The Extras
The Extras
Introducing 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
Pre-orders for Looney Tunes Collector's Vault, Volume 1 should be available at major online retailers very soon, with 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.
The Extras Facebook page
The Extras Twitter
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. I'm Tim Allard, your host, and I'm very excited because today, george Feltenstein of the Warner Archive and animation historian Jerry Beck are here to talk about the Looney Tunes Collector's Vault, volume 1 cartoons. Hi guys, hey, hey, tim. Hi guys, hey, hey Tim. Now, George, you were on and announced a while back that this release was coming out, but this is the first that the fans get to know what the actual cartoon shorts are, so I'm very excited for today's discussion. So how
George Feltenstein:Well, I think it's important to say that we know that any day now, the actual pre-orders will not every retailer or online e-teller, as you might want to say. They don't always list the contents, even if we ask them to, so that's why I put it on the Facebook page yesterday. That's why we're talking with you today, which is always a pleasure and there's a lot of fun to talk about here. We're very excited about this new chapter because I think it's appropriate at this point to discuss why we made this migration from Collector's Choice, which was a single disc, to Collector's Vault.
George Feltenstein:There was a lot of confusion around that, and both Jerry and I lamented the fact that, while Collector's Choice was working really well, we weren't getting an opportunity to address the hundreds literally hundreds of great cartoons that were remaining in standard definition in home media, and we wanted to take the opportunity to give those titles the needed quality upgrade, while also continuing to mine the deeper depths of the Looney Tunes and Merry Melodies library. So hence, two discs for basically just a few more dollars. You get twice the amount of cartoons, and I think this is going to be an ongoing series. We are basically planning to start work on volume two as we speak planning to start work on volume two as we speak and it should be very rewarding for fans and that's what Jerry and I have always aspired to in all of our animated endeavors.
Tim Millard:Yeah, George, I think when we spoke and you announced it, one way to kind of help fans understand this evolution from one single disc in the collector's choice to this two disc now series is that that first disc is kind of like a continuation of what you were doing on the collector's choice. Do I have that right?
George Feltenstein:Exactly, Disc one of Collector's Vault is basically Collector's Choice Volume 5. That's what it would be and I think in retrospect, you know we really like the name Collector's Vault. But people were a little bit put off by the fact that you know, we use so many different names for these different collections. There's Golden Collection and Platinum Collection and there's Collector's Choice. Now Collector's Vault and the Superstars. How can I keep track of all of it? And that's not an invalid question. It is a very valid question.
George Feltenstein:We made this migration and that's one of the reasons we're delighted to have the opportunity to speak with you today so that people can hear that Collector's Choice Volume 5 is the first disc of this. We couldn't even put an AKA on the label if we were completely, you know, obsessive about it, but I think it's fine the way it is. But we really want to clarify that we have two missions with this series to mine discs that haven't been available on DVD or Blu-ray in remastered form as part of a Warner Brothers cartoon collection, and then the second disc is all cartoons that have never been part of a Warner Brothers cartoon collection in HD before, and there's a little caveat to that. I try to add animated cartoons to our classic film releases, and have been doing so for quite some time, in order to try to recreate the theatrical movie-going experience of the 30s or 40s or 50s. And there are some of these cartoons that have been used as special features on a Blu-ray release and say, oh well, that doesn't count. Well, that's not what this is about and it's almost two different consumers, because the animation collector isn't necessarily the classic film collector. There are people like Jerry and myself who happen to like both, but there are other people that live in other preferences and we want to try to keep the focus on putting as much of the Warner Brothers animated classic cartoon library in accessible form as possible.
George Feltenstein:And I will take this opportunity to have a little bit of a bombshell piece of news that will not be courtesy of the Warner Archive, but it will be coming from the greater. We of Warner Brothers Film Entertainment. Looney Tunes Platinum 1 and 2 are going to be back in print at a reasonable price, and that will be back in print at a reasonable price, and that will be happening in June, around the same time this happens. So a headline that will send people running to their forums to talk about that. But those discs are going back in print at reasonable prices so all the scalpers are out of luck and people will finally be able to get. I have been begging my colleagues to put them back in print and finally they are, so digressing a little bit, but that's a huge piece of news for lots of people that never got their chance to get those. Volume three has remained in print all this time. So there's lots of great Warner Brothers cartoon news coming from Warner Brothers today.
Tim Millard:Well, that's fantastic. I don't know how many posts. I'm sure you see them constantly. Please tell George to reissue these. You know Platinum Collection. I'm like I'm sure that George is doing everything he can, but there's a whole big company there.
