The Extras
The Extras
Warner Archive Unveils Looney Tunes Collector's Vault PLUS Two January Blu-ray Reviews
George Feltenstein joins us to reveal the Warner Archive's exciting plans for the Looney Tunes Collector's Vault series and discuss their ongoing preservation efforts for classic animation and film.
• Collector's Vault Volume 1 will feature 50 fully restored cartoons - double the content of previous collections
• First disc contains 25 cartoons never before released in remastered form
• Second disc includes 25 shorts previously only on DVD, now in HD
• Warner's preservation team is actively working to resurrect the original Bugs Bunny Show from 1960-62
• Both Pepe Le Pew and Speedy Gonzales will appear in the new collection
• Complete cartoon list will be announced in a month or so
• Review of Gabriel Over the White House (1933) - a politically prescient drama with Walter Huston
• Review of Last Stand at Sabre River (1997) - Tom Selleck stars in this TNT Western based on Elmore Leonard's novel
Purchase Links:
Pre-order THE DAY THE EARTH BLEW UP: A LOONEY TUNES MOVIE Blu-ray
GABRIEL OVER THE WHITE HOUSE (1933) Blu-ray
LAST STAND AT SABER RIVER (1997) Blu-ray
Support for these releases ensures Warner will continue preserving and releasing more classic animation and films from their vast library.
REVIEW - THE DAY THE EARTH BLEW UP: A LOONEY TUNES MOVIE with Tim Millard, host of The Extras Podcast.
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Warner Archive & Warner Bros Catalog Group
As an Amazon Affiliate, The Extras may receive a commission for purchases through our purchase links. There is no additional cost to you, and every little bit helps us in the production of the podcast. Thanks in advance.
Otaku Media produces podcasts, behind-the-scenes extras, and media that connect creatives with their fans and businesses with their consumers. Contact us today to see how we can work together to achieve your goals. tim@theextras.tv
Hello and welcome to the Extras.
TIM MILLARD:I'm Tim Millard, your host, and today we have a very exciting show.
TIM MILLARD:I have George Feltenstein joining me to give some more clarification about this brand new announcement of the next phase of the Looney Tunes releases from the Warner Archive, of the Looney Tunes releases from the Warner Archive, and that's specifically in reference to the Looney Tunes Collector's Vault, volume 1, which was just recently announced this last week. You're going to get some nice clarification on what's going to be going into this release and why they made the transition from the Looney Tunes Collector's Choice to the Looney Tunes Collector's Vault. So, animation fans, I think you're going to get a lot of great information there, and George gives us a little detail about another Looney Tunes project that he and Jerry are working on, so you'll want to hear what he has to say about that as well. So lots of good stuff for animation fans and for classic film fans. We do have several reviews that we will be going over from the January releases, so you'll want to stay tuned for that, hi George, hi, tim, great to be with you, as always.
TIM MILLARD:Yeah, and I'm very excited today. We recently obviously talked about the announcements of what you're bringing in April and there's a lot of excitement because you have such a diverse grouping once again of animation classic and then newer films as well. And then just a few days ago, this last week, you made another announcement which I know has the whole classic animation community very excited, and it goes back to something that you mentioned with Jerry at the end of last year where you said that the kind of the next evolution of Looney Tunes will be coming out this year and you knew it'd be very exciting to the fans. So this is our opportunity for you to kind of explain it and announce it here on the podcast.
George Feltenstein:Well, I appreciate the opportunity to do so. Well, I appreciate the opportunity to do so. The timing was just because, frankly, we had just gotten the key art all locked in 50 cartoons that will be in the collection. But I wanted people to know what was coming and what was the plan and kind of explain it. I would say.
