April 24, 2025 • 62 mins
Now available for Amazon pre-order: Looney Tunes Collector's Vault Vol. 1
George Feltenstein of the Warner Archive and animation historian Jerry Beck introduce the Looney Tunes Collector's Vault, Volume 1, featuring 50 beautifully restored in High Definition classic cartoons across two discs. Hear directly from the two men who curated this collection about what makes this new Blu-ray series of cartoons for collectors the logical next step in their ongoing attempts to bring all of the Looney Tunes cartoons to HD.
• Evolution from single-disc Collector's Choice to the two-disc Collector's Vault format, offering twice the content for just a few dollars more
• Disc One features 24 cartoons never before included in a Warner Brothers cartoon collection in remastered form
• Disc Two presents 25 classic character cartoons making their HD/Blu-ray debut
• Stunning restoration quality, particularly visible in 1934's "Beauty and the Beast" in two-color Cinecolor
• Chuck Jones' "Good Night Elmer" reveals beautiful lighting and color work previously impossible to appreciate
• Complete alphabetical listing of all 50 cartoons spanning from 1934 to 1963
• Announcement that Looney Tunes Platinum Collections 1 & 2 will be returning to print in June at reasonable prices
• Confirmation that Collector's Vault Volume 2 is already in development
Official release scheduled for June 17th.
DISC ONE-25 all never before included remastered in any DVD or Blu-ray Looney Tunes collection:
BARS AND STRIPES FOREVER (1939)
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (1934)
A DAY AT THE ZOO (1939)
THE DIXIE FRYER (1960)
DOUBLE OR MUTTON (was on LTCC V. 4)
EACH DAWN I CROW (1949)
EASY PECKIN’S (1953)
FEATHER DUSTED (1955)
FOX IN A FIX (1951)
GOOD NIGHT ELMER (1940)
THE GOOFY GOPHERS (1947)
I'D LOVE TO TAKE ORDERS FROM YOU (1936)
KIDDIES KITTY, A (1955)
LET IT BE ME (1936)
OF FOX AND HOUNDS (1940)
QUACKODILE TEARS (1962)
READY, WOOLEN AND ABLE (1960)
ROBIN HOOD MAKES GOOD (1939)
SQUAWKIN' HAWK, THE (1942)
TERRIER-STRICKEN (1952)
TWEET AND LOVELY (1959)
TWEETY'S CIRCUS (1955)
TWO'S A CROWD (1950)
WILD ABOUT HURRY (1959)
ZIP 'N SNORT (1961)
DISC TWO-25 all never before included remastered in HD as part of any Blu-ray Looney Tunes collection:
AIN’T SHE TWEET (1952)
BANTY RAIDS (1963)
BIRTH OF A NOTION (1947)
BYE BYE BLUEBEARD (1949)
CAT-TAILS FOR TWO (1953)
DAFFY DILLY (1948)
DAFFY DUCK AND EGGHEAD (1938)
GEE WHIZ-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z (1956)
GONZALES’ TAMALES (1957)
HARE CONDITIONED (1945)
HARE TRIGGER (1945)
HARE TRIMMED (1953)
HORTON HATCHES THE EGG (1942)
LITTLE BOY BOO (1954)
MUCH ADO ABOUT NUTTING (1953)
ODOR-ABLE KITTY (1945)
PAST PERFUMANCE (
REVIEW - THE DAY THE EARTH BLEW UP: A LOONEY TUNES MOVIE with Tim Millard, host of The Extras Podcast.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Tim Millard (00:05):
Hello and welcome to the Extras.
I'm Tim Allard, your host, andI'm very excited because today,
george Feltenstein of the WarnerArchive and animation historian
Jerry Beck are here to talkabout the Looney Tunes
Collector's Vault, volume 1cartoons.
Hi guys, hey, hey, tim.
Hi guys, hey, hey Tim.
(00:29):
Now, George, you were on andannounced a while back that this
release was coming out, butthis is the first that the fans
get to know what the actualcartoon shorts are, so I'm very
excited for today's discussion.
So how
George Feltenstein (00:41):
Well, I think it's important to say that
we know that any day now, theactual pre-orders will not every
retailer or online e-teller, asyou might want to say.
(01:13):
They don't always list thecontents, even if we ask them to
, so that's why I put it on theFacebook page yesterday.
That's why we're talking withyou today, which is always a
pleasure and there's a lot offun to talk about here.
We're very excited about thisnew chapter because I think it's
appropriate at this point todiscuss why we made this
(01:36):
migration from Collector'sChoice, which was a single disc,
to Collector's Vault.
There was a lot of confusionaround that, and both Jerry and
I lamented the fact that, whileCollector's Choice was working
really well, we weren't gettingan opportunity to address the
(01:57):
hundreds literally hundreds ofgreat cartoons that were
remaining in standard definitionin home media, and we wanted to
take the opportunity to givethose titles the needed quality
upgrade, while also continuingto mine the deeper depths of the
(02:21):
Looney Tunes and Merry Melodieslibrary.
So hence, two discs forbasically just a few more
dollars.
You get twice the amount ofcartoons, and I think this is
going to be an ongoing series.
We are basically planning tostart work on volume two as we
(02:43):
speak planning to start work onvolume two as we speak and it
should be very rewarding forfans and that's what Jerry and I
have always aspired to in allof our animated endeavors.
Tim Millard (02:54):
Yeah, George, I think when we spoke and you
announced it, one way to kind ofhelp fans understand this
evolution from one single discin the collector's choice to
this two disc now series is thatthat first disc is kind of like
a continuation of what you weredoing on the collector's choice
(03:16):
.
Do I have that right?
George Feltenstein (03:18):
Exactly, Disc one of Collector's Vault is
basically Collector's ChoiceVolume 5.
That's what it would be and Ithink in retrospect, you know we
really like the nameCollector's Vault.
But people were a little bitput off by the fact that you
(03:44):
know, we use so many differentnames for these different
collections.
There's Golden Collection andPlatinum Collection and there's
Collector's Choice.
Now Collector's Vault and theSuperstars.
How can I keep track of all ofit?
And that's not an invalidquestion.
It is a very valid question.
We made this migration andthat's one of the reasons we're
(04:08):
delighted to have theopportunity to speak with you
today so that people can hearthat Collector's Choice Volume 5
is the first disc of this.
We couldn't even put an AKA onthe label if we were completely,
you know, obsessive about it,but I think it's fine the way it
(04:31):
is.
But we really want to clarifythat we have two missions with
this series to mine discs thathaven't been available on DVD or
Blu-ray in remastered form aspart of a Warner Brothers
cartoon collection, and then thesecond disc is all cartoons
(04:58):
that have never been part of aWarner Brothers cartoon
collection in HD before, andthere's a little caveat to that.
I try to add animated cartoonsto our classic film releases,
and have been doing so for quitesome time, in order to try to
(05:18):
recreate the theatricalmovie-going experience of the
30s or 40s or 50s.
And there are some of thesecartoons that have been used as
special features on a Blu-rayrelease and say, oh well, that
doesn't count.
Well, that's not what this isabout and it's almost two
different consumers, because theanimation collector isn't
(05:39):
necessarily the classic filmcollector.
There are people like Jerry andmyself who happen to like both,
but there are other people thatlive in other preferences and
we want to try to keep the focuson putting as much of the
Warner Brothers animated classiccartoon library in accessible
(06:02):
form as possible.
And I will take this opportunityto have a little bit of a
bombshell piece of news thatwill not be courtesy of the
Warner Archive, but it will becoming from the greater.
We of Warner Brothers FilmEntertainment.
Looney Tunes Platinum 1 and 2are going to be back in print at
(06:23):
a reasonable price, and thatwill be back in print at a
reasonable price, and that willbe happening in June, around the
same time this happens.
So a headline that will sendpeople running to their forums
to talk about that.
But those discs are going backin print at reasonable prices so
all the scalpers are out ofluck and people will finally be
(06:45):
able to get.
I have been begging mycolleagues to put them back in
print and finally they are, sodigressing a little bit, but
that's a huge piece of news forlots of people that never got
their chance to get those.
Volume three has remained inprint all this time.
So there's lots of great WarnerBrothers cartoon news coming
(07:07):
from Warner Brothers today.
Tim Millard (07:09):
Well, that's fantastic.
I don't know how many posts.
I'm sure you see themconstantly.
Please tell George to reissuethese.
You know Platinum Collection.
I'm like I'm sure that Georgeis doing everything he can, but
there's a whole big companythere.
George Feltenstein (07:24):
It took many years trying to get people to
focus and I said, please, thesepeople are like having to pay
outrageous prices for usedcopies.
Please, there's no reason forthem not to be in print.
And because of how we arereorganized here, there was a
time where I could do this allmyself and I had the wherewithal
(07:47):
to do it.
Now things are more.
More people are involved in theprocess, so I can't just make
these decisions on my own.
So I'm very persistent inrequesting things and finally it
has come to pass, and that'swhat we should look at.
Tim Millard (08:07):
And it's such a signal of how popular those were
.
And I think this to come backto our conversation today this
new Vault series is going tohave that same kind of
popularity, but why don't wedive into that first disc?
And, jerry, maybe you want todive into the conversation here
and tell us something aboutthese uh shorts that you and
(08:29):
George selected for this release.
Jerry Beck (08:33):
Well, I mean, I, I, I want to reiterate what George
was saying about, um, uh, the,the concept of, of the
collector's choice, and volumeone here on the collector's
vault, um, which, which is thatand it's perfect that the
Platinum Collection is comingout at the same time.
When we do these things, atleast in the past, when we do
(08:56):
these things, when we're comingout with the first DVDs, we're
coming out with the firstBlu-rays, the thing we've got to
do is put out the A, theabsolutely most requested B,
absolute classics, acknowledgedclassic cartoons, and so we've
(09:17):
done that.
And so the Collectors series iswhere we do deep dives, we do
the ones that wouldn't be onwhen we initially go to Blu-ray
or something like that.
Now we're going really, reallydeep and, of course, these are
at this point, if you've beencollecting and many people are
(09:39):
these are the ones you want.
You want these ones that wehaven't seen otherwise, ones
that haven't shown up anywhereelse.
In some cases, there'sdefinitely a few cartoons on
here that are there.
In some ways they're remastered, premiere.
This is the only place you canget this cartoon and restored
(10:02):
and looking beautiful.
And so, that said, that's thepoint Once we were going along
with the collector's choice, wesuddenly realized that most, if
not all, of the best you knowBugs Bunnies and Daffy Ducks
we've put them out.
(10:22):
I mean there's a lot and there'smore to do, but the real creme
de la creme are clearlyshowcased earlier.
So these sets.
So we definitely had to expandwhat we were doing with
Collector's Choice in the Vaultseries.
(10:42):
The new series that we're doingwith Collector's Choice in the
Vault series, the new seriesthat we're doing so that we
could include the Bugs Bunniesand Daffy Ducks and major name
characters that might havealready come out on DVD but,
surprisingly, were never onBlu-ray.
And so we had to figure out.
It didn't quite fit with whatwe were doing with Collector's
(11:04):
Choice.
The Vault series opens it up,opens the vault more so that we
can debut more things at thebest possible quality and so
that you could watch themanytime you want.