George Feltenstein:It took many years trying to get people to focus and I said, please, these people are like having to pay outrageous prices for used copies. Please, there's no reason for them not to be in print. And because of how we are reorganized here, there was a time where I could do this all myself and I had the wherewithal to do it. Now things are more. More people are involved in the process, so I can't just make these decisions on my own. So I'm very persistent in requesting things and finally it has come to pass, and that's what we should look at.
Tim Millard:And it's such a signal of how popular those were. And I think this to come back to our conversation today this new Vault series is going to have that same kind of popularity, but why don't we dive into that first disc? And, jerry, maybe you want to dive into the conversation here and tell us something about these uh shorts that you and George selected for this release.
Jerry Beck: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 volume one here on the collector's vault, um, which, which is that and it's perfect that the Platinum Collection is coming out at the same time. When we do these things, at least in the past, when we do these things, when we're coming out with the first DVDs, we're coming out with the first Blu-rays, the thing we've got to do is put out the A, the absolutely most requested B, absolute classics, acknowledged classic cartoons, and so we've done that. And so the Collectors series is where we do deep dives, we do the ones that wouldn't be on when we initially go to Blu-ray or something like that. Now we're going really, really deep and, of course, these are at this point, if you've been collecting and many people are these are the ones you want. You want these ones that we haven't seen otherwise, ones that haven't shown up anywhere else. In some cases, there's definitely a few cartoons on here that are there. In some ways they're remastered, premiere. This is the only place you can get this cartoon and restored and looking beautiful. And so, that said, that's the point Once we were going along with the collector's choice, we suddenly realized that most, if not all, of the best you know Bugs Bunnies and Daffy Ducks we've put them out.
Jerry Beck:I mean there's a lot and there's more to do, but the real creme de la creme are clearly showcased earlier. So these sets. So we definitely had to expand what we were doing with Collector's Choice in the Vault series. The new series that we're doing with Collector's Choice in the Vault series, the new series that we're doing so that we could include the Bugs Bunnies and Daffy Ducks and major name characters that might have already come out on DVD but, surprisingly, were never on Blu-ray. And so we had to figure out. It didn't quite fit with what we were doing with Collector's Choice. The Vault series opens it up, opens the vault more so that we can debut more things at the best possible quality and so that you could watch them anytime you want. So that's my initial statement. How do we begin talking about some of these titles? What do you want to do?
George Feltenstein:well, I think we should first talk about disc one and and some of the real crown jewels. I mean you span from the 1930s to the 1960s. So yeah, a nice variety of styles, directors, characters characters.
Jerry Beck:Yes, well, I mean, I mean, we reviewed the set um the other day and, uh, I'll be honest, the one that blew me away completely I mean really blew 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 first in color. I believe it's 1934, yeah, 1934.
Jerry Beck:Mary Melody, one of the first in color. I believe it's Cinecolor. It is Cinecolor and it's kind of blue and red shades and the restoration on this thing is gorgeous. I mean, I've never seen it like this. When you look at it like this, you feel like you're in 1934. Color cartoons are new. And, wow, what a unique thing you're looking at on the screen, not just the film itself. I've seen the film before. It usually looks pretty funky because throughout the years the prints that went to television have faded Things. Oh my gosh, restored on this. It almost looks like a director of today cleverly intentionally just wanted to use two colors. That's how it looks to me. It looks like an artistic statement.
George Feltenstein:And just for historic background for those who are listening watching this podcast, this podcast Walt Disney had a three-year exclusive deal with Technicolor on the patent for three-color Technicolor, starting with Flowers and Trees, in 1932, which prevented anybody else from using Technicolor for their cartoons. So when the decision was made to make Merry Melodies in color, warner Brothers didn't have the opportunity to use the three-color Technicolor process until 1935. So you have a bunch of cartoons that are quite good but that are limited to that two-color process. And I agree with Jerry, when we looked at it yesterday it was like wow, I've never seen CineColor look this good. Oh yeah, coming from the negative makes a big difference.
Jerry Beck:This particular cartoon. I don't have the story behind it, I can only speculate. But it wasn't the first color a Mary Melody cartoon. But for whatever reason and I'm and I'll speculate on why, but for whatever reason, they put a little extra effort in this film in particular and even in the marketing of it. Now, that's the thing I never talk about. What do you mean? The marketing? The marketing of one solo, individual cartoon. But if you go on line and you look, you'll see that there was two things that are unique that were put out for this cartoon that no other cartoon I can think of has, from the Warner Brothers cartoons, and that's they tried to. They marketed the theme song in it, beauty and the Beast, the song in it.
