The Extras - Looney Tunes Collector’s Vault Vol. 2 Celebration & Review

Episode Date: March 28, 2026

Send us Fan MailJoin us as we celebrate the release of the Looney Tunes Collector’s Vault Volume 2 Blu-ray, with Warner Archive’s George Feltenstein and animation historian Jerry Beck. George and Jerry share their stories of curating this set, the restoration and remaster details, and we all share our reviews and highlights. And stick around as George previews if we will be getting a volume 3. Order your copy from MoviezyngOrder your copy from AmazonHighlights: • suppressed cartoons finally available to own on physical media • why A Lad In His Lamp opens Disc One • how 4K scans from original negatives change everything • Disc One highlights including Daffy Duckaroo and black-and-white gems • Tweety and Sylvester craft, plus why Friz Freleng deserves more credit • oddball shorts and experimental art styles that expand the library beyond the box-cover stars • Disc Two - familiar classics upgraded to high definition • Road Runner cartoons as a masterclass in evolving design and direction • context around controversial gags, reissues, and why credits got stripped • Speedy Gonzales and Pepe Le Pew in modern conversations • what it takes to get Volume 3 approved The Extras Facebook pageThe Extras TV YouTube ChannelThe Extras Twitter Warner Archive & Warner Bros Catalog GroupJoin our new public Facebook Group for Warner Archive Animation Fans and get the latest update on all the releases.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.  [e-mail]

Eh, I see what we got here. Hmm, it says something here. Uh, I'll add din's lamp. Lamp? Huh, some lamp. Well, maybe I can shine it up and use it for an ashtray or something. Let the bells ring out and the banners fly. Feast your eyes on me.

It's too good to be true, but I'm here, I'm here. Meh, what's up, Doc? Hey Tim Lard here and many of you are just as excited as I am about the release of the Looney Tunes Collectors Vault Volume 2 Blu-ray. And joining me are George Feltonstein of the Warner Archive and animation historian Jerry Beck. And they have a lot of great information to share today. Background on these cartoons as well as the work that they put into pulling volume 2 together. So lots of good stuff here. George may also give us a little sneak peek as to whether there is a volume 3,

in the works on the horizon. So you'll want to stick around to hear about that. And of course, we'll talk about specific titles and some of our reviews or just things that we thought were noteworthy about titles on this release. Well, George and Jerry, very exciting today. I'm calling this release day.

We get a few of these every year for the big Looney Tunes releases that you've had over the last few years. And so many fans now are getting their copies, starting to watch them, and commenting about how much they're loving this release. What are you hearing? That was the hope and intention. Yeah.

Jerry? That's the same thing. Hearing that people are really, really loving this, you know, makes me happy. This is dream come true. Yeah. Yeah. I think the thing that's of particular note is we were able to include a handful of cartoons that have been, let's just say, suppressed,

and now we deserpressed them. And they are available to own on physical media, whereas you may not see them anywhere else. And that's the beauty of ownership. We had to delay this release because we had the surprise of trying to get Tom and Jerry in there before Christmas. So that pushed this down because there's only so many people that can oversee this kind of work. And I think the results are well worth waiting for.

It's a really entertaining set. We're very proud of it. Hey, let me ask you about those suppressed cartoons. Are some of those only available on this Blu-ray? That's correct. You know, this is intended for the adult collector and we made the pitch that adult collectors are not the audience that are going to have problems with some of these issues. And they are a product of their time, but they should be made available. So we've been able to open the door a bit, and I'm hoping we can continue opening it further, the more we get support for these releases, the more we'll be able to broaden the spectrum.

We start out, the very first disc with the very first cartoon, is one that was hands-off for 20 years. More. Aladdin's Lamp with Bugs Bunny. Great cartoon. Great Jim Vacchus voice as the genie. one of my favorites, Jerry, I think it's a favorite of yours too. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. It just seemed ridiculous that we weren't able to do anything with the cartoon.

That's how we start things off with a bang, and I really think it's a very, very entertaining set. It crosses from the 30s to the 60s. There's just a lot to love here. I'm hoping that the fans will be really happy with the results. Well, I was going to start with a lad in his lamp because it is the first one and it's so noteworthy. So I'm glad you went there. This is a terrific short and it looks amazing.

And this is one that was remastered, wasn't it, for this release? Yeah, 4K scan off the original successive exposure negative. You can't get better than that. A lot of TLC went into making it be when that shield comes on and the music comes on. Jerry goes, wow. Ooh. It's a real running gag between us. I'm so excited when he finally gets to see what we've been doing and the net result.

And that goes back to Looney Tunes' Golden Collection DVD, Volume 1. I think it goes back to the golden age of Looney Tunes. Oh, of course. Yeah. But there wasn't as much of an O and Off actor because they did. didn't look particularly magnificent, but compared to what we were used to seeing as kids with purple pink prints with no color

on the local television station, it was a step forward at the time. But as technology has progressed, it's really amazing what can be done. You can't really start a collection better than a cartoon like that, where it's just bugs at his best. I love that little period of McImson and Bugs in the late 40s.

Yeah. A little overweight, yeah. Yeah. Well, it's a little punch. I wouldn't even call him a little. He's healthy. He's had a lot of carrots. Right.