So that's my initial statement.
How do we begin talking aboutsome of these titles?
(11:25):
What do you want to do?
George Feltenstein (11:26):
well, I think we should first talk about
disc one and and some of thereal crown jewels.
I mean you span from the 1930sto the 1960s.
So yeah, a nice variety ofstyles, directors, characters
(11:50):
characters.
Jerry Beck (11:50):
Yes, well, I mean, I mean, we reviewed the set um
the other day and, uh, I'll behonest, the one that blew me
away completely I mean reallyblew me away is the cartoon with
the least color in it.
And what do I mean by that?
Beauty and the beast?
A 1934?
Um, I believe it's 19.
Yeah, 1934.
Mary melody, one of the firstin color.
I believe it's 1934, yeah, 1934.
Mary Melody, one of the first incolor.
I believe it's Cinecolor.
It is Cinecolor and it's kindof blue and red shades and the
(12:14):
restoration on this thing isgorgeous.
I mean, I've never seen it likethis.
When you look at it like this,you feel like you're in 1934.
Color cartoons are new.
And, wow, what a unique thingyou're looking at on the screen,
not just the film itself.
I've seen the film before.
It usually looks pretty funkybecause throughout the years the
(12:38):
prints that went to televisionhave faded Things.
Oh my gosh, restored on this.
It almost looks like a directorof today cleverly intentionally
just wanted to use two colors.
That's how it looks to me.
It looks like an artisticstatement.
George Feltenstein (12:55):
And just for historic background for those
who are listening watching thispodcast, this podcast Walt
Disney had a three-yearexclusive deal with Technicolor
on the patent for three-colorTechnicolor, starting with
Flowers and Trees, in 1932,which prevented anybody else
(13:18):
from using Technicolor for theircartoons.
So when the decision was madeto make Merry Melodies in color,
warner Brothers didn't have theopportunity to use the
three-color Technicolor processuntil 1935.
So you have a bunch of cartoonsthat are quite good but that
are limited to that two-colorprocess.
(13:40):
And I agree with Jerry, when welooked at it yesterday it was
like wow, I've never seenCineColor look this good.
Oh yeah, coming from thenegative makes a big difference.
Jerry Beck (13:52):
This particular cartoon.
I don't have the story behindit, I can only speculate.
But it wasn't the first color aMary Melody cartoon.
But for whatever reason and I'mand I'll speculate on why, but
for whatever reason, they put alittle extra effort in this film
in particular and even in themarketing of it.
(14:13):
Now, that's the thing I nevertalk about.
What do you mean?
The marketing?
The marketing of one solo,individual cartoon.
But if you go on line and youlook, you'll see that there was
two things that are unique thatwere put out for this cartoon
that no other cartoon I canthink of has, from the Warner
Brothers cartoons, and that'sthey tried to.
(14:34):
They marketed the theme song init, beauty and the Beast, the
song in it.
There's sheet music that's outwith the characters from the
cartoon, out with the charactersfrom the cartoon.
There's very rare, very fewWarner Brothers cartoons that
have sheet music connected to it.
In fact, I don't know of anyspecific other cartoon other
than I think they did.
(14:54):
I taught a putty tat thatTweety and Sylvester, I mean,
that's really it.
And the other one was they putout a coloring book.
There's a Mary Melodiescoloring book, but it's all from
this cartoon.
All the pictures in it are fromBeauty and the Beast, even the
cover.
So wow, I think what was goingon was the Three Little Pigs was
(15:17):
such a sensation at Disney andthe sheet music and
merchandising off of a shortcartoon that was very rare back
then.
I mean, I'm talking about, ifit's not a character like Mickey
Mouse or, you know, a characterfrom one of the cartoons, like,
later on, porky Pig.
So I think there was a realeffort by all the studios to do
(15:41):
something like that.
This was the Warner Brothersone.
I actually know of otherexamples from the same year from
Terry Tunes and other studioswhere they attempted to market a
song that was in the cartoonoriginal to the cartoon Very
rare, very unusual and now it'sbeen restored and it's a special
cartoon.
George Feltenstein (16:02):
And people wouldn't know that unless they
heard what Jerry just had to say, because that is not the kind
of thing that has beenextrapolated upon in the few
reference books, includingJerry's own.
That's an important littlefactoid, and that's why digging
(16:25):
a little deeper into thisplethora of thousand plus
cartoons is so exciting.
Tim Millard (16:32):
Now you have 25 cartoons on disc one, and the
way you listed them on theFacebook page, George, is that
the order alphabetical thatthey'll also be accessible on
disc.
George Feltenstein (16:44):
We decided to go alphabetical with volume
two of Collector's Choice ratherthan chronological, because it
also makes for a better viewingexperience.
If you're going to hit thatplay all button, you don't
really know what's coming next,and I think that's part of the
(17:05):
fun.
And if you don't particularlycare for a particular character
or a particular director forwhatever reason, if you don't
love all of them, you just clickand skip to the next cartoon.
But it makes it a lot more funthat way and we got a lot of
really positive response to theCollector's Choice Volume 2 for
(17:29):
having done that.
So we've carried that forwardon the first and second discs of
this first volume and I thinkit's terrific.
I really am very pleased westumbled upon it because it
wasn't calculated, it justseemed like a good idea.
Jerry Beck (17:54):
Yeah, and in this particular set is this very
interesting, because there's alot of cartoons without
characters that were carried onone shots.
I guess we'd say it's got someunusual cartoons that wouldn't
have made the sets, the previousones, because you know, they're
not the big directors of noteor certain other aspects to them
, and I mean it's beautiful.
(18:17):
Actually it's quite thehodgepodge, but it's beautiful.
You know, if you love Warnercartoons, sit back and relax.
Everything is here.
I'm looking over the list rightnow and you tell me when.
I mean I can tell you somethinginteresting, probably about
each one.
Tim Millard (18:37):
Well, I think you should do that Well why don't we
run down some of them at least?
You already mentioned Beautyand the Beast, and that's the
second one on this squad and theoldest in this collection, uh,
including both discs.
So, uh, I'm gonna.
I'm gonna be tempted to skipright to it because of what you
just said.
Uh, jerry, but I won't.
(18:58):
I'm gonna watch bars andstripes forever, from 1939.
That's the first one, right?
Jerry Beck (19:04):
yeah, that's a, that's a, uh, an interesting
miscellaneous cartoon directedby ben hardaway ben hardaway,
cal dalton and it's, and it's,uh, they didn't do many cartoons
.
They were.
They were actually thesubstitute for, for his freeling
.
That was that, uh, that periodwhen freeling went over to mgGM
(19:26):
for like a year, and so Hardawayand Dalton cobbled their
cartoons together.
I think Leon noticed thedifference.
Again, from my point of viewthey're really interesting.
The character designs aredifferent.
They tackle different subjectsthat they kind of didn't do.
This one's all about prison.
It's gags, about prison life.
(19:47):
You know, I don't know if the,if everybody watching back then
was familiar with that, thatlife, but um, you know, and by
the way, the story goes that uh,selestinger, after about a year
, like basically called freelingup and was like is there any
way I can get you back?
And that was the day thatFreeling basically had had it at
MGM and was wondering what hewas going to say to Leon to get
(20:10):
his job back.
And that's what happened.
And, by the way, all of thatabout leaving and getting your
job back, that was reflected ina very famous cartoon that we
know, a cartoon that we love,probably the first one Freeling
did when he got back to WarnerBrothers.
You Ought be in pictures it'snot on this set, but you know,
that's the live action animationone that, uh, supposedly the
(20:33):
story idea on that came from,from freeling himself you know,
so, um, the third cartoon on theset is the first of uh one, the
brand new remasters, a greatTex Avery cartoon, a Day at the
Zoo.
This one is definitely one.
I have to tell you that peoplehave reached out to me and said
(20:56):
what about this one?
And I think that's probablytrue of most of the Averys that
we haven't put out yet.
He did a lot of miscellaneouscartoons in color in the late
30s for Warner Brothers, and youknow the problem from another
(21:16):
point of view, from themarketing past ways that we've
done this, is that a lot of themdon't feature Daffy Duck, porky
Pig, bugs Bunny or any of thefamous characters.
They're pretty much what wecall one-off or one-shot kind of
thing.
This one is part of his seriesthat he did that were sort of
(21:37):
like little documentaries.
They were sort of making fun ofother shorts that were in the
theater at that time, like aPete Smith short.
You know what I mean.
A Day at the Zoo, look at thistheater at that time.
Like a Pete Smith short.
You know what I mean.
A Day at the Zoo, look at this,look at that.
But he takes it even further,as only Avery could, and you
know this was definitely a thingand these cartoons got a lot of
(21:58):
notoriety.
It's sort of forgotten today,but they got a lot of press
because they were unusual.
Disney didn't do cartoons withnarrators, you know.
Back then you know they weredoing more character-driven
stuff.
Avery was doing more gag-drivenstuff and it was noticed.
(22:19):
You know it was one of thosethings that made the Warner
Brothers cartoons unique.
Last thing I'll say therequickly is just that I was
mentioning how it's sort of atakeoff of some of the other
shorts.
That's what Avery did.
Avery was doing takeoffs notonly of live action shorts like
sports, you know, the littlesports one-reelers and little
(22:44):
other things.
He did where there was spoofsof fairy tales.
That was, you know, averymaking fun of the other cartoon
studios that were doing fairytale stuff.
I always look at Avery'scartoons from that period.
He was he was the mad magazineof the 1930s, you know.
Uh, if somebody was doingsomething, they did a cartoon
(23:05):
around it.
It wasn't just Avery, but Averywas the leader.
He's the guy who did it first.
George Feltenstein (23:11):
And I think it ties in very well because
Warner Brothers short subjectdepartment, live action, was a
massive operation In the 30s.
They had two studios there wasthe Brooklyn studio and then
there was the home office studio, each having a production unit
(23:35):
for all sorts of short subjects,and only a fraction of those
are viewable today in anyfashion today in any fashion.
We've put very few of them outin home video, unfortunately,
and if you see some of them popup on TCM, you're looking at a
videotape that's at least 35years old.
(23:57):
It's a whole other portion ofour library that needs triage
and attention and happily I canreport that a lot of those are
being restored and preserved.
As Warner Brothers Discoveryhas increased the budget for
(24:18):
preservation and restoration,which is something a lot of
people don't know, and I'mgrateful to the company for
doubling down on seeing theimportance of preserving our
library.
So, who knows?
We may be talking about newshort subjects, compilations on
future episodes of the Extras,but the fact that we get to show
(24:41):
these cartoons that, as you say, I mean Detouring America, is
another one that I think of asone of the most famous suits of
shorts, and I don't thinkanybody did it better than Tex,
but we could do a whole you know200 hours talking about.
Tim Millard (24:57):
Tex.
Well, shall we jump to the nextone here, the Dixie Friars.
Jerry Beck (25:03):
That's one of those.
I think that's one of thosePappy and Elvis cartoons.
That's two.
What animals are they?
I guess they're roosters too.
Anyway, I'm sorry I don't havethat in my head right now, but
those are McKimpson more ruralantics with Foghorn Leghorn in
that cartoon, and they're fun.
Yeah, with Foghorn Leghorn inthat cartoon.