Jerry Beck:There's sheet music that's out with the characters from the cartoon, out with the characters from the cartoon. There's very rare, very few Warner Brothers cartoons that have sheet music connected to it. In fact, I don't know of any specific other cartoon other than I think they did. I taught a putty tat that Tweety and Sylvester, I mean, that's really it. And the other one was they put out a coloring book. There's a Mary Melodies coloring book, but it's all from this cartoon. All the pictures in it are from Beauty and the Beast, even the cover.
Jerry Beck:So wow, I think what was going on was the Three Little Pigs was such a sensation at Disney and the sheet music and merchandising off of a short cartoon that was very rare back then. I mean, I'm talking about, if it's not a character like Mickey Mouse or, you know, a character from one of the cartoons, like, later on, porky Pig. So I think there was a real effort by all the studios to do something like that. This was the Warner Brothers one. I actually know of other examples from the same year from Terry Tunes and other studios where they attempted to market a song that was in the cartoon original to the cartoon Very rare, very unusual and now it's been restored and it's a special cartoon.
George Feltenstein: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 been extrapolated upon in the few reference books, including Jerry's own. That's an important little factoid, and that's why digging a little deeper into this plethora of thousand plus cartoons is so exciting.
Tim Millard:Now you have 25 cartoons on disc one, and the way you listed them on the Facebook page, George, is that the order alphabetical that they'll also be accessible on disc.
George Feltenstein:We decided to go alphabetical with volume two of Collector's Choice rather than chronological, because it also makes for a better viewing experience. If you're going to hit that play all button, you don't really know what's coming next, and I think that's part of the fun. And if you don't particularly care for a particular character or a particular director for whatever reason, if you don't love all of them, you just click and skip to the next cartoon. But it makes it a lot more fun that way and we got a lot of really positive response to the Collector's Choice Volume 2 for having done that. So we've carried that forward on the first and second discs of this first volume and I think it's terrific. I really am very pleased we stumbled upon it because it wasn't calculated, it just seemed like a good idea.
Jerry Beck:Yeah, and in this particular set is this very interesting, because there's a lot of cartoons without characters that were carried on one shots. I guess we'd say it's got some unusual cartoons that wouldn't have made the sets, the previous ones, because you know, they're not the big directors of note or certain other aspects to them, and I mean it's beautiful. Actually it's quite the hodgepodge, but it's beautiful. You know, if you love Warner cartoons, sit back and relax. Everything is here. I'm looking over the list right now and you tell me when. I mean I can tell you something interesting, probably about each one.
Tim Millard:Well, I think you should do that Well why don't we run down some of them at least? You already mentioned Beauty and the Beast, and that's the second one on this squad and the oldest in this collection, uh, including both discs. So, uh, I'm gonna. I'm gonna be tempted to skip right to it because of what you just said. Uh, jerry, but I won't. I'm gonna watch bars and stripes forever, from 1939. That's the first one, right?
Jerry Beck:yeah, that's a, that's a, uh, an interesting miscellaneous cartoon directed by ben hardaway ben hardaway, cal dalton and it's, and it's, uh, they didn't do many cartoons.
Jerry Beck:They were. They were actually the substitute for, for his freeling. That was that, uh, that period when freeling went over to mgGM for like a year, and so Hardaway and Dalton cobbled their cartoons together. I think Leon noticed the difference. Again, from my point of view they're really interesting. The character designs are different. They tackle different subjects that they kind of didn't do.
Jerry Beck:This one's all about prison. It's gags, about prison life. You know, I don't know if the, if everybody watching back then was familiar with that, that life, but um, you know, and by the way, the story goes that uh, selestinger, after about a year, like basically called freeling up and was like is there any way I can get you back? And that was the day that Freeling basically had had it at MGM and was wondering what he was going to say to Leon to get his job back. And that's what happened.
Jerry Beck:And, by the way, all of that about leaving and getting your job back, that was reflected in a very famous cartoon that we know, a cartoon that we love, probably the first one Freeling did when he got back to Warner Brothers. You Ought be in pictures it's not on this set, but you know, that's the live action animation one that, uh, supposedly the story idea on that came from, from freeling himself you know, so, um, the third cartoon on the set is the first of uh one, the brand new remasters, a great Tex Avery cartoon, a Day at the Zoo.