George Feltenstein:Toward the end of last year Jerry and I were tossing ideas about, and Collector's Choice was clearly very welcomed by the fan community and the ardent animation enthusiasts because it was providing beautiful representations of each of these animated shorts that had not been on DVD or Blu-ray in a remastered form. And I always say that because, as I've discussed here previously, subpar masters were added to certain collections as extra material, which was very confusing to the consumer and therefore made people believe that something had been released. Where, to my mind and that's why I tried to get it stopped was that, you know, taking a 25, 30-year-old master of a cartoon as a bonus doesn't do us any favors and it really confuses everyone. So that's why I always say remastered, because any of the cartoons that were included in the Golden Collection in the DVD era were remastered as main cartoons in those collections, and the same goes for the Platinum Collections. And I think it's important to take a little trip down memory lane. I think I've talked about this before with you, but the strategy for Looney Tunes on DVD was a huge battle that went on for I'm going to say six, I think six years. I think six years because it was just at the time I had moved from MGMUA to Warner Brothers that the DVD format began and naturally the thought was well, we need to do Looney Tunes and at the very beginning I wasn't picturing them. I didn't know how dvds were going to be packaged in, you know, right before the launch, and I thought they'd be in jewel cases like cds. And I was just picturing, you know, like, all the cartoons in various you know, because that's what a lot of people want, they want all thousands of cartoons. They brought them right now and I get it.
George Feltenstein:But the bigger problem we had those of us including Jerry being not an employee of Warner Brothers but certainly an honorary employee and a supporter and a fan and a collaborator and a contributor and a consultant, and because Jerry and I had worked together on the Laserdisc compilations and whatnot, and he had also done some work for Warner before I got here in the videocassette land. So we wanted to take the best approach and make these releases for the adult collector. At the same time, these were being marketed by the family team and they wanted to have something to put in Walmart for the moms and kids. So we came up with a two-tier strategy. The golden collections were meant for the adult collector. We thought there'd be 10 of them, but sales continued to deteriorate to the point where we got to the sixth one.
George Feltenstein:It didn't make sense to continue to the financial colleagues. They couldn't support that, and at that time Blu-ray was just starting and so there was a look to well, what do we do on Blu-ray? And my involvement on the platinum collections was peripheral, because that was a really difficult thing to balance. You needed new, never before available animated shorts, but you also couldn't leave out the things people were dying to see in high definition, iconic Warner Brothers cartoons. And we did so because to have all the very best in volume one didn't make sense, because you needed to have some kind of big magnet for future volumes.
George Feltenstein:And that created terrible controversy, because people do like to complain, and if you take the way people complained in 2003 compared to the way people complained in 2025, it was a garden party back then. The world has become a much more angry place and you know, the evolution of social media has just encouraged anger and bitterness and darkness, as well as some really wonderful things. It isn't all bad and I'm sure that most of the fans of what we do a lot of them don't participate in social media and a lot of people also take the time to say very nice things. It's not everybody being negative, but I really wanted to clarify what we wanted to do here. People should really think of the Collector's Vault, the first disc that has 25 cartoons that have been remastered that have never been on DVD or Blu-ray. That's essentially what would have been Looney Tunes, collector's Choice Volume 5.
George Feltenstein:But we wanted to diversify the offering, going forward and offer more cartoons. So we came up with the idea that we would have a 25 animated short collection, be disc number one and for a modest increase in price very modest, giving the consumer more of a value proposition we would have 25 cartoons which have never been part of any prior collection on Blu-ray, first time in high definition in a collection of Looney Tunes. So there are so many incredibly great cartoons that have been limited to DVD only in the past. This gave us an opportunity to really raise the value up the ante, make a release that's more exciting, and we're giving double the amount of cartoons but not double the price. So it's going to be. I think when people see the list of what we have planned, they'll be very, very excited and very enthusiastic. I hope it will, george. It will.
George Feltenstein:As with other collections, we're assuming there will be a volume two and a volume three and if consumers respond to this and are supportive of it from the beginning, if they're supportive from the beginning, that will mean that there will be another release, at least one additional release in 2025 and more thereafter, and I think the overall response we had and have continued to have for the collector's choice volumes one through four. I think we're building on that, offering more, and there'll be a diversification of the characters, more characters that you didn't see. People were really upset. There was no Pepe Le Pew in Collector's Choice volumes one through four. Well, pepe Le Pew will be part of Collector's Vault, volume 1. He has not been canceled. Speedy Gonzalez will be part of Collector's Vault, Volume 1. He has not been canceled.