George Feltenstein (25:24):
And they're fun.
Yeah, one of the things that Iwanted to talk about because
it's something that I foundrevelatory and Jerry and I
experienced this yesterday.
We just got the first the testdiscs yesterday and we watched
all of them.
This is a tradition that Jerryand I have that goes back to the
(25:46):
very first.
We were doing things way beforethis, but the first Golden
Collection in 2003, when I gotthe first Tesk DVDs, jerry came
over to my house and he hadn'tseen any of the work and it was.
I was much more focused onwatching his reaction to the
(26:08):
restorations, which now I lookat and say, oh my God, they look
terrible, because 20 years agothe technology was what it was,
but at the time it wasrevelatory.
Tim Millard (26:19):
Oh yeah.
George Feltenstein (26:20):
Jerry's reaction level to any of these
restorations has always been apersonal treat for me to see his
reaction when he sees the finalproduct.
Yesterday we were looking at acartoon that Jerry doesn't
particularly care for, but he'schanged his opinion now due to
(26:40):
the gorgeous restoration that'sGoodnight Elmer, directed by
Chuck Jones.
Jerry Beck (26:46):
Goodnight Elmer.
Restoration.
That's good night elmer.
Directed by chuck jones.
Good night elmer.
Uh, on my list of notinterested, uh, because it's
essentially a live action short,meaning it's all about elmer
fudd trying to go to sleep,trying to close his window.
There's literally nothing in it.
I think that that needed to beanimated.
It was.
It could have been an EdgarKennedy short.
I mean, it's really, it's thatkind of and the animation is
(27:10):
well, that's the thing.
And of course, I've only seenit.
You know what I call Channel 5prints, which are 16 millimeter
prints, faded Purple, scratchedup cue marks.
When you see it in color, holymackerel, I didn't realize.
I never.
I mean, it's just beautiful,beautiful, the lighting, the
(27:31):
color to get the effect ofmiddle of the night.
It's really.
I mean, it's a treat to watch.
I understand why I didn't likeit before.
You know it's 100% improved,being remastered.
So you know, good night Elmer.
You know, good morning Elmer.
Tim Millard (27:55):
And you've said that before, george Jerry,
you've said that before on otherLooney Tunes collector's choice
releases where we talked aboutthem that when you saw this
remaster in HD it waseye-opening to you to see.
Jerry Beck (28:12):
I mean people like George and I and many of my
animator friends we watchedgrowing up.
On TV we would watch the samecartoons over and over and over.
We studied them.
You know, I wrote a book anddescribed every.
So.
We've seen all of these many,many, many, many times.
And then one day I'll go backfurther, george, one day.
(28:36):
I remember that George wasinvolved with transferring 35
millimeter prints for LaserDiscright, that's right.
Prints for laser disc right,right.
And just seeing a 35 millimetertransfer, yeah, jaw dropping,
you know.
And now, if we look back atthat, it it doesn't, it won't
rock your boat, but, but, but atthe time it was to me
(29:00):
revelatory.
And then then, then, george,now, with the warn Warner
Brothers going back to theoriginal negatives, where it
looks like it was shot yesterday, like it's brand new.
I mean, you know, I am so happy, I'm so happy to have lived so
long to see this.
You know, it's amazing.
George Feltenstein (29:21):
I mean we're very fortunate in that I can
think of very few.
First of all, all of the WarnerBrothers cartoons exist, the
commercially released, producedcartoons.
None of them are lost.
Can't say that about certainother characters at certain
other studios.
(29:42):
They all exist.
Almost all of them exist intheir original negative as well.
There are very few that havesource element problems.
There are a couple, and some ofthem we've tackled to the best
of our ability or five ownersbefore it came back home.
(30:11):
It was a 40-year journey fromthe time that Jack and the
Brothers sold the pre-'48cartoons and pre-'49 features in
1956.
And it wasn't until Time Warnerbought Turner in 1996 that
finally the Warner BrothersLibrary was reunited.
And the fact that all of theseoriginal negatives have survived
(30:35):
that huge journey between threeor four owners over 40 years
and then coming back here forsafety, it's really a great
blessing.
We're very fortunate and wekeep going back to make things
(30:56):
better.
Technology has improved so muchsince I mean Jerry's right when
we were doing the, when I wasworking at MGM and we did the
Laserdisc releases, there hadbeen one-inch videotape
transfers made off of35-millimeter Technicolor prints
(31:18):
and we went just nuts becausewe were used to seeing them from
16-millimeter sources andmeanwhile a 35 millimeter
Technicolor print is going to besoft.
It's a very poor choice for anelement to work from in
mastering unless that's all youhave.
But nobody thought you could goback to the original negatives
(31:43):
at that point and it's reallyonly until the last few years
where we can deal with originalnegatives with some form of
safety, because in scanning thefilm never touches nothing, ever
touches the sprocket holes andthere is such care taken in the
(32:03):
scanning process and that's whywe are allowed and able to make
these scans for preservation, aswell as having film backup
elements, which is in my opinion, essential, because to have
analog film backup on everycartoon is essential because you
(32:28):
never know what's going tohappen in the world of digital.
So having something physicallyas an asset is terribly
important to the protection ofthe film.
But the quality of all of theseI mean we were watching, we went
through both discs for most ofthe day yesterday and we were
just delighted with how greateverything looked and how
(32:52):
everything sounded and it'ssomething to be really excited
about, mostly because we know weare among the fans.
We are the fans of thesecartoons.
We are part of that group.
You know this is what we do fora living, but it just happens
(33:13):
to be that we are also theconsumers.
You know, I don't just in mycollection, have our library, I
go out and buy other things madeby other companies that are
from other studios, because I'mpassionately dedicated to my
love of film and especiallyclassic film.
But we know what the consumerwants and we put these things
(33:41):
together and always have well,what would we want to see, have
well, what would we want to see.
And this has been kind of whathas united our work together for
many, many years.
And we met each other going to16 millimeter film collector
conventions in New Jersey, youknow, many, many years ago,
(34:04):
before we were in the industry,because that's how we got to see
cartoons in those days, asidefrom on television, was by
trying to get 16 millimeter usedprints.
And we still collect film,although I haven't put film in a
projector in over a decade, soI can't say I'm an active
(34:24):
collector anymore.
But for years, you know, Iwould love having people over
and putting a cartoon in aprojector and having people go
crazy because there was no otherway for people to see the
cartoons for a couple of yearsand then, of course,
videocassettes started to beprogressive.
(34:45):
I know we tried to do that atMGMUA with the Cartoon Movie
Star series.
Warner Home Video, before Iworked here, had the Golden
Jubilee cassettes, which wereterrific because they were put
together with a little bit ofintelligence and curation.
And when I got to MGMUA theyhad been putting out some pre-48
(35:07):
cartoons without anyintelligence or creation and the
most ridiculous titles andmarketing them for little
children.
So we needed to clarify thatthese are animated motion
pictures that were made foradults and perfectly appropriate
for the children who alsohappen to be in the theater, and
(35:29):
we've always wanted these filmsto be respected.
The same way I'm quoting Jerryhere.
You need to respect these films.
The same way you quote, werespect Gone with the Wind or
Singing in the Rain orCasablanca.
It's that important.
And people have always beendemeaning towards classic
(35:49):
animation as, oh, it's cartoons,it's for kids.
There are people I encounter inday-to-day life who think I'm a
little crazy because I lovewatching classic animation.
I'm not crazy.
I see the genius that went intothe great works.
And that's not saying thatevery classic cartoon or old
(36:11):
cartoon is great.
There are some that just aren't.
We happen to be very fortunatein that the emphasis at Warner
Brothers on animation was onboth artistic quality, animation
quality and, most importantly,humor.
Warner Brothers cartoons arefunny and they probably are the
(36:32):
funniest and I'd also put TexAvery MGM cartoons and Tom and
Jerry Golden Era cartoons inthat group as well.
In terms of theatricalanimation.
I don't think anybody else cantouch those.
In terms of humor, some othercartoons are really beautiful to
look at, but they're notnecessarily funny.
Tim Millard (36:55):
Well, we've gotten through like four cartoons guys.
George Feltenstein (37:00):
We're not going to go through every one.
We can't talk about all 50cartoons.
Tim Millard (37:05):
No, we can't.
Jerry Beck (37:07):
I mean, I can point out some things maybe.
Tim Millard (37:11):
Why don't you just look through that list and Jerry
or George and pull out a fewthat you think are worth a
couple minutes mention orbackground?
Jerry Beck (37:22):
Boy, oh boy.
One I want to at least mentionis a real oddity, which is
Quackadile Tears from 1962, oneof the later ones, one cartoon
(37:42):
of Arthur Davis, who haddirected some great ones in the
late 40s and then became ananimator under Frizz Freeling.
After that the powers that beat Warner's eliminated that unit
.
That was like a fourth unit.
And then the rest of the WarnerBrothers cartoons from that
(38:03):
point on were McKimson Jones andFreeling.
But in the early 60s, whenWarner's was doing the Bugs
Bunny show, the major directorsMcKimson Jones and Freeling were
on top of it.
They had to direct theinterstitials, they had to make
it be primoed because it wasgoing to be on TV and everyone
(38:25):
was going to see it.
And so during that weird periodin the early 60s, a lot of the
animators who were not directorsgot elevated up for one or two
cartoons, you know, at thatperiod.
What's interesting is that thisone was Arthur Davis.
(38:46):
He was a director not only atWarner's, doing some really
great, hilarious Daffy Duckcartoons and the Goofy Gophers.
And the Goofy Gophers which wehave on here, which is on this
set, that's right.
And he was also a director,believe it or not, at Columbia
Pictures you know, like theLittle Match Girl, the Color
(39:07):
Rhapsodies of that period.
He did a lot of those things.
That was in his early days.
Plus it's a great littlecartoon with, you know, daffy
Duckjorie, Maine voice that shedoes for the wife.
George Feltenstein (39:35):
You know.
Anyway, it's good stuff.
Well, I want to talk about acartoon that's on disc two.
That has always been one of myfavorites Hair Condition, and
this is Bugs Bunny in thedepartment store going against
the Great Gildersleeve.
The store manager sounds verymuch like the actor Harold Peary
(39:58):
, who was on the radio as theGreat Gildersleeve.
You know, going so fast, eh,little chum.
You know, there are certainlines and catchphrases in these
cartoons where people know theline or catchphrase but they
don't know what the cartoon isfrom Right and what line the
cartoon is from.
And I think that this is acartoon that everybody knows.
(40:20):
Once they see it, they'llrecognize it.
The way Warner Brothers wasable to make verbal puns over
the use of the word hair thetitles is second to none, I
think, and so many of myfavorite buzz cartoons have hair
in the title.
You know, um, water, water,every hair, that's not on this
(40:43):
set, but um, I mean, I couldthink of so many of them, but
that's one that I really, reallylove.
And we also have birth of anotion with daffy, which has
always been one of my favoritecartoons, and the fact that
these have not been on blu-raybefore is shocking right, it's
what you got on on disc two.
Jerry Beck (41:03):
Uh, says the story.
Because there are a lot ofclassics on disc two, classics
that are either standalone orthey feature major characters.