Jerry Beck:This one is definitely one. I have to tell you that people have reached out to me and said what about this one? And I think that's probably true of most of the Averys that we haven't put out yet. He did a lot of miscellaneous cartoons in color in the late 30s for Warner Brothers, and you know the problem from another point of view, from the marketing past ways that we've done this, is that a lot of them don't feature Daffy Duck, porky Pig, bugs Bunny or any of the famous characters. They're pretty much what we call one-off or one-shot kind of thing. This one is part of his series that he did that were sort of like little documentaries. They were sort of making fun of other shorts that were in the theater at that time, like a Pete Smith short. You know what I mean. A Day at the Zoo, look at this theater 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 thing and these cartoons got a lot of notoriety. It's sort of forgotten today, but they got a lot of press because they were unusual.
Jerry Beck:Disney didn't do cartoons with narrators, you know. Back then you know they were doing more character-driven stuff. Avery was doing more gag-driven stuff and it was noticed. You know it was one of those things that made the Warner Brothers cartoons unique. Last thing I'll say there quickly is just that I was mentioning how it's sort of a takeoff of some of the other shorts. That's what Avery did. Avery was doing takeoffs not only of live action shorts like sports, you know, the little sports one-reelers and little other things. He did where there was spoofs of fairy tales. That was, you know, avery making fun of the other cartoon studios that were doing fairy tale stuff. I always look at Avery's cartoons from that period. He was he was the mad magazine of the 1930s, you know. Uh, if somebody was doing something, they did a cartoon around it. It wasn't just Avery, but Avery was the leader. He's the guy who did it first.
George Feltenstein:And I think it ties in very well because Warner Brothers short subject department, live action, was a massive operation In the 30s.
George Feltenstein:They had two studios there was the Brooklyn studio and then there was the home office studio, each having a production unit for all sorts of short subjects, and only a fraction of those are viewable today in any fashion today in any fashion.
George Feltenstein:We've put very few of them out in home video, unfortunately, and if you see some of them pop up on TCM, you're looking at a videotape that's at least 35 years old. It's a whole other portion of our library that needs triage and attention and happily I can report that a lot of those are being restored and preserved. As Warner Brothers Discovery has increased the budget for preservation and restoration, which is something a lot of people don't know, and I'm grateful to the company for doubling down on seeing the importance of preserving our library. So, who knows? We may be talking about new short subjects, compilations on future episodes of the Extras, but the fact that we get to show these cartoons that, as you say, I mean Detouring America, is another one that I think of as one of the most famous suits of shorts, and I don't think anybody did it better than Tex, but we could do a whole you know 200 hours talking about.
Tim Millard:Tex. Well, shall we jump to the next one here, the Dixie Friars.
Jerry Beck:That's one of those. I think that's one of those Pappy and Elvis cartoons. That's two. What animals are they? I guess they're roosters too. Anyway, I'm sorry I don't have that in my head right now, but those are McKimpson more rural antics with Foghorn Leghorn in that cartoon, and they're fun. Yeah, with Foghorn Leghorn in that cartoon.
George Feltenstein:And they're fun. Yeah, one of the things that I wanted to talk about because it's something that I found revelatory and Jerry and I experienced this yesterday. We just got the first the test discs yesterday and we watched all of them. This is a tradition that Jerry and I have that goes back to the very first. We were doing things way before this, but the first Golden Collection in 2003, when I got the first Tesk DVDs, jerry came over to my house and he hadn't seen any of the work and it was. I was much more focused on watching his reaction to the restorations, which now I look at and say, oh my God, they look terrible, because 20 years ago the technology was what it was, but at the time it was revelatory.
Tim Millard:Oh yeah.
George Feltenstein:Jerry's reaction level to any of these restorations has always been a personal treat for me to see his reaction when he sees the final product. Yesterday we were looking at a cartoon that Jerry doesn't particularly care for, but he's changed his opinion now due to the gorgeous restoration that's Goodnight Elmer, directed by Chuck Jones.
Jerry Beck:Goodnight Elmer. Restoration. That's good night elmer. Directed by chuck jones. Good night elmer. Uh, on my list of not interested, 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 be animated. It was. It could have been an Edgar Kennedy short. I mean, it's really, it's that kind of and the animation is well, that's the thing. And of course, I've only seen it. You know what I call Channel 5 prints, which are 16 millimeter prints, faded Purple, scratched up cue marks. When you see it in color, holy mackerel, I didn't realize. I never. I mean, it's just beautiful, beautiful, the lighting, the color to get the effect of middle of the night. It's really. I mean, it's a treat to watch. I understand why I didn't like it before. You know it's 100% improved, being remastered. So you know, good night Elmer. You know, good morning Elmer.
Tim Millard:And you've said that before, george Jerry, you've said that before on other Looney Tunes collector's choice releases where we talked about them that when you saw this remaster in HD it was eye-opening to you to see.