George Feltenstein:All the characters will be represented in Volume 2 with a lot of quality, given that we're upgrading cartoons that were only available on DVD to high definition. Yes, you may have seen some of these things in high definition on television, but if you did, they were so compressed. Also, some of the older high definition masters were not addressing film damage and dirt and proper color correction, the way you will see on the second disc of the collector's vault. There's going to be a lot of fine-tuning going on, so I hope people will respond and be impressed by the stellar quality of each of the animated shorts in that collection. So that explains what our theory was, what our intention was, because it was concerning to me that while we were going through and finding the cartoons that had not been made available at all not including what was on Laserdisc, because for the pre-48 Merry Melodies and the pre-48 Color Looney Tunes, those had been on Laserdisc. Obviously Laserdisc is not a viable format anymore, although I do have about a thousand of them at home and I still use my player.
George Feltenstein:But we need to be in the 21st century and it's been a long time. A lot of really, really terrific films are going to be in this new collection and looking amazing and I think people will really be impressed. We're addressing picture issues as well as audio quality. Some of the cartoons you know don't have great audio tracks because of, let's say, the picture has been maintained impeccably, but the audio track which is stored separately might be two or three generations away. We're trying to find better audio tracks. So there's an intention going on to make this a really stellar two-disc presentation and I hope the fans will be very happy.
George Feltenstein:The company really cares about its library and these are as important in the library as any other film, whether it be a feature film, television episode. And I think this would be a great time for me to address something kind of related. And this is very, very embryonic, but one of the things that I wanted to do when I first got to Warner Brothers and Jerry asked me the very same thing and that is we are trying diligently and very hard. We are trying diligently and very hard. We are trying to resurrect the Bugs Bunny show, the original half-hour network series that ran on ABC for two seasons and then ran on Saturday mornings in all sorts of forms, as they continued to chop the negatives and chop the shows. Our preservation department is actively working on this and I've been begging for over 20 years for someone to focus on this and this work is actually being done.
George Feltenstein:It's going to take a long time and it's going to require microsurgery because the original color negatives of those half hour shows were butchered and people weren't thinking about the future and I'm hopeful that maybe in a year, maybe it'll take two years.
George Feltenstein:However long it takes, we're starting with black and white fine grains that are a complete, perfect record of what each of those half hour shows were and we're laying them down as a bed and then we're taking the camera negatives from each show and seeing what's missing. Now the core of each of those half hours was three cartoons and obviously for the cartoons themselves, that had bridging footage, the cartoons are fine. It's the bridging footage that we need to recreate the exact half hour, because Chuck Jones and Frizz Frehling and Robert McKimpson and the Warner Brothers cartoon department of 1961, 60, 62, I believe they created new animation that we only got to see little pieces of years later in the Bugs Bunny, roadrunner show and so forth, because already the shows had been decimated. So I just want folks to know. I have no idea when we'll finish the project, but the Warner Brothers Preservation Department is working on this now diligently and carefully, and I'm hoping that that's good news for everyone.
TIM MILLARD:So that's that's fantastic news. I think everyone's gonna be very excited to hear that that work is ongoing.
George Feltenstein:It's. It means a great deal to me and I know everyone, all the fans have really been asking about this and before I worked here I didn't understand why this wasn't a priority. Because people want to see those shows the way they remember them. Even you know, I never got to see those original shows, you know, because by the time I was able to watch these cartoons on TV as a little kid it was the Bugs Bunny Roadrunner Hour and things were chopped up, yeah. So I think it'll be amazing. We'll try to get those post and tang commercials in there. I mean, it will be the original shows as they were, so they were made in color. They were broadcast in black and white until Saturday mornings.