And if we were continuing thecollector's choice set, we would
not be putting these out onBlu-ray, at least not right now.
It wouldn't have happened.
We would not be putting theseout on Blu-ray at least not
(41:25):
right now, it wouldn't havehappened.
This format change allows us toget Porky's, duck Hunt, horton
Hatches, the Egg, on and on andon.
Great, great classic LooneyTunes on this particular disc,
and very happy to have these onBlu-ray.
(41:46):
Finally.
George Feltenstein (41:49):
Yes on this particular disc and, uh, very
happy to have these on blu-rayfinally, yes, and it's been a
long time coming, because if youthink about the space between
the last release of platinum,which I believe was over 10
years ago, uh, there wasbasically 10 years where there
were no warner brothers cartoonsgetting remastered and coming
out in high definition onBlu-ray.
You know, we weren't allowed totouch Looney Tunes or other
(42:16):
bigger franchises within WarnerArchive.
And as Warner Archive has grownand you know, and we just
dipped our toe in the water alittle bit with 4K releases,
we'll only be doing three orfour a year because they're very
expensive, but the ones we doare very notable.
(42:37):
I hope will continue to be so.
We were also given theopportunity to, given the
opportunity to spread our wingsinto Looney Tunes.
We did a little bit with PorkyPig 101 on DVD, which left much
to be desired in terms ofpicture quality and we had no
(42:58):
budget, but it was a test ideathat allowed us eventually to
convince the powers that be, tolet us have a crack at going
right for the collector hencecollector's choice and bringing
these things to Blu-ray.
No bells and whistles, justbeautiful masters and great
(43:20):
cartoons.
And here we are now with twicethe amount of cartoons 50
cartoons and tackling both thosethat have never been part of a
Warner Brothers cartooncollection, either on DVD or
(43:40):
Blu-ray.
They maybe never had a homevideo release or maybe were
released on VHS, but now they'reout on Blu-ray and people can
own them and enjoy them and noone is going to take them away
they're on your shelf.
And then the second disc is, asI've said before.
They're cartoons that may havebeen available in other formats,
(44:01):
but this is the first timethey're part of a Warner
Brothers cartoon compilation inhigh definition, looking and
sounding terrific and being ohso entertaining, which is really
the most important thing of all.
Tim Millard (44:14):
I was going to ask you about this disc too.
Just a couple of questions thatmay or may not pertain to
others, but I just was curiouswhen you knew that you were
going to do this, too curiouswhen you knew that you were
going to do this too and and youwere looking at it, I'm
assuming there's quite a largenumber that you could choose
from.
Did you kind of put this firstuh uh compilation together,
(44:39):
trying to get various differentcharacters?
So you had some of peppy lepewand some of bugs and the key
thing is.
Jerry Beck (44:47):
The key thing is characters.
Clearly on the on the seconddisc and in fact I think the
only one shot on there might behorton and he's a character, the
famous dr seuss character.
But, um, um, most of these, uh,I know, for me I wanted to have
, I wanted to make sure therewas some speedy and some peppy
(45:09):
in particular, and of courseBugs and of course the other,
you know, daffy and all the.
But I wanted to make sure thatwe still have fans out there who
think that there's someoppression to those characters
and there isn't.
You know.
George Feltenstein (45:24):
And there never has been.
Jerry Beck (45:26):
Right, there's all this talk about rumors but not
facts, right, and so I wanted tomake sure that we got some of
those on there.
And anyway, that really was thepoint was does this show off?
Are these really importantcartoons for these characters
(45:47):
that haven't been on blu-ray yet?
Yes, is the answer.
So you know that, in a way,disc two was a bit easier.
Uh, and you know there's somany good ones.
Um, uh, you know, I knew that.
You know, whatever was on adisc one, we're disc one.
We're doing, like I say, deep,deep, deep, deep, deep dives,
(46:09):
and there's people who may notcare for some of that.
They want Bugs Bunny and we maynot have those on those deep
dives.
George Feltenstein (46:20):
So this is a better package business that
Warner Archive is where we're alittle bit focused as a niche.
You know, there's WarnerBrothers Home Entertainment,
formerly known as Warner HomeVideo, which when there were
(46:41):
stores that carried discs instore which is a rarity nowadays
, but that's what they werefocused on was hundreds of
thousands of units.
The numbers of units we sold onthe Golden Collections
initially are mind-boggling nowas the business has changed and
(47:05):
morphed.
But we started Warner Archiveas an alternative with DVDs made
on demand, and now we'reprimarily a Blu-ray label that's
even dipped its toe into the 4Kwater.
We're really going for qualityover quantity and trying to get
(47:28):
deeper into the library, becauseeven on the feature film side,
it's staggering how manyimportant films that we own that
have only been available on DVDand some of them haven't even
been released on home video, andthey're important films.
So it's just a matter of megetting my budgets approved and
(47:53):
the permission to move forward,because I'm always on bended
knee asking for this or that.
I don't have the authority tojust pick exactly what I want to
do and release it.
That is not the way we arestructured.
I have to make a good businesscase for everything we do, and
(48:13):
that's why fan support is soimportant.
It's virtually a guarantee thatthere will be a volume two of
Collector's Vault before the endof the year.
If people don't support volumeone, they may pull that support.
But I'm confident we're givingconsumers what they want at a
(48:38):
great value proposition and thatthis will be beneficial to the
people that buy the discs andultimately beneficial to the
shareholders of this company whoare looking for profitability.
And that is my job is to doboth of those things Get the
films to the people that wantthem and get the profits to the
(48:59):
company that needs them.
End of story, right, right.
Tim Millard (49:03):
Well, I'm sure that people are going to come out
and support this.
I'm very, very confident and,looking at the list, I know
people are going to have theirfavorites, of course, that
they're very, very happy to see,and there's going to be so many
on here that are justeye-opening new revelations to
so many people.
So that's a lot of fun.
(49:23):
I love the collector's choicevolumes and I'm expecting to
love the vault ones even more,because the aggregating that
you're doing of the ones thatwere on this film or that film
Now people were always askingthat where can I find that film?
You know which film is it with?
But now it's going to be easierwith this vault to find them on
(49:46):
these discs too, there in HD.
So was there anything else weneeded to cover, guys?
George Feltenstein (49:52):
Well, I think we want to address an
elephant in the room and that isthat in putting this set
together as we're all doing alot of other things and dealing
with one set, planning anotherand so forth and so on we goofed
.
We put a cartoon on Collector'sVault, disc 1, that we actually
(50:17):
had, the same cartoon, doubleor Mutton, on Collector's Choice
, volume 4.
And by the time we discoveredthis, whoops, the discs were
finalized and done, the menuswere done, everything is done.
We can't change it.
So, folks, we made a mistake,we apologize.
(50:38):
Made a mistake, we apologizeand we're going to make it up by
having 26 cartoons that havenever been before part of a
Warner Brothers cartooncollection in DVD or Blu-ray in
remastered form.
So, disc one of Collector'sVault, volume two, if it happens
, as we believe it will, we'llhave 26 cartoons to make up for
(51:00):
our programming error, for whichwe are deeply apologetic.
But we are human, so mistakeshappen.
And we try to correct them.
Tim Millard (51:10):
And I was thinking about it, george, you know we
were talking about how this discone is kind of like disc five.
You know of the choice and Icould see where on your listing
of when you were doing this forthis four that sometimes you
know, because it's this five itjust also got put on this uh
this, not to mention the factthat we're working on so many
(51:33):
different animation projectsright now.
George Feltenstein (51:37):
Uh, because, as a lot of people know, we
just just released MagillaGorilla about a month ago.
There's a lot more episodicHanna-Barbera coming, and the
detail that goes into some ofthe things we're working on
right now it's enormous.
So it's really important to tryto keep everything organized
(52:02):
and we just had a little slipthere.
I don't think it's the end ofthe world, because we have a way
of correcting it in terms ofwhat we're getting out there.
If you have disc one ofcollector's vault in your player
and you happen to see a cartoonyou've seen before, the world
(52:24):
is not coming to an end.
No one's taking away you knowanything from you that you know
it's, it's it happened.
It happened, we goofed, and it'san apology, and we're going to
make it up to the fans by givingthem a little more next time.
Tim Millard (52:44):
Yeah there's just such a wealth.
We talked about this before,George.
I feel like this has beenanimation lovers' paradise for
the last two years.
George Feltenstein (52:54):
Well, the animation lovers have been in a
desert for many years because weweren't offering anything as a
company, which was veryfrustrating to me because I knew
there was profitability for thecompany that was out there that
we could attain, as long as wehad management support, which we
have.
(53:14):
And with all the restorationand remastering going on, it's
just a really great time to bean animation fan, whether your
animation preferences are morecontemporary or whether they're
classic.
There are things happening allover the company, a lot of
(53:34):
things that I'm not involved in,but I know they're happening
and I'm always happy to seepeople get what they want.
It's not about what I like, itjust so happens.
I love these Warner Brotherscartoons and I have since
practically birth.
But anything that our companybrings to the consumer or the
(53:57):
collector, whatever theirpreference, is, that makes me
happy that people get to own.
There's nothing like owning abeautiful disc with wonderful
quality and great entertainment,whatever your choice of
entertainment is.
Tim Millard (54:13):
Well, this has been another fantastic discussion.
Every time you guys come on, Ijust love hearing you back and
forth to talk about your passionfor animation and, of course,
all the stories you have aboutthe directors and the teams of
animators that worked on these.
So so much good stuff here.
I have to thank you again, asalways, for coming on and
(54:36):
sharing these incredible storieswith the fans and today
announcing some of these great,great, great shorts that are
going to be on the newCollector's Vault coming out
very soon, and I know it's goingto be very, very popular.
George Feltenstein (54:53):
June 17th yes, june 17th.
Mark your calendars and I doexpect that, probably within
hours of you putting thispodcast up for public viewing
and listening, the pre-orderswill be available at major
online retailers, wow.
Tim Millard (55:12):
Wow, looking forward to that.
Well, thanks again, guys.
Thank you Tim.
Thanks Tim.
Well, hey, that was a greatdiscussion with George and Jerry
, but we did not have a chanceto run through all of the 50
cartoons included on here, soI'm just going to read them for
you so that if you're listeningto this in the car or somewhere
(55:32):
working on your yard or thedishes that you do have a
listing of all of these cartoons.
So disc one Bars and StripesForever, 1939.
Beauty and the Beast, 1934.
A Day at the Zoo, 1939.
The Dixie Friar, 1960.
Devil or Mutton, which wetalked about, was on volume four
(55:55):
of the Looney Tunes collector'schoice.
Each Dawn I Crow, 1949.
Easy Peckins, 1953.
Feather Dusted, 1955.
Fox and a Fix, 1951.
Good Night, elmer, 1940.
The Goofy Gophers, 1947.
I'd Love to Take Orders fromyou, 1936.
(56:16):
A Kitty's Kitty from 1955.
Let it Be Me, 1936, of Fox andHounds, 1940, crocodile Tears,
1962, ready Woollen and Able,1960,.
Robin Hood Makes Good, 1939,the Squawk and Hawk, 1942,
carrier Stricken, 1952, tweetand Lovely, 1959,.