My darling, my adorable one, my cherie, I love you, love you. You are defined my little prairie flower. Oh, so timid, so shy. So retiring. Oh, gee, kids. You really think so. Honest, didn't you? Yeah, I'm the quiet type all right,

but I could sure go for you. Only my boyfriend, little B, so won't let me have no fellas. He shaves the head off. Tim, you got the discs. Tim? Watch them. I'm really wanting to know.

Tell us what you think of Collector's Vault, Volume 2. George, I have a couple of pages here of all of the things that I wanted to talk about. That's because I personally loved this release. And I've got so many things about this release that I wanted to both bring up and ask you guys and get your feedback on. But we already talked about what I think is one of the gems of Disc 1, and that is Aladdin's lamp. But the kind of another thing that came to my mind is you put a ton of great Daffy Duck. her tunes on disc one. And I was going to just pick one, you know,

and I thought, well, I'm going to definitely go with the Daffy Duckaroo because that black and white remaster looks amazing. But not only that, it's so entertaining. And I know it was one that was censored. And there's other things around it that it was cut shorter and all these things. So that right off the bat blew my mind. I love it. I even put a first look online on it because I thought,

people have to see how great this looks. It's fantastic. You mentioned it on a previous podcast, so I was very much looking forward to it, and I was blown away. There's a few of these later black and white. They stopped making the black and white Looney Tunes in 1943, I believe. And if they were in color, they'd be classics, the way we still think of all the great classics of the 1940s. The fact that they were in black and white, they were relegated to an old porky Pig package, right, that I know George knows about, back in the 50s. They weren't seen on the Bugs Bunny show. They weren't in the syndication that George and I grew up with, but they are as good as any.

The 1940s black and white Looney Tunes, most of them featuring Porky Pig, but some of them just featuring Daffy, some of them featuring no-name characters of that time, like Hop and Go, which I think-Go-Glo-the-Firefly. Go-The-Firefly. There's a whole bunch. that's what really makes me happy about this sort of thing. We can get those protected and out for people to see what we're talking about. In the case of the Daffy Duckaroo, it wasn't the content, although if one were to recount

the story of that content, one could think the whole thing is a cartoon you wouldn't show. But the reason it was not shown before, because when it was syndicated, they had to take out every reference to Warner Brothers. They did that with Porky and Wacky Land, too. they would literally make a horrible razor blade cut into the prints. You know, we restore, of course we restored that. Because for that brief moment, Warner Brothers was not involved. They didn't want their name on television.

They weren't selling the television yet, you know, movie theater owner. You know, we were still pure to you. That's why the Paramount logos were cut out on Popeye and other things. So that was the real reason it was held back that and the fact that we'd have to restore it as we have. now, you know, it was an effort. I mean, that cartoon has Native Americans. Yeah. You know, it has Daffy Duck and Drag as a Squaw.

You know, it has a lot of wartime gags about rationing. So it's a really oddball cartoon. I can understand why it wasn't in wider circulation later. But it's a classic. Yeah, I absolutely loved it. A couple more here. I want to mention Boston Quacky. Oh, yeah.

You know, George, I'm such a noir fan. I loved that one. And it just is so great. And the look of it, the styling, and you've mentioned the writing. The writing is superb. Well, all the ingredients come together to make a perfect souffle. Yeah.

In the cartoons that aren't like a plus tier, they're relatively so brief that if a cartoon doesn't hit the bang gong right out of the gate as a masterpiece, they're still entertaining. Yeah. You know, the Warner Cartoon Studio was shut down in 1963, and new cartoons were produced by David DePatty and Frist Frilling,

using the same building here on the lot and distributing through Warner Brothers, and Warner Brothers owned them, but they weren't produced by this studio. Some of those don't have the best reputation. but there's an audience that wants them. And so we, especially as the series hopefully continues, we will be able to get more of the black and white early cartoons out from before Porky Pig. You know, Porky really put the studio on the map having a big first cartoon star. Bosco and Buddy never became stars.

They didn't draw people into theaters. But Porky Pig and then Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny and Tweety and Sylvester and the list goes on and on, they did and they became movie stars, cartoon movie stars, if you will. By building a library of these cartoons presented in this way that is also financially digestible, I mean, 50 cartoons for $25, that's 50 cents a cartoon. That has a good value proposition to it. Yeah. We just hope we can continue to do more.

But I just want to focus on the fact that today people can own 50 more cartoons in Blu-ray that can knock their socks off terms of entertainment, how great they look, how great they sound. So it's a lot to celebrate. Well, another character that I really loved felt like it was highlighted on Disc 1, and that is Tweety. I don't know if that was done on purpose, but when you watch, I saw a putty tad. It looks amazing. And just to have that on here, it's kind of surprising to find so many high-quality cartoons on here that have never been released. And I know there's many reasons for that.

But tell us a little bit about this one, Jerry. Tweedy might just be the second underbugs in terms of superstar Warner Brothers cartoon characters. They made many, many more than people realize on that one character. And they were all, with this exception of the first three that were directed by Bob Clampett, they were all directed by Fris Freeling or his unit, actually, now that I think about it. The very, very last ones were done by Freeling's unit while he was working on the Bugs Bunny show. They all have a certain point of view, certain animators who animated the characters in certain ways that is, in some ways, to a layman is unperceptible, but to us, you know, that's the character.