Jerry Beck:I mean people like George and I and many of my animator friends we watched growing up. On TV we would watch the same cartoons over and over and over. We studied them. You know, I wrote a book and described every. So. We've seen all of these many, many, many, many times. And then one day I'll go back further, george, one day. I remember that George was involved with transferring 35 millimeter prints for LaserDisc right, that's right. Prints for laser disc right, right. And just seeing a 35 millimeter transfer, yeah, jaw dropping, you know. And now, if we look back at that, it it doesn't, it won't rock your boat, but, but, but at the time it was to me revelatory. And then then, then, george, now, with the warn Warner Brothers going back to the original 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:I mean we're very fortunate in that I can think of very few. First of all, all of the Warner Brothers cartoons exist, the commercially released, produced cartoons. None of them are lost. Can't say that about certain other characters at certain other studios. They all exist. Almost all of them exist in their original negative as well. There are very few that have source element problems. There are a couple, and some of them we've tackled to the best of our ability or five owners before it came back home.
George Feltenstein:It was a 40-year journey from the time that Jack and the Brothers sold the pre-'48 cartoons and pre-'49 features in 1956. And it wasn't until Time Warner bought Turner in 1996 that finally the Warner Brothers Library was reunited. And the fact that all of these original negatives have survived that huge journey between three or four owners over 40 years and then coming back here for safety, it's really a great blessing. We're very fortunate and we keep going back to make things better. Technology has improved so much since I mean Jerry's right when we were doing the, when I was working at MGM and we did the Laserdisc releases, there had been one-inch videotape transfers made off of 35-millimeter Technicolor prints and we went just nuts because we were used to seeing them from 16-millimeter sources and meanwhile a 35 millimeter Technicolor print is going to be soft. It's a very poor choice for an element to work from in mastering unless that's all you have. But nobody thought you could go back to the original negatives at that point and it's really only until the last few years where we can deal with original negatives with some form of safety, because in scanning the film never touches nothing, ever touches the sprocket holes and there is such care taken in the scanning process and that's why we are allowed and able to make these scans for preservation, as well as having film backup elements, which is in my opinion, essential, because to have analog film backup on every cartoon is essential because you never know what's going to happen in the world of digital. So having something physically as an asset is terribly important to the protection of the film.
George Feltenstein:But the quality of all of these I mean we were watching, we went through both discs for most of the day yesterday and we were just delighted with how great everything looked and how everything sounded and it's something to be really excited about, mostly because we know we are among the fans. We are the fans of these cartoons. We are part of that group. You know this is what we do for a living, but it just happens to be that we are also the consumers. You know, I don't just in my collection, have our library, I go out and buy other things made by other companies that are from other studios, because I'm passionately dedicated to my love of film and especially classic film. But we know what the consumer wants and we put these things 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 what has united our work together for many, many years.
George Feltenstein:And we met each other going to 16 millimeter film collector conventions in New Jersey, you know, many, many years ago, before we were in the industry, because that's how we got to see cartoons in those days, aside from on television, was by trying to get 16 millimeter used prints. And we still collect film, although I haven't put film in a projector in over a decade, so I can't say I'm an active collector anymore. But for years, you know, I would love having people over and putting a cartoon in a projector and having people go crazy because there was no other way for people to see the cartoons for a couple of years and then, of course, videocassettes started to be progressive. I know we tried to do that at MGMUA with the Cartoon Movie Star series. Warner Home Video, before I worked here, had the Golden Jubilee cassettes, which were terrific because they were put together with a little bit of intelligence and curation. And when I got to MGMUA they had been putting out some pre-48 cartoons without any intelligence or creation and the most ridiculous titles and marketing them for little children.
George Feltenstein:So we needed to clarify that these are animated motion pictures that were made for adults and perfectly appropriate for the children who also happen to be in the theater, and we've always wanted these films to be respected. The same way I'm quoting Jerry here. You need to respect these films. The same way you quote, we respect Gone with the Wind or Singing in the Rain or Casablanca. It's that important. And people have always been demeaning towards classic animation as, oh, it's cartoons, it's for kids.
George Feltenstein:There are people I encounter in day-to-day life who think I'm a little crazy because I love watching classic animation. I'm not crazy. I see the genius that went into the great works. And that's not saying that every classic cartoon or old cartoon is great. There are some that just aren't. We happen to be very fortunate in that the emphasis at Warner Brothers on animation was on both artistic quality, animation quality and, most importantly, humor. Warner Brothers cartoons are funny and they probably are the funniest and I'd also put Tex Avery MGM cartoons and Tom and Jerry Golden Era cartoons in that group as well. In terms of theatrical animation. I don't think anybody else can touch those. In terms of humor, some other cartoons are really beautiful to look at, but they're not necessarily funny.
