Star Trek animated PSA about polution as well.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation was airing color episodes of The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour at 5 p.m. every Saturday until the late 1970s. These episodes apparently had all of the bridging segments intact in color. It would not surprise me if these elements still exist at the CBC or with Teletoon and other Canadian networks. Wouldn't it be great if all of these episodes could be restored on DVD?
Canada, and particularly Canadian TV, appears to be Warner's blind spot. Maybe it's thought we all live in igloos up here and don't have TV.
26 episodes of The Road Runner Show do exist up here. As does the Merrie Melodies Show from the '70s. As does at least 2 seasons of The Bugs Bunny & Tweety Show. And as does The Bugs Bunny Show in a reassembled 26 episodes (I call it Season 3); MITV/Global in Atlantic Canada aired it in 1994-1995, and Quatre Saisons in Quebec was showing it in French until about 7 years ago. The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour Season 1 was still being shown by Global in Ontario and Manitoba right up until 1984.
Oh, and BTW, that's not an episode of The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour listed on the '70s volume in the TVShowsOnDVD article but Season 2, Show 1 of The Bugs Bunny Show. If it were The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour, it would have 7 cartoons, not 3, and at least 1 Road Runner cartoon.
But if that's so -- then why the reconstructions between B&W and color footage? Unless -- as actually has been suggested in the past -- different factions of the WB companies don't want to play ball with one another.
I'm sure the CBC sent the film elements back to Warner Bros. Canada and wiped its copies as required by contract with Warner. CBC only aired The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour until 1975. After that, it was Global that ran the show. Global likewise probably acted according to contract when broadcasts stopped. I wouldn't be surprised if Warner Canada had all 26 episodes of The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour- Season 1 in addition to The Road Runner Show, Merrie Melodies Show, and even The Bugs Bunny Show (and not just Season 3 but Seasons 1 and 2).
That was the first thing I thought of when I saw this. I am *SO* going to have to re-edit this with some of the old toy and cerial ads I have on DVD. (and yes, I have a couple of In the News and the Time for Timer PSAs).
I would get this for Atom Ant, Secret Squirrel. Are these T&J show the newer ones where they work together and not fight each other? I agree, I don't recall Marine Boy being Saturday morning, it was syndicated on weekday afternoons, just like Speed Racer, Astro Boy, Kimba and the other anime of the 60s.