Oh, that guy does the character perfectly. You know, people like Jerry Chinkie in particular. And of course, the great layouts, Holly Pratt is the other name I definitely want to mention with those. I did a book. I mean, it's somewhere on my shelf, and I'm not going to pull it off, but I did a Tweedy and Sylvester book. And there's so many great cartoons. It really highlights, to me, what a master for his feeling is. And I always feel he's neglected behind Avery Jones, clamp it.

and others, Freeling really was a comedy master. I don't even know how he got that way. He just got it through his force of will in the 1930s. He gets credit on the very first Looney Tune as an animator who was there from the beginning to the bitter end, really, really understood comic timing. That was his thing. So I'm going to stop talking about Freeling, but the fact that there's a few tweeties on side one, I think there's, I don't think it's overwhelming.

But I do think that there's, wow, there's. so many good ones. It's like Bugs Bunny. They're almost all good. Yeah. I mean, when I said Tweety, you could say, well, what about Sylvester? I mean, he's in a lot of cartoons on this disc as well, you know, obviously. Sylvester's probably besides Bugs Bunny,

and again, somebody will call me out on this, but he's probably the most directed by other directors. He didn't have like one main director. I guess somebody would say Freeling was, but all of the directors made that character of their own. You know, like Chuck Jones making him the, scaredy cat, so to speak. And, you know, Robert McKimson introduced Sylvester's son and Hippity Hopper and all that

that developed a whole other series around that character. And then there's just plain miscellaneous Sylvester cartoons that pop up, including on this set. I mean, it's a rich history. One could probably take every cartoon they did, even the ones from the early 30s and the later 60s. And I can at least explain something. if I can't say it's the greatest cartoon with the greatest amount of merit,

I can at least put it in a context of why it's important historically, why it was important to the studio in general. They're all worth having. And I feel like when we talk to our fans, I feel like we are all, us and them. We're all going on a great adventure to discover all these cartoons and all these layers that the Looney Tunes had. And that's another reason why, to me,

like I said, hope it doesn't come off as corny to say, this is the Lord's work. We are putting these cartoons, restoring them for everybody, for the next generation. If we weren't doing it now, I don't know. I don't know. We could almost assume it might not be being done at all. Yeah.

Well, we have evidence, empirical evidence, of what happens when people who don't know what content they're dealing with approach a project. And if they don't know, Like when I got to MGMUA Home Video, at that time, MGMUA had the pre-49 Warner Library for features and the pre-A August 48 Warner Library for short subjects and cartoons. And so they had these like Bugs Bunny Cartoon Festival featuring Hold the Lion Please. And there'd be like four random cartoons.

the people that put these things together knew nothing about the cartoons. Nothing. Nothing. And I had to, as a new employee, I couldn't come in there and say, you don't know what you're doing. I was very, very gentle in my approach at trying to enlighten people. Hey, we want to market classic animation to adults. And to Warner Home Video's credit, it really started here in 1985 with the Golden Jubilee

cassettes. Those were really beautifully done. And they had come up with a 50th anniversary of Looney Tunes when, in fact, it was the 50th anniversary of Porky Pigs' appearance and I Haven't Got a Hat. So it was kind of like a faux anniversary. But the net result of it was a collection of cartoon video. cassettes that people could be excited about and that were done nicely. What I did at MGMUA with video cassettes, the cartoon movie stars, and that's when Jerry

and I started talking. That was marketing the cartoons to adults, not to moms and kids, although if a mom and kid picked it up, it would be fine. And then with the Laserdisc sets, we wanted to present virtually all. the cartoons that were in that portion of the library. That was done from 35 millimeter prints. And when we looked at them, we were like, oh my God, this is so magnificent.

We would never go near our print now. Right. We want to go to the negative. But it's taken a long time to do that because the way films were transferred to videotape in the 80s and 90s and even in the odds, You wouldn't touch the negative. You'd have the negative maybe make an intermediate element.

You know, it could destroy the negative. Sprockets and all. Scanners don't even touch the film per se. So that's why we can do so much more now and increase the quality. But the main objective remains the same. And that is to get these wonderful animated films out to the people that want them and hopefully to new audiences. If they've discovered them on television and they want to own them

and never have them taken away from them with great quality, that's what these discs are all about. Hurry, hurry, folks, thrive of lifetime, a continuous ever-changing kaleidoscopic multiplicity of all-star attractions ever before presented the ridiculous low-price 10 cents, yes, sir. It's bigger but a grand number. How much is your little boys? Our children in arms free, Mr. Could I get in free?

What's in there? Is it? We're seen. What's the sky ride, Mr. Huh, Mr. Step aside there, my little, let you, let the folks through. Yes, yes. Rod, you'll never forget. Thank you, lady.

Thank you. Step right up, folks. Realize the educational value of tours such as there. Could I get in for half-price, Mr. If I kept one-line closed, huh, Mr? What? You're here again? Oh, well, well, the time.