(56:39):
Twe Tweety Circus, 1955, two'sa Crowd, 1950, wild About Hurry,
1959, zip and Snort, 1961.
Now for this too, ain't sheTweet?
1952, banty Raids, 1963, birthof an Ocean, 1947, bye, bye
(57:03):
Bluebeard, 1949, cat Tales forTwo, 1953, daffy Dilly, 1948,
daffy Duck and Egghead 1938, geeWhiz, 1956, gonzales Tamales,
1957.
Hair Conditioned, 1945.
Hair Triggered, 1945.
(57:23):
Hair Trimmed, 1953.
Horton Hatches the Egg, 1942.
Little Boy Woo, 1954.
Much Ado About Nuttin', 1953.
Odor Able Kitty, 1945.
Past Perfumance, 1955.
Porky's Duck Hunt, 1937.
(57:45):
Rabbit Punch, 1948.
Red Riding Hoodwinked, 1955.
Rhapsody Rabbit, 1946.
Snow Business, 1953.
Tom Turk and Daffy, 1944, twoCrows from Tacos, 1956, zoom and
Board, 1957.
(58:06):
So that's a total of 25 on discone, of which 24 are brand new,
one's an accidental repeat and25 on disc two.
So a total of 50.
If you'd like to know moreabout these releases, you can
look for a link to our Facebookpage in the show notes.
(58:28):
I'm also going to list theseout in the show notes so that
you can have reference for themthere and, as mentioned, the
retail should go up very soon.
So we'll have that up on ourFacebook page as soon as it is
made available.
So check out our Facebook page,follow our podcast, follow our
YouTube channel, wherever youlike to watch or listen, and
(58:51):
we'll have all the informationfor you.
Well, as always, thanks forlistening to the Extras and stay
slightly obsessed aboutanimation.
Hello and welcome to the Extras.
I'm Tim Allard, your host, andI'm very excited because today,
george Feltenstein of the WarnerArchive and animation historian
Jerry Beck are here to talkabout the Looney Tunes
Collector's Vault, volume 1cartoons.
Hi guys, hey, hey, tim.
Hi guys, hey, hey Tim.
(00:29):
Now, George, you were on andannounced a while back that this
release was coming out, butthis is the first that the fans
get to know what the actualcartoon shorts are, so I'm very
excited for today's discussion.
So how
George Feltenstein (00:41):
Well, I think it's important to say that
we know that any day now, theactual pre-orders will not every
retailer or online e-teller, asyou might want to say.
(01:13):
They don't always list thecontents, even if we ask them to
, so that's why I put it on theFacebook page yesterday.
That's why we're talking withyou today, which is always a
pleasure and there's a lot offun to talk about here.
We're very excited about thisnew chapter because I think it's
appropriate at this point todiscuss why we made this
(01:36):
migration from Collector'sChoice, which was a single disc,
to Collector's Vault.
There was a lot of confusionaround that, and both Jerry and
I lamented the fact that, whileCollector's Choice was working
really well, we weren't gettingan opportunity to address the
(01:57):
hundreds literally hundreds ofgreat cartoons that were
remaining in standard definitionin home media, and we wanted to
take the opportunity to givethose titles the needed quality
upgrade, while also continuingto mine the deeper depths of the
(02:21):
Looney Tunes and Merry Melodieslibrary.
So hence, two discs forbasically just a few more
dollars.
You get twice the amount ofcartoons, and I think this is
going to be an ongoing series.
We are basically planning tostart work on volume two as we
(02:43):
speak planning to start work onvolume two as we speak and it
should be very rewarding forfans and that's what Jerry and I
have always aspired to in allof our animated endeavors.
Tim Millard (02:54):
Yeah, George, I think when we spoke and you
announced it, one way to kind ofhelp fans understand this
evolution from one single discin the collector's choice to
this two disc now series is thatthat first disc is kind of like
a continuation of what you weredoing on the collector's choice
(03:16):
.
Do I have that right?
George Feltenstein (03:18):
Exactly, Disc one of Collector's Vault is
basically Collector's ChoiceVolume 5.
That's what it would be and Ithink in retrospect, you know we
really like the nameCollector's Vault.
But people were a little bitput off by the fact that you
(03:44):
know, we use so many differentnames for these different
collections.
There's Golden Collection andPlatinum Collection and there's
Collector's Choice.
Now Collector's Vault and theSuperstars.
How can I keep track of all ofit?
And that's not an invalidquestion.
It is a very valid question.
We made this migration andthat's one of the reasons we're
(04:08):
delighted to have theopportunity to speak with you
today so that people can hearthat Collector's Choice Volume 5
is the first disc of this.
We couldn't even put an AKA onthe label if we were completely,
you know, obsessive about it,but I think it's fine the way it
(04:31):
is.
But we really want to clarifythat we have two missions with
this series to mine discs thathaven't been available on DVD or
Blu-ray in remastered form aspart of a Warner Brothers
cartoon collection, and then thesecond disc is all cartoons
(04:58):
that have never been part of aWarner Brothers cartoon
collection in HD before, andthere's a little caveat to that.
I try to add animated cartoonsto our classic film releases,
and have been doing so for quitesome time, in order to try to
(05:18):
recreate the theatricalmovie-going experience of the
30s or 40s or 50s.
And there are some of thesecartoons that have been used as
special features on a Blu-rayrelease and say, oh well, that
doesn't count.
Well, that's not what this isabout and it's almost two
different consumers, because theanimation collector isn't
(05:39):
necessarily the classic filmcollector.
There are people like Jerry andmyself who happen to like both,
but there are other people thatlive in other preferences and
we want to try to keep the focuson putting as much of the
Warner Brothers animated classiccartoon library in accessible
(06:02):
form as possible.
And I will take this opportunityto have a little bit of a
bombshell piece of news thatwill not be courtesy of the
Warner Archive, but it will becoming from the greater.
We of Warner Brothers FilmEntertainment.
Looney Tunes Platinum 1 and 2are going to be back in print at
(06:23):
a reasonable price, and thatwill be back in print at a
reasonable price, and that willbe happening in June, around the
same time this happens.
So a headline that will sendpeople running to their forums
to talk about that.
But those discs are going backin print at reasonable prices so
all the scalpers are out ofluck and people will finally be
(06:45):
able to get.
I have been begging mycolleagues to put them back in
print and finally they are, sodigressing a little bit, but
that's a huge piece of news forlots of people that never got
their chance to get those.
Volume three has remained inprint all this time.
So there's lots of great WarnerBrothers cartoon news coming
(07:07):
from Warner Brothers today.
Tim Millard (07:09):
Well, that's fantastic.
I don't know how many posts.
I'm sure you see themconstantly.
Please tell George to reissuethese.
You know Platinum Collection.
I'm like I'm sure that Georgeis doing everything he can, but
there's a whole big companythere.
George Feltenstein (07:24):
It took many years trying to get people to
focus and I said, please, thesepeople are like having to pay
outrageous prices for usedcopies.
Please, there's no reason forthem not to be in print.
And because of how we arereorganized here, there was a
time where I could do this allmyself and I had the wherewithal
(07:47):
to do it.
Now things are more.
More people are involved in theprocess, so I can't just make
these decisions on my own.
So I'm very persistent inrequesting things and finally it
has come to pass, and that'swhat we should look at.
Tim Millard (08:07):
And it's such a signal of how popular those were
.
And I think this to come backto our conversation today this
new Vault series is going tohave that same kind of
popularity, but why don't wedive into that first disc?
And, jerry, maybe you want todive into the conversation here
and tell us something aboutthese uh shorts that you and
(08:29):
George selected for this release.
Jerry Beck (08:33):
Well, I mean, I, I, I want to reiterate what George
was saying about, um, uh, the,the concept of, of the
collector's choice, and volumeone here on the collector's
vault, um, which, which is thatand it's perfect that the
Platinum Collection is comingout at the same time.
When we do these things, atleast in the past, when we do
(08:56):
these things, when we're comingout with the first DVDs, we're
coming out with the firstBlu-rays, the thing we've got to
do is put out the A, theabsolutely most requested B,
absolute classics, acknowledgedclassic cartoons, and so we've
(09:17):
done that.
And so the Collectors series iswhere we do deep dives, we do
the ones that wouldn't be onwhen we initially go to Blu-ray
or something like that.
Now we're going really, reallydeep and, of course, these are
at this point, if you've beencollecting and many people are
(09:39):
these are the ones you want.
You want these ones that wehaven't seen otherwise, ones
that haven't shown up anywhereelse.
In some cases, there'sdefinitely a few cartoons on
here that are there.
In some ways they're remastered, premiere.
This is the only place you canget this cartoon and restored
(10:02):
and looking beautiful.
And so, that said, that's thepoint Once we were going along
with the collector's choice, wesuddenly realized that most, if
not all, of the best you knowBugs Bunnies and Daffy Ducks
we've put them out.
(10:22):
I mean there's a lot and there'smore to do, but the real creme
de la creme are clearlyshowcased earlier.
So these sets.
So we definitely had to expandwhat we were doing with
Collector's Choice in the Vaultseries.
(10:42):
The new series that we're doingwith Collector's Choice in the
Vault series, the new seriesthat we're doing so that we
could include the Bugs Bunniesand Daffy Ducks and major name
characters that might havealready come out on DVD but,
surprisingly, were never onBlu-ray.
And so we had to figure out.
It didn't quite fit with whatwe were doing with Collector's
(11:04):
Choice.
The Vault series opens it up,opens the vault more so that we
can debut more things at thebest possible quality and so
that you could watch themanytime you want.
So that's my initial statement.
How do we begin talking aboutsome of these titles?
(11:25):
What do you want to do?
George Feltenstein (11:26):
well, I think we should first talk about
disc one and and some of thereal crown jewels.
I mean you span from the 1930sto the 1960s.
So yeah, a nice variety ofstyles, directors, characters
(11:50):
characters.
Jerry Beck (11:50):
Yes, well, I mean, I mean, we reviewed the set um
the other day and, uh, I'll behonest, the one that blew me
away completely I mean reallyblew me away is the cartoon with
the least color in it.
And what do I mean by that?
Beauty and the beast?
A 1934?
Um, I believe it's 19.
Yeah, 1934.
Mary melody, one of the firstin color.
I believe it's 1934, yeah, 1934.
Mary Melody, one of the first incolor.
I believe it's Cinecolor.
It is Cinecolor and it's kindof blue and red shades and the
(12:14):
restoration on this thing isgorgeous.
I mean, I've never seen it likethis.
When you look at it like this,you feel like you're in 1934.
Color cartoons are new.
And, wow, what a unique thingyou're looking at on the screen,
not just the film itself.
I've seen the film before.
It usually looks pretty funkybecause throughout the years the
(12:38):
prints that went to televisionhave faded Things.
Oh my gosh, restored on this.
It almost looks like a directorof today cleverly intentionally
just wanted to use two colors.
That's how it looks to me.
It looks like an artisticstatement.
George Feltenstein (12:55):
And just for historic background for those
who are listening watching thispodcast, this podcast Walt
Disney had a three-yearexclusive deal with Technicolor
on the patent for three-colorTechnicolor, starting with
Flowers and Trees, in 1932,which prevented anybody else
(13:18):
from using Technicolor for theircartoons.