George Feltenstein:But this is part of what's going on with Looney Tunes here at Warner Brothers. It isn't just what we're doing with Collector's Vault and my prayer is that we'll be able to release a collector's vault release, you know, two, three, four times a year, if things go well and the fans support the releases. This is very good news for our beloved classic animated cartoons and I kind of think that sums up my explanation of where our head was at in coming up with Collector's Vault. A lot of people were saying why did they just call it Collector's Choice, volume 5? Well, this is more than that. We want to build on that and we want people to really enjoy what we're doing.
TIM MILLARD:So if I could interpret, just from my perspective, what that means and the value proposition that you're presenting, is that if you were loving the collector's choice volumes, you're going to get that with that disc one, that continuation, and then, if you were waiting and anxiously posting when are they going to get around to upgrading some of these other DVD releases you're going to get your cake and eat it too.
TIM MILLARD:You're going to get the ones that were never released and now you're going to get the ones that were in DVD and you're going to now have them in Blu-ray with all new masters and the audio is going to be much better. And now you're going to present that 50 cartoons instead of roughly 25, what you had before or just slightly more. So I think there's a lot here for the fans, once they kind of understand this, what this Vault series will be, to say this is great. I'm going to love hearing what the new cartoons are never before, and then I'm going to really enjoy seeing what you guys have been able to go back to from the DVDs to put out on these releases. So it's a great value and I think it needs a new name for that reason.
George Feltenstein:That was our intention and that is our hope, and I'm of the belief that we will be able to announce the contents probably in about a month. There are some in the collection that are being newly remastered just for this collection and the negatives were delayed arriving from the Library of Congress so we had to move the release. We were planning to do a June 10th release. That's why we moved to June 17th release, because we needed more time to create the new masters. This is really. We're very excited about it. We hope that the fans appreciate that we're not turning our back on this at all. We're very passionate about it and there was too long of a delay between the Platinum Collection, volume 3 and Collector's Choice Volume 1. Volume three in Collector's Choice, volume one, and I'm grateful that the company is entrusting the Warner Archive to kind of lead the parade for Booney Tunes and all the legacy that means to this company.
TIM MILLARD:And I think one last thing I'll say, george, is that, as you started this discussion going back to your early days, this all evolves over time and when a collection runs its course and the sales no longer continue to support it, then as a business you have to pivot and then a new format comes out Blu-ray 4K Then you're given new opportunities or there's a new surge in interest or different things, and I think that what you and Jerry do just to keep the product coming out for the fans, for the collectors, is a great service and one that's highly appreciated.
TIM MILLARD:So many people post very positive comments, george, of the work that you and Jerry do and how much they appreciate it, so I want you to know that as well. That is out there and I read a lot of those, and I know the listeners of the extras feel that way as well. And on the YouTube channel, so many positive things that people say Bless you and Jerry for the work you do in continuing to bring these out to the fans, and I think with this new Looney Tunes Collector's Vault Volume 1, that same appreciation is going to be there. I'm really looking forward to it and looking forward to talking with you and Jerry about the cartoons on there as well in another month or so.
George Feltenstein:So we're very excited about it and a lot of thought went into this, and I think a lot of the fans know this. But Jerry and I aren't just the creative minds behind this. We are fans with incredible passion and enthusiasm, just like all the other enthusiasts out there. We love these films, we want to see them presented properly. We want to make sure that we do right by all the wonderful animated films that were made here and that we present them in the best possible way. And it's a very exciting time, and that's why I wanted to share the little piece of news that in the background it's embryonic we are working on trying to make the Bugs Bunny show a reality. So that's all, folks, for now at least, about the cartoons. But this is also a good segue into talking about some of our recent War Archive releases that you and I have not talked about yet.
TIM MILLARD:Yeah, there were two from January that just for one reason or another we haven't gotten around to, and I know that there are many listeners out there who appreciate hearing what you and I have to say about these. You announce them, but then I get a chance to watch and we can talk together about a review of the final release. So we want to be sure and do that and we should start, I think, with the oldest one, and that is the 1933 film, gabriel over the White House. And you mentioned when this was announced that you had wanted to time it around the inauguration.