Is that price of admission? Now, step aside there, folks. Let the little fella through. There's some others here. point to highlight. Get your guys' feedback as well, but little blabber mouse. Oh, yeah. I wasn't familiar with this one. And I love the photography as you're getting the tour with this WC. Fields mouse telling you everything. It looks terrific. What's your thoughts,

Jerry? Well, it's an interesting cartoon. It has the WC. Fields caricature. It's, it was almost like they were trying to create characters that could host the sort of thing that happens in that cartoon. I mean, that's part of the early or later 30s, Mary Melodies, where they had to incorporate a song into every film. And, you know, I'm really, I'm delighted we're going there. I'm going to that area. Most people, when they do think of Looney Tunes, including collectors,

we do think of Bugs Bunny. We think of all the characters that are on the front of the box. Yeah. That's what we think of. The library is bigger and richer than that. And that's what a cartoon, like little blabber mouse attempts to show. Yeah, I enjoy that part of it, George.

The fact that you're watching, you know, bugs, tweedies, foghorn, leghorn, and then you get a little blamber mouse, or you'll get a country boy from 1935, and they look so different, of course. Or I was a teenage thumb. You can't rule that out. Well, I was going to bring that up. That is like, well, it's modern art, really is what it is. It's exactly what it is.

It's the UPA influence. Jerry, right? Yep. Chuck was into that. He went to the festivals around the world in the 50s. There weren't even animation festivals yet. There were the beginning of the Con Film Festival. Those sort of things were happening in the later 50s in Europe. And they would show new animation from around the world, short form animation, experimental animation. Chuck Jones and many, many other artists at the Hollywood students were watching what was going on in Europe and what was going on with animation, where the progression was. I love Disney, but Disney was not producing cartoons that were getting more and more elaborate

as time went on. And they were stuck in their character animation rut, which is not a problem for a lot of us. But seeing what else you can do in animation, the door was unlocked with the EPA. Then the international people came in. I love this. It's not Chuck. It's the studio. The studio allowed Chuck and others and others at the Warner Studio to experiment and try something new.

Whenever they did try something new in the past, they'd come up with characters that became stars, like the Roadrunner, you know, or Speedy Gonzalez or this sort of thing. So the studio did encourage them to make not only a one shot, but to go crazy with it. And Chuck in the 60s made several almost abstract cartoons. culminating in a non-Warner Brother cartoon, culminating in the Oscar for the Dot in the Line for MGM. That was really where he was going with that. You know, it's, again, it's one of those, to me, very, very fascinating to see Milt Franklin, Mel Blank,

other new voices finally getting credit. Chuck expanding his artistic horizons beyond, you know, Warner Brothers cartoons. It's just fantastic. and I'm so happy we're putting those out. Yeah, yeah. Well, a couple more to highlight before we jump to a disc too.

I just wanted to bring up with, I did enjoy Dr. Jekyll's Hyde with Sylvester Spike and Chester. That was a fun take on that story. And then this bone sweet bone with the little pup that I thought was highly entertaining as well. It's adorable cartoon.

I love that cartoon. Yeah. Part of the whole Arthur Davis unit at that time. You know, within a year or so, Tashlin and Clampett left the studio. And McKimson filled in in the Tashlin unit. He took over that unit.

And Art Davis actually took over Bob Clampett's unit. But within a year, they probably finished up both of them, scripts that were left over for the previous director. Bone Sweet Bone is pure Arthur Davis. He's using a lot of people who weren't being used at the studio to their best advantage. He was taking them on. He brought over some of his colleagues

from Columbia Pictures. He had been a director at Columbia Studio. Not much came from that, but some really, really great animators that he potted over to Warner Brothers. I happen to like diversity. I love bugs.

I love the characters. They're handled so perfectly. But the other stuff is fascinating to me because it's like this might be a direction the studio could go, maybe? You know, who knows? Kind of another that fits, I think, into their, this Angelo the Mighty Flea into Itch his own. I mean, there you get these one-offs or

these characters that you don't get to see too often. Exactly. I love the Disc 1 concept and the fact that this is now the sixth disc. If you go with the four that were in the original collector's choice and now this is the second volume in the Vault series, I love the fact that you have so many animated shorts coming out, George, that have never been released before. So what a treat. Yeah, what a treat. Oh my, I hope I didn't hurt anyone. Hey, Doc! Oh, Doc! Oh, oh, there you are. Hey, Doc, there's a guy up there who's flipped his lid, and he looks like this. Here, you better take this. He might give us trouble. You better take a look at him. He needs a doctor green collection, red eyes, long green hands

Yee Doc, Doc, come here Oh, it's you Where have you been? That screwballs loose Quick, get in here Here, keep me coming Oh my I wish he hadn't given me this

Well let's go down to Disc 2 And George, maybe you can give us just a brief rundown of what Disc 2 is supposed to do? Well, the cartoons on Disc 2 have all been available before on DVD, but they've never been available to own as part of an animation collection

on Blu-ray in high-definition. I would say with a few exceptions, they are of a more greater familiarity to fans. They are seeing more often and they're more talked about, hence their arrival on DVD years ago within the Golden Collections or those superstar single discs.

But there's great stuff. I think we have two Charlie Dog cartoons. I love Charlie Dog. We've got, you know, bugs and Daffy, and every one of them, I think, is a home run cartoon. Jerry, would you agree? I would absolutely agree as I review them, as I looked them over. They're almost all ones you have to have.