So when the decision was madeto make Merry Melodies in color,
warner Brothers didn't have theopportunity to use the
three-color Technicolor processuntil 1935.
So you have a bunch of cartoonsthat are quite good but that
are limited to that two-colorprocess.
(13:40):
And I agree with Jerry, when welooked at it yesterday it was
like wow, I've never seenCineColor look this good.
Oh yeah, coming from thenegative makes a big difference.
Jerry Beck (13:52):
This particular cartoon.
I don't have the story behindit, I can only speculate.
But it wasn't the first color aMary Melody cartoon.
But for whatever reason and I'mand I'll speculate on why, but
for whatever reason, they put alittle extra effort in this film
in particular and even in themarketing of it.
(14:13):
Now, that's the thing I nevertalk about.
What do you mean?
The marketing?
The marketing of one solo,individual cartoon.
But if you go on line and youlook, you'll see that there was
two things that are unique thatwere put out for this cartoon
that no other cartoon I canthink of has, from the Warner
Brothers cartoons, and that'sthey tried to.
(14:34):
They marketed the theme song init, beauty and the Beast, the
song in it.
There's sheet music that's outwith the characters from the
cartoon, out with the charactersfrom the cartoon.
There's very rare, very fewWarner Brothers cartoons that
have sheet music connected to it.
In fact, I don't know of anyspecific other cartoon other
than I think they did.
(14:54):
I taught a putty tat thatTweety and Sylvester, I mean,
that's really it.
And the other one was they putout a coloring book.
There's a Mary Melodiescoloring book, but it's all from
this cartoon.
All the pictures in it are fromBeauty and the Beast, even the
cover.
So wow, I think what was goingon was the Three Little Pigs was
(15:17):
such a sensation at Disney andthe sheet music and
merchandising off of a shortcartoon that was very rare back
then.
I mean, I'm talking about, ifit's not a character like Mickey
Mouse or, you know, a characterfrom one of the cartoons, like,
later on, porky Pig.
So I think there was a realeffort by all the studios to do
(15:41):
something like that.
This was the Warner Brothersone.
I actually know of otherexamples from the same year from
Terry Tunes and other studioswhere they attempted to market a
song that was in the cartoonoriginal to the cartoon Very
rare, very unusual and now it'sbeen restored and it's a special
cartoon.
George Feltenstein (16:02):
And people wouldn't know that unless they
heard what Jerry just had to say, because that is not the kind
of thing that has beenextrapolated upon in the few
reference books, includingJerry's own.
That's an important littlefactoid, and that's why digging
(16:25):
a little deeper into thisplethora of thousand plus
cartoons is so exciting.
Tim Millard (16:32):
Now you have 25 cartoons on disc one, and the
way you listed them on theFacebook page, George, is that
the order alphabetical thatthey'll also be accessible on
disc.
George Feltenstein (16:44):
We decided to go alphabetical with volume
two of Collector's Choice ratherthan chronological, because it
also makes for a better viewingexperience.
If you're going to hit thatplay all button, you don't
really know what's coming next,and I think that's part of the
(17:05):
fun.
And if you don't particularlycare for a particular character
or a particular director forwhatever reason, if you don't
love all of them, you just clickand skip to the next cartoon.
But it makes it a lot more funthat way and we got a lot of
really positive response to theCollector's Choice Volume 2 for
(17:29):
having done that.
So we've carried that forwardon the first and second discs of
this first volume and I thinkit's terrific.
I really am very pleased westumbled upon it because it
wasn't calculated, it justseemed like a good idea.
Jerry Beck (17:54):
Yeah, and in this particular set is this very
interesting, because there's alot of cartoons without
characters that were carried onone shots.
I guess we'd say it's got someunusual cartoons that wouldn't
have made the sets, the previousones, because you know, they're
not the big directors of noteor certain other aspects to them
, and I mean it's beautiful.
(18:17):
Actually it's quite thehodgepodge, but it's beautiful.
You know, if you love Warnercartoons, sit back and relax.
Everything is here.
I'm looking over the list rightnow and you tell me when.
I mean I can tell you somethinginteresting, probably about
each one.
Tim Millard (18:37):
Well, I think you should do that Well why don't we
run down some of them at least?
You already mentioned Beautyand the Beast, and that's the
second one on this squad and theoldest in this collection, uh,
including both discs.
So, uh, I'm gonna.
I'm gonna be tempted to skipright to it because of what you
just said.
Uh, jerry, but I won't.
(18:58):
I'm gonna watch bars andstripes forever, from 1939.
That's the first one, right?
Jerry Beck (19:04):
yeah, that's a, that's a, uh, an interesting
miscellaneous cartoon directedby ben hardaway ben hardaway,
cal dalton and it's, and it's,uh, they didn't do many cartoons
.
They were.
They were actually thesubstitute for, for his freeling
.
That was that, uh, that periodwhen freeling went over to mgGM
(19:26):
for like a year, and so Hardawayand Dalton cobbled their
cartoons together.
I think Leon noticed thedifference.
Again, from my point of viewthey're really interesting.
The character designs aredifferent.
They tackle different subjectsthat they kind of didn't do.
This one's all about prison.
It's gags, about prison life.
(19:47):
You know, I don't know if the,if everybody watching back then
was familiar with that, thatlife, but um, you know, and by
the way, the story goes that uh,selestinger, after about a year
, like basically called freelingup and was like is there any
way I can get you back?
And that was the day thatFreeling basically had had it at
MGM and was wondering what hewas going to say to Leon to get
(20:10):
his job back.
And that's what happened.
And, by the way, all of thatabout leaving and getting your
job back, that was reflected ina very famous cartoon that we
know, a cartoon that we love,probably the first one Freeling
did when he got back to WarnerBrothers.
You Ought be in pictures it'snot on this set, but you know,
that's the live action animationone that, uh, supposedly the
(20:33):
story idea on that came from,from freeling himself you know,
so, um, the third cartoon on theset is the first of uh one, the
brand new remasters, a greatTex Avery cartoon, a Day at the
Zoo.
This one is definitely one.
I have to tell you that peoplehave reached out to me and said
(20:56):
what about this one?
And I think that's probablytrue of most of the Averys that
we haven't put out yet.
He did a lot of miscellaneouscartoons in color in the late
30s for Warner Brothers, and youknow the problem from another
(21:16):
point of view, from themarketing past ways that we've
done this, is that a lot of themdon't feature Daffy Duck, porky
Pig, bugs Bunny or any of thefamous characters.
They're pretty much what wecall one-off or one-shot kind of
thing.
This one is part of his seriesthat he did that were sort of
(21:37):
like little documentaries.
They were sort of making fun ofother shorts that were in the
theater at that time, like aPete Smith short.
You know what I mean.
A Day at the Zoo, look at thistheater at that time.
Like a Pete Smith short.
You know what I mean.
A Day at the Zoo, look at this,look at that.
But he takes it even further,as only Avery could, and you
know this was definitely a thingand these cartoons got a lot of
(21:58):
notoriety.
It's sort of forgotten today,but they got a lot of press
because they were unusual.
Disney didn't do cartoons withnarrators, you know.
Back then you know they weredoing more character-driven
stuff.
Avery was doing more gag-drivenstuff and it was noticed.
(22:19):
You know it was one of thosethings that made the Warner
Brothers cartoons unique.
Last thing I'll say therequickly is just that I was
mentioning how it's sort of atakeoff of some of the other
shorts.
That's what Avery did.
Avery was doing takeoffs notonly of live action shorts like
sports, you know, the littlesports one-reelers and little
(22:44):
other things.
He did where there was spoofsof fairy tales.
That was, you know, averymaking fun of the other cartoon
studios that were doing fairytale stuff.
I always look at Avery'scartoons from that period.
He was he was the mad magazineof the 1930s, you know.
Uh, if somebody was doingsomething, they did a cartoon
(23:05):
around it.
It wasn't just Avery, but Averywas the leader.
He's the guy who did it first.
George Feltenstein (23:11):
And I think it ties in very well because
Warner Brothers short subjectdepartment, live action, was a
massive operation In the 30s.
They had two studios there wasthe Brooklyn studio and then
there was the home office studio, each having a production unit
(23:35):
for all sorts of short subjects,and only a fraction of those
are viewable today in anyfashion today in any fashion.
We've put very few of them outin home video, unfortunately,
and if you see some of them popup on TCM, you're looking at a
videotape that's at least 35years old.
(23:57):
It's a whole other portion ofour library that needs triage
and attention and happily I canreport that a lot of those are
being restored and preserved.
As Warner Brothers Discoveryhas increased the budget for
(24:18):
preservation and restoration,which is something a lot of
people don't know, and I'mgrateful to the company for
doubling down on seeing theimportance of preserving our
library.
So, who knows?
We may be talking about newshort subjects, compilations on
future episodes of the Extras,but the fact that we get to show
(24:41):
these cartoons that, as you say, I mean Detouring America, is
another one that I think of asone of the most famous suits of
shorts, and I don't thinkanybody did it better than Tex,
but we could do a whole you know200 hours talking about.
Tim Millard (24:57):
Tex.
Well, shall we jump to the nextone here, the Dixie Friars.
Jerry Beck (25:03):
That's one of those.
I think that's one of thosePappy and Elvis cartoons.
That's two.
What animals are they?
I guess they're roosters too.
Anyway, I'm sorry I don't havethat in my head right now, but
those are McKimpson more ruralantics with Foghorn Leghorn in
that cartoon, and they're fun.
Yeah, with Foghorn Leghorn inthat cartoon.
George Feltenstein (25:24):
And they're fun.
Yeah, one of the things that Iwanted to talk about because
it's something that I foundrevelatory and Jerry and I
experienced this yesterday.
We just got the first the testdiscs yesterday and we watched
all of them.
This is a tradition that Jerryand I have that goes back to the
(25:46):
very first.
We were doing things way beforethis, but the first Golden
Collection in 2003, when I gotthe first Tesk DVDs, jerry came
over to my house and he hadn'tseen any of the work and it was.
I was much more focused onwatching his reaction to the
(26:08):
restorations, which now I lookat and say, oh my God, they look
terrible, because 20 years agothe technology was what it was,
but at the time it wasrevelatory.
Tim Millard (26:19):
Oh yeah.
George Feltenstein (26:20):
Jerry's reaction level to any of these
restorations has always been apersonal treat for me to see his
reaction when he sees the finalproduct.
Yesterday we were looking at acartoon that Jerry doesn't
particularly care for, but he'schanged his opinion now due to
(26:40):
the gorgeous restoration that'sGoodnight Elmer, directed by
Chuck Jones.
Jerry Beck (26:46):
Goodnight Elmer.
Restoration.
That's good night elmer.
Directed by chuck jones.
Good night elmer.
Uh, on my list of notinterested, uh, because it's
essentially a live action short,meaning it's all about elmer
fudd trying to go to sleep,trying to close his window.
There's literally nothing in it.
I think that that needed to beanimated.
It was.
It could have been an EdgarKennedy short.
I mean, it's really, it's thatkind of and the animation is
(27:10):
well, that's the thing.
And of course, I've only seenit.
You know what I call Channel 5prints, which are 16 millimeter
prints, faded Purple, scratchedup cue marks.