TIM MILLARD:It came out a little bit after that, but what a perfect choice because it is set. You know, the story is about this man who is elected president and he is, you know, kind of in bed with all of the corporate titans, and then he has this accident and he has a change, and it's really interesting to see the transformation that he has to try to change a country for better. I didn't really know this film when I watched it and I was enthralled. It just moves, it's got great atmosphere, the story is very good and, of course, the acting is fantastic in it. So I really enjoyed this film.
George Feltenstein:I thought that it was a wonderful opportunity to upgrade this film. It had only been available on DVD and the source master it came from was about 30 years old. So for this new 4K scan of our best preservation elements and to give it a really golden treatment and to put it out at an appropriate time, I just thought was the right thing to do. And the director, gregory LaCava, who's a multi-talented director he directed a lot of really great films and different genres and styles and feel this film is really it's some people have referred to it as a wild movie that it's like so over the top hope and speaks to the greatness of true patriotism and loving the freedoms of our country. I mean, I think that's the takeaway message of it. Walter Houston's performance as the president is really quite remarkable.
George Feltenstein:This is a film that was pretty much consigned to really really good film school classes hardly seen anywhere, occasionally maybe at two o'clock in the morning on Turner Classic Movies or something. And, like I said, we did have an early Warner Archive DVD which came from a very old master. The quality of a presentation can change how much you can enjoy what a film has to say and a really terrible print of a really great movie is still going to be great because the movie itself is great. But when you have a beautiful presentation of a great movie, especially one that you may not have known about, this is a film I really recommend people. They're going to do a blind buy, take a risk.
George Feltenstein:Watch the movie. You will be glad to add it to your collection. Yes, and it was always kind of an I don't want to say underground, but it was kind of like if you were savvy enough in your American film history to know about Gabriel over the White House, that puts you, as a film buff and a film fan, in a special category of people who really know their stuff. This film needs to be better known and falls into the rare and hard to find category. That was why it was part of the Warner Archive collection in the early DVDs, but now it's a Blu-ray from a beautiful master and it looks terrific.
TIM MILLARD:And I'm finding that a lot of these films from the 30s as I'm watching them, you know, obviously the restoration just really brings them to life. But topically it's almost like I mean, we're talking 90 years ago, george, coming up on 100, before too long, and yet the relevance of the subject matter it's still the same relevance people, jobs, economy, like there's so many things in this specifically that are as relevant today as they were 80, 90, 100 years ago and that makes it prescient for the viewer now. But you can see it historically as well for that time. So I just found it that it worked on so many levels. And then, of course, walter Houston is fantastic and the other actors as well. So definitely a great blind buy.
TIM MILLARD:If you don't know this one, I've even read some comments from people who did that and they were so glad that they did so. Really fun to review this one. And there are some extras on here, george, from what 1933, the cartoons that you have on. You have Bosco in person, buddy's Beer Garden and the Dish Ran Away with the Spoon, and I watched all three and they're really fun and totally fit the theme of 1933 here with this film.
George Feltenstein:Well, it puts you in the mood of what you would have experienced if you went to a movie theater, and if you didn't, you wouldn't have seen exactly these cartoons, you would have seen something like them. I always find that to be a great deal of fun. Just to be able to add that on have gotten on this film so far, especially in terms of there have been some big, pretty big articles written about it in major newspapers and online sites, where people who don't usually talk about our releases wanted to talk about Gabriel over the White House. Obviously, these are very politically sensitive times and a film that is 92 years old having a message for us now it's kind of like you know, people speaking to us from the great beyond. It's quite remarkable and I really hope people enjoy yeah.
TIM MILLARD:Yeah, that is fun that people have been refinding this again, and that's what these new Blu-rays allow George people to refine it, and when you put a little publicity and promotion behind it, you know the new launch of the Blu-ray and it brings back into the conversation, so to speak. So that's great to hear. Well, we have one other film that we wanted to talk about, and this is Last Stand at Sabre River from 1997. And this one stars Tom Selleck in a Western that was based off of an Elmore Leonard novel. I thought this was great fun If you enjoy Westerns, if that's a genre that interests you. I thought the acting from Tom and his supporting cast was very good. And then it's a fun, interesting storyline of this ex-Confederate officer or soldier who comes back to his home and his wife and his family and things have changed, and so it has a lot of great drama and a lot of great action in it as well.