Yeah, right. I were teaching a class, you've got to see this one. You got to see these. Like Tim says, I'm actually still amazed that we have so many great ones like these that haven't been on Blu-ray. We got the only Art Davis, Bugs Bunny, Bowery Bugs. Oh, my God. There's so many.

You have ones that the studio didn't think people should see. Is that a way of wording it? Things like frigid hair, because he has an Eskimo chasing him around on that one. and wagon heels, a clamp it, porky, out west, Injun Joe. A lot of great stuff on there. I'll leave it at that. And on and on and on, I mean, if there's a conscious effort of us throwing something in, honestly, I'll tell you what it is. It's the roadrunners, which I love. I don't agree with anyone who says you can watch 10 roadrunners in a row.

I think your mind would turn to mush, but having them scattered throughout, they are great. The roadrunners may have been the easiest series that, Chuck could direct. He actually mentions that in his books. They had that formula down pat. But each one has its own art direction. There's no repeat, except for the Acme Corporation. There's no repeat. And the animation, the more subtle animation, especially as the years go on, one could really study the artistry of Chuck Jones just by watching the roadrunners in order. because, you know, as we all know, the earliest ones, fast and furious and beep, beep and all that, they take place in what looks like a real desert, you know, an American desert somewhere.

By 1950, 9, 58, 60, the roadrunner is in some kind of Maurice Noble, crazy layout, 50s, nutty, but yet it's still a roadrunner and coyote. The gags are hilarious, but the visuals are updated constantly. You know, I'm always telling my students that in the Golden Age, these were not only on screen and by the public considered different movies, different pictures, and in the animation studio, they treated each production as if it was a brand new movie, a brand new, fresh telling. Chuck Jones would redraw the model sheets in every cartoon, no matter who it was, Charlie Dog, Bugs Bunny, the Roadrunner and Coyote, whatever his look was of that moment. There were model sheets to be followed for the specific production.

But it wasn't like they created a Bugs Bunny model sheet in 1943, and that was it through 1963. No, that wasn't it. They treated each cartoon completely different in its own way. And that's one of the reasons that so many other things, the animators, the directors, the individual scoring of the music in each cartoon, that's what all makes these cartoons work. makes these cartoons classic. So 51, you watch one a week? We'll probably have another set out before you're done.

I thought the one I wanted to mention Stop, Look, and Haysen was especially good. That's a great cartoon. It's a great cartoon, and the colors just pop. Oh, yeah. There was talk a long time ago. I remember reading an interview way back when in the 70s with, I think it was with Chuck Jones. the interviewer was saying, you guys didn't seem to do much with color before 1948. He didn't understand the differences in the TV packages.

He didn't understand the context that all of them were made in. There was an interesting comment for him to say, Chuck didn't actually know what he was talking about, but he said, well, we got more into color as the 50s went on. That way, he gave him an answer. He gave him the answer maybe he was looking for. But the reality was they were into color from the beginning of color. You know, they had to be. They were making technical or cartoons, you know, back in the golden age.

The rest of the program at the theater was probably in black and white. So these cartoons popped from the beginning. And because of TV distribution, because of 16 millimeter, the stocks they're on, that faded. And we're bringing that back. Well, one thing I noticed about this disc is that you have so many fantastic Bugs Bunny cartoons on here. And you did mention some already, Jerry. but I wanted to go back to the heckling hair. I was a huge fan of Foxx Town from volume one.

Right. And there's a connection there, but heckling hair, it's terrific. It's Tex Avery. Yes. Well, it says those are texts doing the initial Bugs Bunny cartoons that he did. He really defined the character in the subsequent cartoons to a wild hair. Wild hair is considered the first Bugs Bunny, and people say he defined the character. really, if you look at his next two or three, he really becomes Bugs Bunny, you know, in every way.

Heckling Hair is a classic. It's also, that one was controversial for the ending. You know, Avery, believe it or not, was not a character guy. He wasn't really a character, as much as you could say that he is by watching a lot of his cartoons, but he was more of a gag guy. The joke was more important than even the character. and he had this idea, what if we killed this character off? Tremendous amount of freedom all throughout, rarely got notes from Leon Schlesinger. You know, I always thought it was weird that Clampett had Bugs Bunny be the fall guy and, you know, in a falling hair, which is weird. It's weird for that aspect of it.

Right. I remember that bothering me when I was a child. They did like a lot of leeway on what they could do. And again, for Avery, at that point, Bugs Bunny is just hitting. That cartoon, heckling hair might have been in production before Wild Hair came out, before they decided to make Bugs Bunny a star and a following series. So he has a gag with the characters. It's a gag where the characters are falling to their death at the end.

And you can see that in the film. What he did was, for a joke, was to repeat that gag and fade out on that. and Leon, who rarely scolded or even gave any notes to the animators, didn't like that. You're killing off my major star. We can't do that. I find it interesting that Avery was able to get what he wanted later at MGM, where he kills off screwy squirrel in the last screwy squirrel cartoon. So that was a thing with him.

It was just jokes. You know, heckling hair is definitely a classic. He got suspended over that. You could say Chuck Jones did the same thing to Bugs in the end of what's Opera Dog. Yeah, but, yes, but Bugs raises his head to... I know. What did you expect the happy ending? You know.