When you see it in color, holymackerel, I didn't realize.
I never.
I mean, it's just beautiful,beautiful, the lighting, the
(27:31):
color to get the effect ofmiddle of the night.
It's really.
I mean, it's a treat to watch.
I understand why I didn't likeit before.
You know it's 100% improved,being remastered.
So you know, good night Elmer.
You know, good morning Elmer.
Tim Millard (27:55):
And you've said that before, george Jerry,
you've said that before on otherLooney Tunes collector's choice
releases where we talked aboutthem that when you saw this
remaster in HD it waseye-opening to you to see.
Jerry Beck (28:12):
I mean people like George and I and many of my
animator friends we watchedgrowing up.
On TV we would watch the samecartoons over and over and over.
We studied them.
You know, I wrote a book anddescribed every.
So.
We've seen all of these many,many, many, many times.
And then one day I'll go backfurther, george, one day.
(28:36):
I remember that George wasinvolved with transferring 35
millimeter prints for LaserDiscright, that's right.
Prints for laser disc right,right.
And just seeing a 35 millimetertransfer, yeah, jaw dropping,
you know.
And now, if we look back atthat, it it doesn't, it won't
rock your boat, but, but, but atthe time it was to me
(29:00):
revelatory.
And then then, then, george,now, with the warn Warner
Brothers going back to theoriginal negatives, where it
looks like it was shot yesterday, like it's brand new.
I mean, you know, I am so happy, I'm so happy to have lived so
long to see this.
You know, it's amazing.
George Feltenstein (29:21):
I mean we're very fortunate in that I can
think of very few.
First of all, all of the WarnerBrothers cartoons exist, the
commercially released, producedcartoons.
None of them are lost.
Can't say that about certainother characters at certain
other studios.
(29:42):
They all exist.
Almost all of them exist intheir original negative as well.
There are very few that havesource element problems.
There are a couple, and some ofthem we've tackled to the best
of our ability or five ownersbefore it came back home.
(30:11):
It was a 40-year journey fromthe time that Jack and the
Brothers sold the pre-'48cartoons and pre-'49 features in
1956.
And it wasn't until Time Warnerbought Turner in 1996 that
finally the Warner BrothersLibrary was reunited.
And the fact that all of theseoriginal negatives have survived
(30:35):
that huge journey between threeor four owners over 40 years
and then coming back here forsafety, it's really a great
blessing.
We're very fortunate and wekeep going back to make things
(30:56):
better.
Technology has improved so muchsince I mean Jerry's right when
we were doing the, when I wasworking at MGM and we did the
Laserdisc releases, there hadbeen one-inch videotape
transfers made off of35-millimeter Technicolor prints
(31:18):
and we went just nuts becausewe were used to seeing them from
16-millimeter sources andmeanwhile a 35 millimeter
Technicolor print is going to besoft.
It's a very poor choice for anelement to work from in
mastering unless that's all youhave.
But nobody thought you could goback to the original negatives
(31:43):
at that point and it's reallyonly until the last few years
where we can deal with originalnegatives with some form of
safety, because in scanning thefilm never touches nothing, ever
touches the sprocket holes andthere is such care taken in the
(32:03):
scanning process and that's whywe are allowed and able to make
these scans for preservation, aswell as having film backup
elements, which is in my opinion, essential, because to have
analog film backup on everycartoon is essential because you
(32:28):
never know what's going tohappen in the world of digital.
So having something physicallyas an asset is terribly
important to the protection ofthe film.
But the quality of all of theseI mean we were watching, we went
through both discs for most ofthe day yesterday and we were
just delighted with how greateverything looked and how
(32:52):
everything sounded and it'ssomething to be really excited
about, mostly because we know weare among the fans.
We are the fans of thesecartoons.
We are part of that group.
You know this is what we do fora living, but it just happens
(33:13):
to be that we are also theconsumers.
You know, I don't just in mycollection, have our library, I
go out and buy other things madeby other companies that are
from other studios, because I'mpassionately dedicated to my
love of film and especiallyclassic film.
But we know what the consumerwants and we put these things
(33:41):
together and always have well,what would we want to see, have
well, what would we want to see.
And this has been kind of whathas united our work together for
many, many years.
And we met each other going to16 millimeter film collector
conventions in New Jersey, youknow, many, many years ago,
(34:04):
before we were in the industry,because that's how we got to see
cartoons in those days, asidefrom on television, was by
trying to get 16 millimeter usedprints.
And we still collect film,although I haven't put film in a
projector in over a decade, soI can't say I'm an active
(34:24):
collector anymore.
But for years, you know, Iwould love having people over
and putting a cartoon in aprojector and having people go
crazy because there was no otherway for people to see the
cartoons for a couple of yearsand then, of course,
videocassettes started to beprogressive.
(34:45):
I know we tried to do that atMGMUA with the Cartoon Movie
Star series.
Warner Home Video, before Iworked here, had the Golden
Jubilee cassettes, which wereterrific because they were put
together with a little bit ofintelligence and curation.
And when I got to MGMUA theyhad been putting out some pre-48
(35:07):
cartoons without anyintelligence or creation and the
most ridiculous titles andmarketing them for little
children.
So we needed to clarify thatthese are animated motion
pictures that were made foradults and perfectly appropriate
for the children who alsohappen to be in the theater, and
(35:29):
we've always wanted these filmsto be respected.
The same way I'm quoting Jerryhere.
You need to respect these films.
The same way you quote, werespect Gone with the Wind or
Singing in the Rain orCasablanca.
It's that important.
And people have always beendemeaning towards classic
(35:49):
animation as, oh, it's cartoons,it's for kids.
There are people I encounter inday-to-day life who think I'm a
little crazy because I lovewatching classic animation.
I'm not crazy.
I see the genius that went intothe great works.
And that's not saying thatevery classic cartoon or old
(36:11):
cartoon is great.
There are some that just aren't.
We happen to be very fortunatein that the emphasis at Warner
Brothers on animation was onboth artistic quality, animation
quality and, most importantly,humor.
Warner Brothers cartoons arefunny and they probably are the
(36:32):
funniest and I'd also put TexAvery MGM cartoons and Tom and
Jerry Golden Era cartoons inthat group as well.
In terms of theatricalanimation.
I don't think anybody else cantouch those.
In terms of humor, some othercartoons are really beautiful to
look at, but they're notnecessarily funny.
Tim Millard (36:55):
Well, we've gotten through like four cartoons guys.
George Feltenstein (37:00):
We're not going to go through every one.
We can't talk about all 50cartoons.
Tim Millard (37:05):
No, we can't.
Jerry Beck (37:07):
I mean, I can point out some things maybe.
Tim Millard (37:11):
Why don't you just look through that list and Jerry
or George and pull out a fewthat you think are worth a
couple minutes mention orbackground?
Jerry Beck (37:22):
Boy, oh boy.
One I want to at least mentionis a real oddity, which is
Quackadile Tears from 1962, oneof the later ones, one cartoon
(37:42):
of Arthur Davis, who haddirected some great ones in the
late 40s and then became ananimator under Frizz Freeling.
After that the powers that beat Warner's eliminated that unit
.
That was like a fourth unit.
And then the rest of the WarnerBrothers cartoons from that
(38:03):
point on were McKimson Jones andFreeling.
But in the early 60s, whenWarner's was doing the Bugs
Bunny show, the major directorsMcKimson Jones and Freeling were
on top of it.
They had to direct theinterstitials, they had to make
it be primoed because it wasgoing to be on TV and everyone
(38:25):
was going to see it.
And so during that weird periodin the early 60s, a lot of the
animators who were not directorsgot elevated up for one or two
cartoons, you know, at thatperiod.
What's interesting is that thisone was Arthur Davis.
(38:46):
He was a director not only atWarner's, doing some really
great, hilarious Daffy Duckcartoons and the Goofy Gophers.
And the Goofy Gophers which wehave on here, which is on this
set, that's right.
And he was also a director,believe it or not, at Columbia
Pictures you know, like theLittle Match Girl, the Color
(39:07):
Rhapsodies of that period.
He did a lot of those things.
That was in his early days.
Plus it's a great littlecartoon with, you know, daffy
Duckjorie, Maine voice that shedoes for the wife.
George Feltenstein (39:35):
You know.
Anyway, it's good stuff.
Well, I want to talk about acartoon that's on disc two.
That has always been one of myfavorites Hair Condition, and
this is Bugs Bunny in thedepartment store going against
the Great Gildersleeve.
The store manager sounds verymuch like the actor Harold Peary
(39:58):
, who was on the radio as theGreat Gildersleeve.
You know, going so fast, eh,little chum.
You know, there are certainlines and catchphrases in these
cartoons where people know theline or catchphrase but they
don't know what the cartoon isfrom Right and what line the
cartoon is from.
And I think that this is acartoon that everybody knows.
(40:20):
Once they see it, they'llrecognize it.
The way Warner Brothers wasable to make verbal puns over
the use of the word hair thetitles is second to none, I
think, and so many of myfavorite buzz cartoons have hair
in the title.
You know, um, water, water,every hair, that's not on this
(40:43):
set, but um, I mean, I couldthink of so many of them, but
that's one that I really, reallylove.
And we also have birth of anotion with daffy, which has
always been one of my favoritecartoons, and the fact that
these have not been on blu-raybefore is shocking right, it's
what you got on on disc two.
Jerry Beck (41:03):
Uh, says the story.
Because there are a lot ofclassics on disc two, classics
that are either standalone orthey feature major characters.
And if we were continuing thecollector's choice set, we would
not be putting these out onBlu-ray, at least not right now.
It wouldn't have happened.
We would not be putting theseout on Blu-ray at least not
(41:25):
right now, it wouldn't havehappened.
This format change allows us toget Porky's, duck Hunt, horton
Hatches, the Egg, on and on andon.
Great, great classic LooneyTunes on this particular disc,
and very happy to have these onBlu-ray.
(41:46):
Finally.
George Feltenstein (41:49):
Yes on this particular disc and, uh, very
happy to have these on blu-rayfinally, yes, and it's been a
long time coming, because if youthink about the space between
the last release of platinum,which I believe was over 10
years ago, uh, there wasbasically 10 years where there
were no warner brothers cartoonsgetting remastered and coming
out in high definition onBlu-ray.
You know, we weren't allowed totouch Looney Tunes or other
(42:16):
bigger franchises within WarnerArchive.
And as Warner Archive has grownand you know, and we just
dipped our toe in the water alittle bit with 4K releases,
we'll only be doing three orfour a year because they're very
expensive, but the ones we doare very notable.
(42:37):
I hope will continue to be so.
We were also given theopportunity to, given the
opportunity to spread our wingsinto Looney Tunes.
We did a little bit with PorkyPig 101 on DVD, which left much
to be desired in terms ofpicture quality and we had no
(42:58):
budget, but it was a test ideathat allowed us eventually to
convince the powers that be, tolet us have a crack at going
right for the collector hencecollector's choice and bringing
these things to Blu-ray.
No bells and whistles, justbeautiful masters and great
(43:20):
cartoons.
And here we are now with twicethe amount of cartoons 50
cartoons and tackling both thosethat have never been part of a
Warner Brothers cartooncollection, either on DVD or
(43:40):
Blu-ray.