George Feltenstein:And I thoroughly enjoyed watching it. Well, the TNT network back in the days when it was started by Ted Turner, they really formed their own TNT Originals production unit where Turner Broadcasting was funding the making of films specifically for TNT. And Ted loved westerns and, with the exception of the occasional Dances with Wolves in 1990, unforgiven 1992, Wyatt Earp, 1994. There were a few Westerns being made for the big screen, but not a lot, and Ted did a great service to fans of the genre by making many Westerns as well as many other non-Westerns for TNT. The TNT telefilms were really a step above most made for television films. There were still in the 90s, movies being made for network TV, although that was dying out as cable was becoming a resurgent medium. And I think a lot of the films that were made for TNT were up to the level and as good as the things that were being made for HBO, which were probably the best things ever made that weren't for a theatrical release. But this particular TNT Western, not only because of Tom Selleck's continued popularity for decades as a performer, but because the story was written by Elmore Leonard two years before this movie, get Shorty came out in the theaters and people who didn't know Elmore Leonard's incredible, unique sense of writing, became aware of him, and he of course, already had a huge fan following. So I think this was a combination of Elmore Leonard and the TNT Western coming together under the best conditions.
George Feltenstein:And here we went back to the camera negative and scanned it 4K and you don't feel like you're watching a telefilm. You feel like you're watching a theatrical film of what would now be called a modest budget, but it's good storytelling, good acting. Susie Amos is the female lead, there's a lot of action but there's a lot of heart and it's also very relatable. The writing is of such high quality that it kind of sticks with you. It kind of sticks with you and we intend to do more with the TNT library over the next coming years. We would like to do a lot more bringing these films to Blu-ray, because people are wearing out their DVDs or their VHS copies. You know this is the time, certainly not for all of them, but for some of them. Their excellence demands an excellent presentation and I'm excited about a lot of the ones we have in the hopper that we're planning on for later on this year and next year and hopefully the year after.
TIM MILLARD:And I think he did some other Westerns, so hopefully those are in that batch you're talking about.
George Feltenstein:Oh yes.
TIM MILLARD:I've been asking already, so looking forward to that. So, yeah, another thumbs up on this one. It's a very solid movie and for fans of the Western genre this is a lot of fun. So well, that kind of wraps up our discussion for today. George, that was a lot of territory, even though it was just a few topics that I think that's, you know, really fun for both animation and film fans. And as always, George, it's great to hear from you and the explanation on these things so that people can get from the source and get the truth and not just speculation or rumors or conjecture that is sometimes out there. So I want to thank you again for coming on the Extras Well, thank you, tim.
George Feltenstein:It's always a pleasure and I look forward to the next get together. We'll have a lot of fun things to talk about. That we will. That we will.
TIM MILLARD:Well, that's exciting news. I'm so glad that George was able to jump on to give us the full announcement for that Looney Tunes Collector's Vault, volume 1. We'll get George and Jerry back on to talk about this release either closer to the release or soon after, and they'll also be announcing probably in another month or so the actual cartoons that are included. So lots of great stuff ahead for animation fans, for Looney Tunes fans, and so that's something to look forward to. If you want more information about anything we talked about today, check out our Facebook page and other social media links as well. Those are in the podcast show notes, and for the two reviews that we did today, there are purchase links if you're interested in those.
TIM MILLARD:Those were two fine films that I hope you'll add to your list if you haven't already, and if you haven't followed the show, please think about doing that. It's a great way to stay on top of all of our podcasts so that you don't miss one or that you get the information about it right away. We appreciate it if you've already done that and, as always, we appreciate any five-star reviews for those of you if you've been thinking of leaving. One really does help the show. So thank you very much for that. Until next time you've been listening to Tim Millard, stay slightly obsessed.