Or what did you expect in the opera? That's right. Right. But I mean, like, even though he comes up and says that last line, it's still disturbing, especially with those camera angles. I mean, it's one of the greatest cartoons ever. And Jerry, you'll know if this is true. Is it true that they spent more money on that cartoon

and got the budget from Roadrunners that they could, you know, chop down the budgets a bit? The famous story by Chuck Jones is that he knew it was going to cost more money. There were going to be more shots in the film, more backgrounds. It was just going to be more elaborate in the direction he wanted to go there. And what they did was he purposely skisks,

for his production schedule for the next couple of months. He purposely put a roadrunner before it and a roadrunner after it in the production cycle. And he shaved off two weeks from the first one to add two weeks to what's up. And he shaved off from the other one coming up and was able to spend more time and thus more money on this one cartoon. You know, it's one of those things. It's also one of the many, many, many throughout history that probably should have got. gotten the Oscar that year, probably should have been nominated. I don't think it was nominated, you know.

No, it wasn't. I was just thinking the same thing. Yeah. Because while Tom and Jerry deservedly brought home seven Oscars, Warner Brothers cartoons were largely ignored by the Academy. The fact that 90-night bugs, which I think is a good cartoon, not a great one, that's the one Bugs Bunny cartoon that won the Oscar. Yeah, I think in that case, it was one of those, they still do this today, one of those symbolic Oscars for his career.

Yeah. They do this for actresses and actors. You know, that's what I think. That's my guess, because it was the next year. It was 58. Yeah. They got the Oscar. I mean, it took probably at least another decade, if not longer.

I think it was really the early 1970s that people started to say, hey, wait a minute. These aren't kids cartoons. These aren't Saturday morning cartoons. These are great American films. This is a body of work that represents incredible talent in animation, which is another form of filmmaking that deserves to be respected like live action filmmaking. Right. And I think Jerry's probably been at the forefront of this,

and I've been alongside him for certain things that he's worked on. And our mutual friend and mentor, Mr. Leonard Malton, really paved the way. And also I would have to say Greg Ford, also a friend. They've set up an architecture so that future generations will look at these films with the respect they deserve and really get into the underskin of the people. people who worked on them and how they came up with the gags and the topicality of some of them representing the period of time when they were made, especially the wartime cartoons. You know, I didn't learn about ration stamps as a kid from anything other than

Buddy Hart. Yeah. Yeah. And all that stuff. Yeah. It's, you know, I've said this before. These cartoons were of their time. They were never meant to be repeated.

They were never meant to be on a Blu-ray. There was no such thing. They didn't know if they were ever going to be on television because the studios were against television. These would never be on TV. There was no repeatability. They knew that. Well, they would have the Blue Ribbon reissue program.

That's later. I should really have finite with a thinking sort of changed after the war. But yeah. And MGM had the gold medal reprints at Warner Brothers. When a cartoon was re-released, Jack Warner wanted to be able to save money on the reissues. So he came up with this Blue Ribbon gold medal award title card to eliminate the credits of the people who made the cartoon

and sometimes specialized animation that was related to it. And they did this to the negatives, just like when they would cut a film for re-release and cut 20 minutes out of Captain Blood, would toss out the negative footage that they didn't think about the future. And I think what's interesting also about the Warner reissues, the Blue Ribbon Reissues, they were sold to theaters separately from the Bugs cartoons. The Bugs cartoons were sold as its own unique product line.

I hate to speak of it that clinically. But Bugs was so powerful a draw at the bottom. box office, that they would separate out his cartoons from everything else they would re-released. In a way, if you think about it, I've studied the release charts and things. They had, like you say, about the late 40s, four series, so to speak. They had Bugs Bunny specials. They had the Blue Ribbon series. And they had the Looney Tunes and Mary Melodies series. This is the late 40s, 50s, and 60s. Before that, it was another story, too. My guess now would be that the Looney Tunes and Mary Melodies

sold to the theaters at a certain price point. And the Bugs Bunny's probably got more. They charged extra film rental. And the blue ribbons, they might have gotten less, a little less. That was the case as well. Yes. Eat. I'm hungry. There's lots of food in the refrigerator,

but you got to get by the pussy cat to get him. That's good. I get it. I'm hungry. Only the fastest mouse can make it, which is me. Not the slowest mouse, which is you. I'm hungry. Okay, I get it for you.

Well, there's a few more here on disc two that I wanted to really highlight. One is, of course, the, I think the only Speedy Gonzalez cartoon you have on here, and that is Mexican borders. I think there is a lot of fans that were happy to see the inclusion of Speedy. This is a highly entertaining cartoon. Well, Speedy is a hero. I know George will want to speak about that a little bit. George's, Speedy is not a character to be withdrawn from our, you know, the library, absolutely.

There is a comedian, very popular comedian. I assume you guys have heard of him, Fluffy, aka Gabriel Iglesias. Okay. He has specials on Netflix now. He talks about, they tried to cancel Speedy. They don't realize Speedy is our hero, you know. And the whole audience went like, you know, people love Speedy Gonzalez. And I'm happy to say there never has been any discussion.