They maybe never had a homevideo release or maybe were
released on VHS, but now they'reout on Blu-ray and people can
own them and enjoy them and noone is going to take them away
they're on your shelf.
And then the second disc is, asI've said before.
They're cartoons that may havebeen available in other formats,
(44:01):
but this is the first timethey're part of a Warner
Brothers cartoon compilation inhigh definition, looking and
sounding terrific and being ohso entertaining, which is really
the most important thing of all.
Tim Millard (44:14):
I was going to ask you about this disc too.
Just a couple of questions thatmay or may not pertain to
others, but I just was curiouswhen you knew that you were
going to do this, too curiouswhen you knew that you were
going to do this too and and youwere looking at it, I'm
assuming there's quite a largenumber that you could choose
from.
Did you kind of put this firstuh uh compilation together,
(44:39):
trying to get various differentcharacters?
So you had some of peppy lepewand some of bugs and the key
thing is.
Jerry Beck (44:47):
The key thing is characters.
Clearly on the on the seconddisc and in fact I think the
only one shot on there might behorton and he's a character, the
famous dr seuss character.
But, um, um, most of these, uh,I know, for me I wanted to have
, I wanted to make sure therewas some speedy and some peppy
(45:09):
in particular, and of courseBugs and of course the other,
you know, daffy and all the.
But I wanted to make sure thatwe still have fans out there who
think that there's someoppression to those characters
and there isn't.
You know.
George Feltenstein (45:24):
And there never has been.
Jerry Beck (45:26):
Right, there's all this talk about rumors but not
facts, right, and so I wanted tomake sure that we got some of
those on there.
And anyway, that really was thepoint was does this show off?
Are these really importantcartoons for these characters
(45:47):
that haven't been on blu-ray yet?
Yes, is the answer.
So you know that, in a way,disc two was a bit easier.
Uh, and you know there's somany good ones.
Um, uh, you know, I knew that.
You know, whatever was on adisc one, we're disc one.
We're doing, like I say, deep,deep, deep, deep, deep dives,
(46:09):
and there's people who may notcare for some of that.
They want Bugs Bunny and we maynot have those on those deep
dives.
George Feltenstein (46:20):
So this is a better package business that
Warner Archive is where we're alittle bit focused as a niche.
You know, there's WarnerBrothers Home Entertainment,
formerly known as Warner HomeVideo, which when there were
(46:41):
stores that carried discs instore which is a rarity nowadays
, but that's what they werefocused on was hundreds of
thousands of units.
The numbers of units we sold onthe Golden Collections
initially are mind-boggling nowas the business has changed and
(47:05):
morphed.
But we started Warner Archiveas an alternative with DVDs made
on demand, and now we'reprimarily a Blu-ray label that's
even dipped its toe into the 4Kwater.
We're really going for qualityover quantity and trying to get
(47:28):
deeper into the library, becauseeven on the feature film side,
it's staggering how manyimportant films that we own that
have only been available on DVDand some of them haven't even
been released on home video, andthey're important films.
So it's just a matter of megetting my budgets approved and
(47:53):
the permission to move forward,because I'm always on bended
knee asking for this or that.
I don't have the authority tojust pick exactly what I want to
do and release it.
That is not the way we arestructured.
I have to make a good businesscase for everything we do, and
(48:13):
that's why fan support is soimportant.
It's virtually a guarantee thatthere will be a volume two of
Collector's Vault before the endof the year.
If people don't support volumeone, they may pull that support.
But I'm confident we're givingconsumers what they want at a
(48:38):
great value proposition and thatthis will be beneficial to the
people that buy the discs andultimately beneficial to the
shareholders of this company whoare looking for profitability.
And that is my job is to doboth of those things Get the
films to the people that wantthem and get the profits to the
(48:59):
company that needs them.
End of story, right, right.
Tim Millard (49:03):
Well, I'm sure that people are going to come out
and support this.
I'm very, very confident and,looking at the list, I know
people are going to have theirfavorites, of course, that
they're very, very happy to see,and there's going to be so many
on here that are justeye-opening new revelations to
so many people.
So that's a lot of fun.
(49:23):
I love the collector's choicevolumes and I'm expecting to
love the vault ones even more,because the aggregating that
you're doing of the ones thatwere on this film or that film
Now people were always askingthat where can I find that film?
You know which film is it with?
But now it's going to be easierwith this vault to find them on
(49:46):
these discs too, there in HD.
So was there anything else weneeded to cover, guys?
George Feltenstein (49:52):
Well, I think we want to address an
elephant in the room and that isthat in putting this set
together as we're all doing alot of other things and dealing
with one set, planning anotherand so forth and so on we goofed
.
We put a cartoon on Collector'sVault, disc 1, that we actually
(50:17):
had, the same cartoon, doubleor Mutton, on Collector's Choice
, volume 4.
And by the time we discoveredthis, whoops, the discs were
finalized and done, the menuswere done, everything is done.
We can't change it.
So, folks, we made a mistake,we apologize.
(50:38):
Made a mistake, we apologizeand we're going to make it up by
having 26 cartoons that havenever been before part of a
Warner Brothers cartooncollection in DVD or Blu-ray in
remastered form.
So, disc one of Collector'sVault, volume two, if it happens
, as we believe it will, we'llhave 26 cartoons to make up for
(51:00):
our programming error, for whichwe are deeply apologetic.
But we are human, so mistakeshappen.
And we try to correct them.
Tim Millard (51:10):
And I was thinking about it, george, you know we
were talking about how this discone is kind of like disc five.
You know of the choice and Icould see where on your listing
of when you were doing this forthis four that sometimes you
know, because it's this five itjust also got put on this uh
this, not to mention the factthat we're working on so many
(51:33):
different animation projectsright now.
George Feltenstein (51:37):
Uh, because, as a lot of people know, we
just just released MagillaGorilla about a month ago.
There's a lot more episodicHanna-Barbera coming, and the
detail that goes into some ofthe things we're working on
right now it's enormous.
So it's really important to tryto keep everything organized
(52:02):
and we just had a little slipthere.
I don't think it's the end ofthe world, because we have a way
of correcting it in terms ofwhat we're getting out there.
If you have disc one ofcollector's vault in your player
and you happen to see a cartoonyou've seen before, the world
(52:24):
is not coming to an end.
No one's taking away you knowanything from you that you know
it's, it's it happened.
It happened, we goofed, and it'san apology, and we're going to
make it up to the fans by givingthem a little more next time.
Tim Millard (52:44):
Yeah there's just such a wealth.
We talked about this before,George.
I feel like this has beenanimation lovers' paradise for
the last two years.
George Feltenstein (52:54):
Well, the animation lovers have been in a
desert for many years because weweren't offering anything as a
company, which was veryfrustrating to me because I knew
there was profitability for thecompany that was out there that
we could attain, as long as wehad management support, which we
have.
(53:14):
And with all the restorationand remastering going on, it's
just a really great time to bean animation fan, whether your
animation preferences are morecontemporary or whether they're
classic.
There are things happening allover the company, a lot of
(53:34):
things that I'm not involved in,but I know they're happening
and I'm always happy to seepeople get what they want.
It's not about what I like, itjust so happens.
I love these Warner Brotherscartoons and I have since
practically birth.
But anything that our companybrings to the consumer or the
(53:57):
collector, whatever theirpreference, is, that makes me
happy that people get to own.
There's nothing like owning abeautiful disc with wonderful
quality and great entertainment,whatever your choice of
entertainment is.
Tim Millard (54:13):
Well, this has been another fantastic discussion.
Every time you guys come on, Ijust love hearing you back and
forth to talk about your passionfor animation and, of course,
all the stories you have aboutthe directors and the teams of
animators that worked on these.
So so much good stuff here.
I have to thank you again, asalways, for coming on and
(54:36):
sharing these incredible storieswith the fans and today
announcing some of these great,great, great shorts that are
going to be on the newCollector's Vault coming out
very soon, and I know it's goingto be very, very popular.
George Feltenstein (54:53):
June 17th yes, june 17th.
Mark your calendars and I doexpect that, probably within
hours of you putting thispodcast up for public viewing
and listening, the pre-orderswill be available at major
online retailers, wow.
Tim Millard (55:12):
Wow, looking forward to that.
Well, thanks again, guys.
Thank you Tim.
Thanks Tim.
Well, hey, that was a greatdiscussion with George and Jerry
, but we did not have a chanceto run through all of the 50
cartoons included on here, soI'm just going to read them for
you so that if you're listeningto this in the car or somewhere
(55:32):
working on your yard or thedishes that you do have a
listing of all of these cartoons.
So disc one Bars and StripesForever, 1939.
Beauty and the Beast, 1934.
A Day at the Zoo, 1939.
The Dixie Friar, 1960.
Devil or Mutton, which wetalked about, was on volume four
(55:55):
of the Looney Tunes collector'schoice.
Each Dawn I Crow, 1949.
Easy Peckins, 1953.
Feather Dusted, 1955.
Fox and a Fix, 1951.
Good Night, elmer, 1940.
The Goofy Gophers, 1947.
I'd Love to Take Orders fromyou, 1936.
(56:16):
A Kitty's Kitty from 1955.
Let it Be Me, 1936, of Fox andHounds, 1940, crocodile Tears,
1962, ready Woollen and Able,1960,.
Robin Hood Makes Good, 1939,the Squawk and Hawk, 1942,
carrier Stricken, 1952, tweetand Lovely, 1959,.
(56:39):
Twe Tweety Circus, 1955, two'sa Crowd, 1950, wild About Hurry,
1959, zip and Snort, 1961.
Now for this too, ain't sheTweet?
1952, banty Raids, 1963, birthof an Ocean, 1947, bye, bye
(57:03):
Bluebeard, 1949, cat Tales forTwo, 1953, daffy Dilly, 1948,
daffy Duck and Egghead 1938, geeWhiz, 1956, gonzales Tamales,
1957.
Hair Conditioned, 1945.
Hair Triggered, 1945.
(57:23):
Hair Trimmed, 1953.
Horton Hatches the Egg, 1942.
Little Boy Woo, 1954.
Much Ado About Nuttin', 1953.
Odor Able Kitty, 1945.
Past Perfumance, 1955.
Porky's Duck Hunt, 1937.
(57:45):
Rabbit Punch, 1948.
Red Riding Hoodwinked, 1955.
Rhapsody Rabbit, 1946.
Snow Business, 1953.
Tom Turk and Daffy, 1944, twoCrows from Tacos, 1956, zoom and
Board, 1957.
(58:06):
So that's a total of 25 on discone, of which 24 are brand new,
one's an accidental repeat and25 on disc two.
So a total of 50.
If you'd like to know moreabout these releases, you can
look for a link to our Facebookpage in the show notes.
(58:28):
I'm also going to list theseout in the show notes so that
you can have reference for themthere and, as mentioned, the
retail should go up very soon.
So we'll have that up on ourFacebook page as soon as it is
made available.
So check out our Facebook page,follow our podcast, follow our
YouTube channel, wherever youlike to watch or listen, and
(58:51):
we'll have all the informationfor you.
Well, as always, thanks forlistening to the Extras and stay
slightly obsessed aboutanimation.
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