Original Looney Tunes Going Away

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

I just ran across this bad news... Couldn't find the previous Looney posts, so giving it a separate one.

[Frank Angel]

Yeah, so now all those young'ins who poopoo collecting physical media as "old school," and who laugh at those of us who collect our library of beloved films on, you know...film whenever we can or on optical discs, they will understand why I have been saying, like forever, that if you don't have a physical copy of a film in your fat little fingers, then you simply DON'T have it, no matter how many streaming services you subscribe to. I will risk the possibility of disc-rot against the real danger of some idiot 30-something, bean-counting, spreadsheeters at a media conglomerate office somewhere, deciding that no one needs to see Bugs Bunny any more, even tho he's never even seen Bugs or any of those incredible WB characters in a movie theatre on a movie screen.

Buy those BluRays & 4Ks whenever you can before someone decides those are also obsolete.

Side note: And, this will make you tear up a bit -- sometime in the 80s, WB decided to close their short subject division and likewise ordered all the distribution depots around the country to bandsaw their inventories of the WB cartoons -- and get this (wait for it), all of them were IBTech prints! It cost to much to pay to have them stored in those depots and paying for rack space. Luckily, some of the depots, like National Screen in Fort Lee, NJ cuts costs and just dumped them without the buzzsaw...lucky for some film collectors I know.

[Mike Blakesley]

Given what they've done with the classic shorts, combined with what happened with Coyote Vs. Acme, combined with the style of this new Looney Tunes movie, it's clear that they have nobody onboard over there who understands the classics and what they meant to people. I suppose Max is filled with people who think the older Looney Tunes are "offensive."

I've got my Looney Tunes Golden Collection DVDs and my Platinum Collection Blu-Rays, and they are just about to release another series that's going to feature a lot of toons that have never been digitized at all (and others that have never been on BR), so I'll be taking those to my grave with me, I guess.

[Leo Enticknap]

I'm not letting go of my Super 8 copy of Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips, even though I currently don't have a projector to play it on! Something tells me that this won't be available at the click of a mouse on Netflix, Max, or any of the other streamers any time soon...

[Ryan Gallagher]

Yeah the real tragedy is that, unlike physical prints and media, it costs them almost nothing to continue to host the stream friendly digital, especially if no one is streaming them (no bandwidth to pay for).

My guess is there is some middle man charge somewhere, license management, or royalties thing that charges per title or per view to have it hosted for streaming. Talk about having classics nickle and dimed to death.

I get that maybe they want to push other newer content and feel it competes for attention, fine, just make an "archive" section of the platform that is not as exposed to the algorithm or search.

But definitely, if you don't have it in your hands you don't own it. All I have to do is look at my spotify saved playlists to see how true that is, so many tracks greyed out now.

[Mark Ogden]

The ironic thing is that, according to the article, Max is doing this to reduce the amount of children’s content. But as anyone who knows anything about the series knows, Looney Tunes and Merry Melodies were made by and for adults. I think it was Chuck Jones who said “we made them for ourselves,” meaning the producers, writers and artists themselves. While we delighted in them as children, I would have to guess that the audience for them today is largely baby boomers, and perhaps their grandchildren. I just looked for and watched Duck Dodgers in the 24 1/2 Century just a few months back.

[Mike Blakesley]

I paid for a season of the old TV show "Green Acres" on Amazon several years ago, but now it doesn't even show up on my TV Shows menu. What a screw job. It used to say "You own this." Yeah right.

[Tony Bandiera Jr]

I paid for a season of the old TV show "Green Acres" on Amazon several years ago, but now it doesn't even show up on my TV Shows menu. What a screw job. It used to say "You own this." Yeah right.

You can still watch episodes (full seasons) of Green Acres on Youtube, Daahhhling. lol. I am pissed that the BBC "Merlin" series has disappeared completely, again. (all but season one were on the YT movies channel) Including some of the channels who hosted them. Rat bastards.

But it is the greedy bean counters who make these stupid decisions, and I hope that the backlash on the mouse house and snow dark starts a new trend of people letting those idiots know we're fed up with all the bull .

[Frank Cox]

I've got my Looney Tunes Golden Collection DVDs and my Platinum Collection Blu-Rays

You would probably be well advised to rip those disks to an open file format so you can play them on "anything", since I don't imagine physical disk players will be around for much longer, certainly not into the next decades.