I've been here for several years. There's never been a discussion anywhere in the company that I'm aware of of canceling Speedy Gonzalez. Even if the cartoons aren't good in like some of the later runs from the Patty Friling era, Yeah. He's still funny and adorable, you know, a great character. Yeah. Another character that it was good to see on here, Pepe Lepeue, I'm a big fan and to have odor of the day and sentimental over you. I always enjoy them. It's fun like you have here,

Jerry, where you've mentioned that, you know, you get to see different characters. So it's a real mixture. It's nice to have a Pepe dropped in here. and there, just like you have a roadrunner mixed in here and there. That kind of element of it reminds me of my youth and watching these and just having all the different characters come up. To that point, and this was somewhat accidental, but as we were putting together, I guess, the collector's choice.

For volume two on, I think we did. We decided to go alphabetical. So this way you weren't seeing, you know, five tweeties in a row. It mixes it up a little bit. So it's like putting your iPhone on shuffle for music. You don't know what you're going to get. And I think that's what's kind of fun about it. But happily, you can look on the back of the box and see every cartoon, what disc gets on,

and know how to get there. You don't have to put the disc in the machine to know what cartoon you want to see. So that's why the type is so small because we have to get all that information in there. But I also think my colleagues came up with some beautiful artwork. It's very, very nice. The packaging is really quite beautiful. The menus are fun. Just everything about these sets, we're very, very proud.

And we hope people will really enjoy them. the alphabetical order concept, I think it was some sort of, we were thinking about how to do this, and it just plopped out. It wasn't as thought out as you might think. But the thing is, it was perfect. We were shocked and delighted that it works really well.

And I think part of that is the, and this goes for the fans, too, the collective memory of watching Looney Tunes on TV, unless I'm mistaken when they had the Bugs Bunny show way back when or any of the, any iteration, of showing Looney Tunes on TV. I don't recall them running three bugses in a row or three daffies in a row

or only showing cartoon superstars. They would be a whole of different characters and different styles. Peppy was a very popular character. I believe it's the second or third cartoon that won the Oscar for Pepey. One of the ones we're running on here is Art Davis

and he's just really kind of using the character design. He's He's not in the same mold as the way Chuck used the character. He's not an amorous skunk. He's not that. He's just a funny character in this particular cartoon. I personally have come to Pepe's defense many times because I believe, I don't want this to be controversial.

I believe that most people who are me-toeing Pepe Lapew don't watch the cartoons or understand the concept. Oh, for sure. Absolutely. First of all, let's go back. to the line, these were not aimed at kids anyway. Okay, number two, we're laughing at Pepe not with Pepe because we see somebody acting stupid, really silly. Mel Blank's French voice, French accent, the lines, the parodies of French speak that are in the cartoons. There's so

much to enjoy in these films. And Pepe loses most of the time, I think, I think, all the time. He doesn't get the girl because he acts this way. He loses. So, I mean, I hate to go into it that deep. I shouldn't have to. But there are people who think that. And as far as we're concerned, Pepe is not, you know, canceled over here at Warner Archive. That's good.

I don't think I've ever gone that deep. I just think it's funny. A couple more tweeties on here that I thought were really. really fun. And I think, you know, they're different. A bird in a guilty cage. I like that whole department store setting. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's great. It's a lot of fun. Yeah. They had to figure out different places to put Tweedy. That would loan to the comedy. You know, they've done others, you know, he's in a ship or, you know, whatever. One of my favorites is when they're in the hospital, you know, there's all sorts of things like that. Yeah. And then the last hungry cat,

Well, you have this parody of the Alfred Hitchcock presents. What a great setup, and then the story is really fun. Yep. Well, they love doing that. They loved finding a little hook to be on the cutting edge of the humor. And that was cutting edge for its time. Yeah, because that was, what, early 60s? Yeah.

And then there's a lot of really good porky pig on this, too. You can never have enough porky. Yeah. And you've got the two with Charlie Dog that I thought were interesting because they both have orphan in the title. You've got awful orphan. Oh, yeah. And then often an orphan. And then often an orphan. Yeah. They both look terrific. They're kind of heartwarming in their way, too, you know, the orphan tail. But they're good. And then I thought this one was a really unique one, Claws for Alarm. Where you have Porky Pig. And so they're, you know, the orphan tail. But they're good. And then I thought this one was a really unique one, Claws for Alarm. Oh, yeah. where you have porky pig and Sylvester and Sylvester's just, he's the Frady cat in this one. Right, right.

And you got that house and the art design on that one is quite stunning as well. Mm-hmm. That's the thing that really comes through for me. I don't care if it's one of the ones from the 30s or 40s or especially the 50s. I think a lot of us kids took the 50s stuff for granted because the background art was minimal, not unlike what Hannah-Barbair did in their early TV cartoons. And it just felt differently. But now, looking at them on Blu-ray, knowing they were shown in theaters, they're really

artistically, you know, they're just as beautiful as any modern art from that period. Yeah. I agree with that, 100%. I mean, that's a perfect one for Halloween, obviously. That should be played every Halloween. And then Mouse Menace, that's a very interesting cartoon as well. Yeah. That's such a strange period for Porky Pig, because he was the star, you know, for five

years. Now he's sort of a supporting player, but they're kind of keeping him alive because, well, he's a star, you know, so they keep making new ones with him. You know, is he the hero? Is he the fall guy? I mean, what, you know, what's his exact role? The Wagnon Heels is one of the great remakes of a black and white cartoon that Clampett did. I actually believe most of the remake cartoons, I call them remake cartoons, are better than the originals. Another great one, of course, would be a back alley opera with Sylvester and Elmer. That was notes to you, right? It was not as good, in my opinion, in the original version.