Tim Millard:Well, we've gotten through like four cartoons guys.
George Feltenstein:We're not going to go through every one. We can't talk about all 50 cartoons.
Tim Millard:No, we can't.
Jerry Beck:I mean, I can point out some things maybe.
Tim Millard:Why don't you just look through that list and Jerry or George and pull out a few that you think are worth a couple minutes mention or background?
Jerry Beck:Boy, oh boy. One I want to at least mention is a real oddity, which is Quackadile Tears from 1962, one of the later ones, one cartoon of Arthur Davis, who had directed some great ones in the late 40s and then became an animator under Frizz Freeling. After that the powers that be at Warner's eliminated that unit. That was like a fourth unit. And then the rest of the Warner Brothers cartoons from that point on were McKimson Jones and Freeling. But in the early 60s, when Warner's was doing the Bugs Bunny show, the major directors McKimson Jones and Freeling were on top of it. They had to direct the interstitials, they had to make it be primoed because it was going to be on TV and everyone was going to see it. And so during that weird period in the early 60s, a lot of the animators who were not directors got elevated up for one or two cartoons, you know, at that period.
Jerry Beck:What's interesting is that this one was Arthur Davis. He was a director not only at Warner's, doing some really great, hilarious Daffy Duck cartoons and the Goofy Gophers. And the Goofy Gophers which we have 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 the Little Match Girl, the Color Rhapsodies of that period. He did a lot of those things. That was in his early days. Plus it's a great little cartoon with, you know, daffy Duckjorie, Maine voice that she does for the wife.
George Feltenstein:You know. Anyway, it's good stuff. Well, I want to talk about a cartoon that's on disc two. That has always been one of my favorites Hair Condition, and this is Bugs Bunny in the department store going against the Great Gildersleeve. The store manager sounds very much like the actor Harold Peary, who was on the radio as the Great Gildersleeve. You know, going so fast, eh, little chum.
George Feltenstein:You know, there are certain lines and catchphrases in these cartoons where people know the line or catchphrase but they don't know what the cartoon is from Right and what line the cartoon is from. And I think that this is a cartoon that everybody knows. Once they see it, they'll recognize it. The way Warner Brothers was able to make verbal puns over the use of the word hair the titles is second to none, I think, and so many of my favorite buzz cartoons have hair in the title. You know, um, water, water, every hair, that's not on this set, but um, I mean, I could think of so many of them, but that's one that I really, really love. And we also have birth of a notion with daffy, which has always been one of my favorite cartoons, and the fact that these have not been on blu-ray before is shocking right, it's what you got on on disc two.
Jerry Beck:Uh, says the story. Because there are a lot of classics on disc two, classics that are either standalone or they feature major characters. And if we were continuing the collector's choice set, we would not be putting these out on Blu-ray, at least not right now. It wouldn't have happened. We would not be putting these out on Blu-ray at least not right now, it wouldn't have happened. This format change allows us to get Porky's, duck Hunt, horton Hatches, the Egg, on and on and on. Great, great classic Looney Tunes on this particular disc, and very happy to have these on Blu-ray. Finally.
George Feltenstein:Yes on this particular disc and, uh, very happy to have these on blu-ray finally, yes, and it's been a long time coming, because if you think about the space between the last release of platinum, which I believe was over 10 years ago, uh, there was basically 10 years where there were no warner brothers cartoons getting remastered and coming out in high definition on Blu-ray. You know, we weren't allowed to touch Looney Tunes or other bigger franchises within Warner Archive. And as Warner Archive has grown and you know, and we just dipped our toe in the water a little bit with 4K releases, we'll only be doing three or four a year because they're very expensive, but the ones we do are very notable. I hope will continue to be so. We were also given the opportunity to, given the opportunity to spread our wings into Looney Tunes. We did a little bit with Porky Pig 101 on DVD, which left much to be desired in terms of picture quality and we had no budget, but it was a test idea that allowed us eventually to convince the powers that be, to let us have a crack at going right for the collector hence collector's choice and bringing these things to Blu-ray.
George Feltenstein:No bells and whistles, just beautiful masters and great cartoons. And here we are now with twice the amount of cartoons 50 cartoons and tackling both those that have never been part of a Warner Brothers cartoon collection, either on DVD or Blu-ray. They maybe never had a home video release or maybe were released on VHS, but now they're out on Blu-ray and people can own them and enjoy them and no one is going to take them away they're on your shelf. And then the second disc is, as I've said before. They're cartoons that may have been available in other formats, but this is the first time they're part of a Warner Brothers cartoon compilation in high definition, looking and sounding terrific and being oh so entertaining, which is really the most important thing of all.
