More Looney Tunes DVDs coming to DVD in April

[minor muppetz]

It was announced at the golden age cartoons forum that there'll be two new Looney Tunes DVds released in april, I think on the 27th but I could be wrong about the date. Both include only cartoons not available on past "Golden Collection" sets, and are themed around Bugs and Daffy (I forget the exact titles).

This news is exciting, and the Daffy Duck DVD appeals to me more than the Bugs one. After these two releases, if we count them as honorary "Golden Collection" volumes, then there's only one Bugs and Daffy pairing that hadn't been released on DVD yet (Beanstalk Bunny, which I keep forgeting hasn't been released until people mention it), and one Tasmanian Devil cartoon (Bill of Hare).

I can't remember all of the cartoons included on these, but the Bugs volume will include The Million Hare, Mad as a Mars Hare, Bedeviled Rabbit, Dr. Devil and Mr. Hare, Lumber Jack Rabbit, Bushy Hare, and others, while the Daffy Duck one will include Wise Quackers, People are Bunny, Person to Bunny, Ducking the Devil, Suppressed Duck, The Ixceman Ducketh, and others.

These will be part of a new collection of DVDs called "Looney Tunes Super Stars". I would expect most future volumes to focus on main characters.

Hmmm... And Warner has the DVD rights to Sesame Street now... It would be interesting to see "Sesame Street Super Stars" collections, focusing on classic inserts. But this is about the Looney Tunes sets.

 

[Phillip]

Thanks for the update.

It's nice to see an official announcement, since Warners announced in 2008 that they were discontinuing the Golden Collection series after Volume 6 because they had "new DVD" plans for the characters.

I was hoping for year-by-year sets with the premiere of "A Wild Hare" like (Looney Tunes 1940, 1941, etc.) in chronological order. However, it's good to see anything new and unreleased at this point.

 

[Drtooth]

You see... this is what worried me. Overpriced single disk volumes. Warners has been doing nothing but (with the exception of Plastic Man) for the past year or so. I mean, they are planning to put Tom and Jerry Tales in season by season sets... but so far, the Smurfs, the Looney Tunes... even current shows like Batman Brave and the Bold and Chowder... all volumes.

And as far as future SS DVD's are concerned, this worries me. Even if they do give into our fanboy and girl desires and release classic stuff, it could easily be less than an hour of footage for 15 bucks or so... And that stuff really doesn't fly in an era where the DVD is on it's way out. Sure, it worked when they first came out... but not now.

 

[minor muppetz]

I was hoping for year-by-year sets with the premiere of "A Wild Hare" like (Looney Tunes 1940, 1941, etc.) in chronological order. However, it's good to see anything new and unreleased at this point.

Well, I've heard that Warner has a policy of not allowing years to be listed on DVD packaging or original features on it's animation DVDs, though there are exceptions (the Popeye sets, though I hear that's because the character copyright holders demanded it, and the Peanuts specials sets).

 

[minor muppetz]

Well, it's just been announced that the DVDs have been delayed until august. I guess that's a good thing (I have quite a few expenses coming up in the coming weeks). And there are still plans for two more DVDs to come out later this year.

Jerry Beck said in a forum post that he'll explain the reason for the delay next week on some show... I think it was called "Stu's Show" or something.

 

[Drtooth]

As long as the delays are for special features (I'm guessing that's what happened to Johnny bravo), then I guess that's okay. But if it's because they're worried that these won't sell, then they REALLY need to fire the head of their animation home entertainment division and hire someone who actually cares about the product, and not about the "oh so horrible" economy.

 

[minor muppetz]

Well, it was announced that the reason for the delay is because the people in charge originally weren't going to restore certain cartoons, and that some of the restored cartoons had poor results. So I guess Warner changed its mind and delayed the releases so that more time could be spent restoring. I also read that restoring cartoons made after 1953 are less expensive than before, so it looks like Warner might just be releasing cartoons after 1953 for awhile (not sure if this affects the Bugs and Daffy releases... Can't quite remember how many shorts from before 1953 will be on the DVDs, but I think Wise Quackers, which will be on the Daffy Duck DVD, came before that year).

It was also announced that a Foghorn Leghorn DVD will be released as part of the Looney Tunes Super Stars collection later this year, and there will be a special "Bugs Bunny Through the Decades" DVD in the works (I wonder if Warner Bros. has changed its policy about including years on it's animation DVDs).

 

[minor muppetz]

While not too exciting for those who have all of the Golden Collections, there will also be a collection called The Essential Bugs Bunny, a two-disc collection featuring cartoons that belong on a Bugs Bunny set. Disc 1 has 12 classic cartoons, and disc 2 has a number of additional shorts and the television specials How Bugs Bunny Won the West and Bugs Bunny's Wild World of Sports.

A listing can be found here: http://www.dvdaf.com/search.html?re...r2_rel_a*str3_has_essential+bugs+bunny*rgn_us

I don't think I'll be buying this (though the fact that the rare Any Bonds Today will be included does have me tempted). I have all six Golden Collections and this is really meant for casual fans who don't have those sets, but even then it seems like a measley release. Each Golden Collection has 15 remastered cartoons per disc, but the discs on this set won't even have 15 cartoons. Most of the "essential" Bugs Bunny cartoons have been remastered for previous releases, and there are so many cartoons that do belong that WB could easily fit in a lot more than 15 essential Bugs Bunny cartoons on both discs. There are no Taz cartoons listed, and only one classic Yosimite Sam cartoon.

 

[minor muppetz]

Well, they were released today. I haven't found any copies (but then again I only looked for them at two stores), but at the Golden Age Cartoons forum it was said that the post-1953 cartoons are in widescreen even though they were originally released in full frame in theaters (some fans complain that adding widescreen to something that originally wasn't cuts off the top and bottom of the screen).

Jerry Beck, who has worked on many Looney Tunes releases over the years (including the Super Stars sets), was on an online radio show tonight (I think Stu's Show), and I read that on that show he confirmed that these are being released through Warner Home Video's family division as opposed to the entertainment division that worked on the Golden Collections (no big surprise there).

Apparently the next two DVDs in the Super Stars sets will be a Foghorn Leghorn release and a Tweety & Sylvester release. And the Tweety and Sylvester release was announced to be ALL double-dipping (after it was announced long ago that these sets would have no double-dipping of cartoons released by the Golden Collection).

Disappointing news. I'll still buy these, at least the Daffy Duck one (that has many of my favorite Daffy Duck shorts).

 

[Drtooth]

As I said in the SW thread, I really think they should get someo0ne else to go in and do these releases. The only thing they've been good with were a good 75% of the DC comics releases. That said, Legion of Super Heroes and Static Shock have YET to see decent DVD releases.

Yes, a lot of fans are ticked at this, as they should be. I don't know about anyone else, but I HATE kiddy releases of anything. Everything should be in big sets by now. DVD's are almost at the end of their usefulness. Of course, i was never able to get ANY of the older releases do to the high prices... that's clearly what's why they're no longer producing the big sets.

But the problem with Kiddy releases is that no one actually buys them until they hit deep discounted clearances. 10-15 bucks for 4-5 half hour cartoons? That's 1998 thinking.

But there has to be a compromise somewhere. Essential Bugs actually sounds good... but I wish there was some way they could do the same smaller 2 disk releases for all the unreleased cartoons... and some sort of special collector's release of the censored 11 only available online for collectors.