[Leo Enticknap]

The ironic thing is that, according to the article, Max is doing this to reduce the amount of children’s content. But as anyone who knows anything about the series knows, Looney Tunes and Merry Melodies were made by and for adults.

They are carefully scripted to contain gags that appeal to all ages, from 18 months to 80, and to all socio-economic backgrounds from high school dropout to PhD. That's why they are so clever. In The Rabbit of Seville, for example, the slapstick and visual jokes can be appreciated by just about everyone, but there are others you won't get if you don't know the Rossini opera or if the homoerotic undertones go over your head. Likewise, Wabbit Twouble can be seen as a straightforward Bugs v. Elmer slugfest, but there is also some Brechtian stuff in it (e.g. when Bugs breaks out of character, faces the camera, and confides in the audience that "I do this to him all through the picture"), and it's also been read as making fun of the greenie/conservationist/environmentalist movement (over half a century before that became fashionable), and contains a couple of shots that are send-ups of iconic Ansel Adams photos. Etc. etc. etc...

[Jim Cassedy]

I paid for a season of the old TV show "Green Acres" on Amazon
several years ago, but now it doesn't even show up on my TV Shows menu.

You can still watch GREEN ACRES on PLUTO TV (free!) I know it's on their schedule
one or more nights a week, or you can watch any episode you want "on demand" anytime.

ArnoldZiffel.jpg

[Mike Blakesley]

You would probably be well advised to rip those disks to an open file format so you can play them on "anything", since I don't imagine physical disk players will be around for much longer,

I have long wished there was some kind of device that you could just load a stack of disks into it, plug in a large capacity external drive, and the device would just go through and rip everything automatically. The idea of loading, ripping and whatever else that would be necessary with my hundreds of DVDs, BluRays and CDs is a daunting thought.

[Ryan Gallagher]

I have long wished there was some kind of device that you could just load a stack of disks into it, plug in a large capacity external drive, and the device would just go through and rip everything automatically. The idea of loading, ripping and whatever else that would be necessary with my hundreds of DVDs, BluRays and CDs is a daunting thought.

Closest thing I know of would be one of those CDR duplication towers, but load it up with Blu-ray players, assuming it exposes them all to the OS, script the ripping in matched of 8 or 10. But a lot of outlay for a one time conversion effort.

i expect PC Blu-ray players will be on the market far longer than media players will, so we have a bit more time than imagined I would hope.

[Frank Angel]

hey are carefully scripted to contain gags that appeal to all ages, from 18 months to 80, and to all socio-economic backgrounds from high school dropout to PhD. That's why they are so clever. In The Rabbit of Seville, for example, the slapstick and visual jokes can be appreciated by just about everyone, but there are others you won't get if you don't know the Rossini opera or if the homoerotic undertones go over your head.

And The Rabbit of Seville is one of the IBTech WB titles that was dumpstered way back when at the National Theatre Service depot...but, happily saved. And no matter how many times it's played, all you need to do is hear the audience reaction to know how damn good that 8 minutes of fun really is. At kids shows, the kids scream with delight; at all-adult screenings full of serious cinephiles -- same damn reaction!

And Frank, I have to agree with Ryan that hardware may linger longer than we might imagine. Look at CDs which certainly have become so marginalized that they are no longer in cars or PCs. Yet, they still seem readily available from Panasonic, Sony, LG, and a slew of Chinese brands. And then look at turntables -- still around after all these years (and at outrageous prices too). Then again, 3D TVs,,,nowhere to be found -- a curse on both their houses (LG and Samsung for that ).

[Mike Blakesley]

I don't understand why WB can't seem to do something with the Looney Tunes that is successful. The characters are among the most beloved in animation history. Yet all the feature films they've done have either been middling performers or outright flops.

What could they do to juice up a movie and get people to go to it?

I'm thinking they need to tone down the wackyness, go more for the sophistication they had in the 1940s. At least, that's what I always hope for in any new thing of theirs that comes along, and I'm always disappointed.

They need to re-watch all the Chuck Jones Road Runner shorts and make a new one that doesn't look like it's on fast-forward. And put some damn explosions in it. It's not as funny if the coyote just falls all the time.