Tim Millard:I was going to ask you about this disc too. Just a couple of questions that may or may not pertain to others, but I just was curious when you knew that you were going to do this, too curious when you knew that you were going to do this too and and you were looking at it, I'm assuming there's quite a large number that you could choose from. Did you kind of put this first uh uh compilation together, trying to get various different characters? So you had some of peppy lepew and some of bugs and the key thing is.
Jerry Beck:The key thing is characters. Clearly on the on the second disc and in fact I think the only one shot on there might be horton 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 there was some speedy and some peppy in particular, and of course Bugs and of course the other, you know, daffy and all the. But I wanted to make sure that we still have fans out there who think that there's some oppression to those characters and there isn't. You know.
George Feltenstein:And there never has been.
Jerry Beck:Right, there's all this talk about rumors but not facts, right, and so I wanted to make sure that we got some of those on there. And anyway, that really was the point was does this show off? Are these really important cartoons for these characters 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 so many good ones. Um, uh, you know, I knew that. You know, whatever was on a disc one, we're disc one. We're doing, like I say, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep dives, and there's people who may not care for some of that. They want Bugs Bunny and we may not have those on those deep dives.
George Feltenstein:So this is a better package business that Warner Archive is where we're a little bit focused as a niche. You know, there's Warner Brothers Home Entertainment, formerly known as Warner Home Video, which when there were stores that carried discs in store which is a rarity nowadays, but that's what they were focused on was hundreds of thousands of units. The numbers of units we sold on the Golden Collections initially are mind-boggling now as the business has changed and morphed. But we started Warner Archive as an alternative with DVDs made on demand, and now we're primarily a Blu-ray label that's even dipped its toe into the 4K water. We're really going for quality over quantity and trying to get deeper into the library, because even on the feature film side, it's staggering how many important films that we own that have only been available on DVD and some of them haven't even been released on home video, and they're important films.
George Feltenstein:So it's just a matter of me getting my budgets approved and the permission to move forward, because I'm always on bended knee asking for this or that. I don't have the authority to just pick exactly what I want to do and release it. That is not the way we are structured. I have to make a good business case for everything we do, and that's why fan support is so important. It's virtually a guarantee that there will be a volume two of Collector's Vault before the end of the year. If people don't support volume one, they may pull that support. But I'm confident we're giving consumers what they want at a great value proposition and that this will be beneficial to the people that buy the discs and ultimately beneficial to the shareholders of this company who are looking for profitability. And that is my job is to do both of those things Get the films to the people that want them and get the profits to the company that needs them. End of story, right, right.
Tim Millard: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 their favorites, of course, that they're very, very happy to see, and there's going to be so many on here that are just eye-opening new revelations to so many people. So that's a lot of fun. I love the collector's choice volumes and I'm expecting to love the vault ones even more, because the aggregating that you're doing of the ones that were on this film or that film Now people were always asking that where can I find that film? You know which film is it with? But now it's going to be easier with this vault to find them on these discs too, there in HD. So was there anything else we needed to cover, guys?
George Feltenstein:Well, I think we want to address an elephant in the room and that is that in putting this set together as we're all doing a lot of other things and dealing with one set, planning another and so forth and so on we goofed. We put a cartoon on Collector's Vault, disc 1, that we actually had, the same cartoon, double or Mutton, on Collector's Choice, volume 4. And by the time we discovered this, whoops, the discs were finalized and done, the menus were done, everything is done. We can't change it. So, folks, we made a mistake, we apologize. Made a mistake, we apologize and we're going to make it up by having 26 cartoons that have never been before part of a Warner Brothers cartoon collection in DVD or Blu-ray in remastered form. So, disc one of Collector's Vault, volume two, if it happens, as we believe it will, we'll have 26 cartoons to make up for our programming error, for which we are deeply apologetic. But we are human, so mistakes happen.
George Feltenstein:And we try to correct them.
Tim Millard:And I was thinking about it, george, you know we were talking about how this disc one is kind of like disc five. You know of the choice and I could see where on your listing of when you were doing this for this four that sometimes you know, because it's this five it just also got put on this uh this, not to mention the fact that we're working on so many different animation projects right now.
