Warner Home Video now distributing Sesame Workshop DVDs

[minor muppetz]

I feel like this could be either good news or bad news. Warner Bros. has released many comprehensive DVD sets of old cartoons, including the Looney Tunes: Golden Collection sets, the Peanuts decade sets, the Popeye sets, and various Hannah-Barberra box sets. Of course, out of those I only own the Looney Tunes and Peanuts sets, and Warner didn't release any new Popeye sets this year, nor did WHV release any cheaper equivilients to the Looney Tunes: Golden Collection this year (it was announced that Warner would continue releasing smaller Looney Tunes releases without double-dipping), though two of the movies were released with bonus shorts (albeit from the 1980s and 1990s). And in the last year it seems like Warner's collectible DVDs have had less features/ care put into them (the same can probably be said about many big DVD releases regardless of studio). I know that Sesame Workshop has permission to release old Kermit the Frog material, and I hope that the fact that Warner will be releasing the DVDs doesn't affect it (since Warner Bros. is a bigger competitor than Hit! was).

But still, I am confident that Warner Home Video will release some sort of collectors set some day. It would be great if Warner releases an almost even amount of collectors DVDs (for us) and general family/ pre-school-marketed stuff.

By the way, does anybody know what happened to Genius? Genius just got the license three years ago, and now there's another change?

 

[Drtooth]

Wasn't WB the last hold-out on uniform DVD packaging? They used that eyesore flipbox until a year or so ago.

Eye sore, you sore... those things were just flimsy pieces of crap. Doesn't matter how it looks, they made them cheap, the containers were cheap... and I'm sure there were bunches of broken disks there too. All because of that cheap, crappy packaging.

What they've done to their own Luney Tunes collections is almost criminal.

I wouldn't know, since you'd have to be a successful criminal to afford them.

Sorry, but I think Genius did the best job of all, until they dumped their assets on someone else. They were the ONLY ones smart enough to take 2 half hour videos and put them onto a DVD. And I'm sure they encouraged SW to put bonus episodes on there. There was another company that was announced to keep carrying on the Genius label...what the heck happened there?

Here's the thread about the supposed "Acquisition."

 

[Drtooth]

By the way, does anybody know what happened to Genius? Genius just got the license three years ago, and now there's another change?

Genius is or was owned by Weinstine... they're having monetary problems right now, so I don't think they'd be in the financial shape to keep a sub-brand running.

 

[minor muppetz]

Another thing that I've thought of. Warner will be releasing Sesame Workshop DVDs... That should make it no problem for new DVDs of The Electric Company to include Road Runner segments. I hope that Warner will also release Square One.

I sometimes wonder if the distribution companies have much say over the releases of Sesame Workshop videos and DVDs, or if Sesame Workshop actually has full controll.

 

[D'Snowth]

Obviously, SW would have sorted out these kinds of details before hand. Plus, WB only owns the distribution rights.

WB's removed videos from YT before for "copyright infringement", yet never owned the rights to content in the videos, just the distribution rights.

 

[mbmfrog]

OH I am so fuming with rage, as this is the same company that has done barely little with the "Hanna-Barbera characters" besides Distrubtion their old Shows

I mean besides the relaunched of the Scooby-doo franchise, there has been very little done with updating the other Hanna-Barbera shows.

I can see this may not end well if this idea were to go through for all of our sakes.

 

[D'Snowth]

Well, keep in mind Scooby-Doo is pretty much the most popular Hanna-Barbera franchise,

 

[Drtooth]

Well, keep in mind Scooby-Doo is pretty much the most popular Hanna-Barbera franchise,

Also keep in mind that WB sees Scooby Doo like Disney saw Winnie the Pooh. They value it over any other character they own, even bugs and the Looney Tunes.

Even then, Laff-a-lypics being volumes? I don;t think so! Like anyone under the age of 20 cares about half the characters on that show.

 

[BobThePizzaBoy]

Even then, Laff-a-lypics being volumes? I don;t think so! Like anyone under the age of 20 cares about half the characters on that show.

I didn't even know Laff-a-Lypics was even on DVD.

 

[minor muppetz]

Sorry, but I think Genius did the best job of all, until they dumped their assets on someone else. They were the ONLY ones smart enough to take 2 half hour videos and put them onto a DVD.

Though I don't own any of those, I heard that the "double features" were just two-disc releases, with the same content on both. Sort of wasteful, as they should have had more. And recently I've seen some of the same productions on stand-alone DVD releases with Genius packaging (though my local Target has some in two-packs, with seperate packaging for both DVDs... And in some cases the exact same packaging as Sony Wonder releases).

But this news was just announced. We don't know that Warner Bros. won't be smart enough to release two (or more) half-hour videos on one DVD. And wouldn't be great if Warner Bros. treated some of these like the Peanuts specials? I mean, it'd be awesome to have new releases of Christmas Eve on Sesame Street, Big Bird in China, and other classic specials with new documentaries.