George Feltenstein:Uh, because, as a lot of people know, we just just released Magilla Gorilla about a month ago. There's a lot more episodic Hanna-Barbera coming, and the detail that goes into some of the things we're working on right now it's enormous. So it's really important to try to keep everything organized and we just had a little slip there. I don't think it's the end of the world, because we have a way of correcting it in terms of what we're getting out there. If you have disc one of collector's vault in your player and you happen to see a cartoon you've seen before, the world is not coming to an end. No one's taking away you know anything from you that you know it's, it's it happened.
George Feltenstein:It happened, we goofed, and it's an apology, and we're going to make it up to the fans by giving them a little more next time.
Tim Millard:Yeah there's just such a wealth. We talked about this before, George. I feel like this has been animation lovers' paradise for the last two years.
George Feltenstein:Well, the animation lovers have been in a desert for many years because we weren't offering anything as a company, which was very frustrating to me because I knew there was profitability for the company that was out there that we could attain, as long as we had management support, which we have. And with all the restoration and remastering going on, it's just a really great time to be an animation fan, whether your animation preferences are more contemporary or whether they're classic. There are things happening all over the company, a lot of things that I'm not involved in, but I know they're happening and I'm always happy to see people get what they want. It's not about what I like, it just so happens. I love these Warner Brothers cartoons and I have since practically birth. But anything that our company brings to the consumer or the collector, whatever their preference, is, that makes me happy that people get to own. There's nothing like owning a beautiful disc with wonderful quality and great entertainment, whatever your choice of entertainment is.
Tim Millard:Well, this has been another fantastic discussion. Every time you guys come on, I just love hearing you back and forth to talk about your passion for animation and, of course, all the stories you have about the directors and the teams of animators that worked on these. So so much good stuff here. I have to thank you again, as always, for coming on and sharing these incredible stories with the fans and today announcing some of these great, great, great shorts that are going to be on the new Collector's Vault coming out very soon, and I know it's going to be very, very popular.
George Feltenstein:June 17th yes, june 17th. Mark your calendars and I do expect that, probably within hours of you putting this podcast up for public viewing and listening, the pre-orders will be available at major online retailers, wow.
Tim Millard:Wow, looking forward to that. Well, thanks again, guys. Thank you Tim. Thanks Tim. Well, hey, that was a great discussion with George and Jerry, but we did not have a chance to run through all of the 50 cartoons included on here, so I'm just going to read them for you so that if you're listening to this in the car or somewhere working on your yard or the dishes that you do have a listing of all of these cartoons. So disc one Bars and Stripes Forever, 1939. Beauty and the Beast, 1934. A Day at the Zoo, 1939. The Dixie Friar, 1960. Devil or Mutton, which we talked about, was on volume four of the Looney Tunes collector's choice.
Tim Millard: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 from you, 1936.
Tim Millard:A Kitty's Kitty from 1955. Let it Be Me, 1936, of Fox and Hounds, 1940, crocodile Tears, 1962, ready Woollen and Able, 1960,. Robin Hood Makes Good, 1939, the Squawk and Hawk, 1942, carrier Stricken, 1952, tweet and Lovely, 1959,. Twe Tweety Circus, 1955, two's a Crowd, 1950, wild About Hurry, 1959, zip and Snort, 1961. Now for this too, ain't she Tweet?
Tim Millard:1952, banty Raids, 1963, birth of an Ocean, 1947, bye, bye Bluebeard, 1949, cat Tales for Two, 1953, daffy Dilly, 1948, daffy Duck and Egghead 1938, gee Whiz, 1956, gonzales Tamales, 1957. Hair Conditioned, 1945. Hair Triggered, 1945. Hair Trimmed, 1953. Horton Hatches the Egg, 1942. Little Boy Woo, 1954.
Tim Millard:Much Ado About Nuttin', 1953. Odor Able Kitty, 1945. Past Perfumance, 1955. Porky's Duck Hunt, 1937. Rabbit Punch, 1948. Red Riding Hoodwinked, 1955. Rhapsody Rabbit, 1946. Snow Business, 1953. Tom Turk and Daffy, 1944, two Crows from Tacos, 1956, zoom and Board, 1957. So that's a total of 25 on disc one, of which 24 are brand new, one's an accidental repeat and 25 on disc two. So a total of 50. If you'd like to know more about these releases, you can look for a link to our Facebook page in the show notes. I'm also going to list these out in the show notes so that you can have reference for them there and, as mentioned, the retail should go up very soon. So we'll have that up on our Facebook page as soon as it is made available. So check out our Facebook page, follow our podcast, follow our YouTube channel, wherever you like to watch or listen, and we'll have all the information for you. Well, as always, thanks for listening to the Extras and stay slightly obsessed about animation.