I agree. And that's the same director. This is the same director too. Now I just think about it, Ragging Heels. And he's improved it. You know, he made it even funnier, giving the red skin blue skin, you know, which I think is, I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I mean, that's hilarious.

That's, you know, that's a joke. That's what they call a joke, son. and, you know, just switching the color. You know, great stuff. That's what I'm going to, you know, I love that. Mouse Manus is, that was one of those cartoons when I was a kid. I'm not kidding. I'm not kidding.

It gave me nightmares. Because there's a scene in it with that robot cat. Yeah. I mean, I'm like, I'm like, I was scared of that. I remember that. I still remember that feeling. It's great. There's one other one here that I wanted to get your, your thoughts on because I just thought

it was so, it was a little strange, but jump in Jupiter. Well, Jumping Jupiter is the third of that trilogy with Porky and Sylvester, but he takes it into space. I love it. I love it. I don't know where they were going with that exactly, but it was, you know, that's, again, the beauty of the Warner cartoon. I also mentioned this a lot when I speechify, but they didn't have to change things like that in a formula. That's just because Chuck wanted to. They could have made the same cartoon over.

and over again, believe it or not, and nobody would carry. Why do I say that? Look at the Casper cartoons. Look at the Mighty Mouse cartoons over and Terry Toots. They made the same cartoon over and over again. A lot of studios did that because there was really, at the time, no reissues. If somebody liked that, they did it again. They didn't. They made the cartoon again. So the fact that they didn't, or they did it so few times, or that they did, and it's better in the remake, You know, that speaks of how great Warner Brothers cartoons was and those great talents behind it. You know, I marvel at that. Slightly off topic, but the Avery MGMs, I think it's 66 cartoons.

I added them up one day. And yeah, they might reuse droopy or there might be a similar situation, maybe dumbhounded and northwest-hounded police. They're both great on their own terms. You know, these guys just were in their element when they were making these cartoons. You get there. So many good porky pig on here. I'll just wrap it up with the pest that came to dinner, an Arthur Davis one. So many good ones on there.

20% of these cartoons are bugs and probably 20% is pork. Like there's just so many great for the classic characters that people love and they want to see on the disc twos. I have the preferential to the discs ones because they're just so unique and different. and I've seen, you know, like a lot of us, we've seen the disc two ones, but to have them for the collector now on a disc. It's kind of amazing that some of these, George, never were in a Looney Tunes collection when they're this popular and well-known. Well, it's an embarrassment of riches.

And it's a matter of curation and care and going the extra mile to do the best that we can in putting something together. It's going to be entertaining. and also has its own sense of style and characteristic. And I think this may be the strongest yet of these collector's collections between the choice in the vault. I think this is top notch. Yeah.

Yeah. And you mentioned that if we can keep supporting these and if people will buy these and I think the case to own these is very strong, because there are cartoons on here. You can't get anywhere else. And not streaming. Yes. That is the truth.

And they look fantastic. I think that's another thing that we should really highlight is the fact that you're not going to see these any better than you see them in Bluress. I agree. That's the beauty of it. Well, George, I think that just leaves one question left to address. before we wrap up today, and that is the status of a volume three. Do you have any information you can share with us? We're this close. I'm waiting to get the final approval budget,

but we're this close to the volume three. I haven't seen the official, yes, you can go ahead and spend this huge amount of money. Initial sales are very, very promising, and I think they'll get us to the place where management will look at that and say, yes, continue. And we hope to continue and continue and continue. You know, I'd like to mention a little bit about the subtle difference between the collector's choice and the vault series. The obvious on the surface, the vault has double the amount of cartoons. The choice series was started because we were recognizing that the collector,

the adult collector, was buying these in a big way. in a big way. It wasn't moms and kids the way it used to be. It's now the collectors who really, really, you know, are voicing their opinions and things. So we wanted to address that, do a collector's choice, and get some of these great gems onto Blu-ray. But the vault is a little different only in that we're really making a deeper dive. It's as deeper. We've given the collector's their choice. Now we're going even further in, which includes oddball merry melodies from the 30s. It includes films like Aladdin, his lamp, restored deeper, and more aimed toward that collector. And volume two, to me, reflects that even more than volume one. And from what

I know, if we can do volume three, it will be even more so. Well, everything is in place. We just need to get that theoretical check signed, and then we're off and running. Wow, it's always great to hear from Jerry and George and to talk with them about Looney Tunes and these classic animation releases. It's like going to a masterclass with two animation historians who have been working on, well, wait a second, that's exactly what it is. And we are lucky here at the extras to have them on, to have them talking to us, and to have them sharing their stories after decades and decades of working on these cartoons in the various formats from VHS to Laserdisc to DVD and now to Blu-ray. So thanks to them for coming on the podcast

and I hope you guys enjoyed it. If you're still with us, I think you are fans of what we do here at the X-Fers, which is hear from those who are working on these releases and not somebody else's opinion and somebody else who thinks that they can just be a critic of everything that these two gentlemen do for us as collectors. So I hope you enjoyed it. Thanks for listening. Thanks for watching. And you can look for more with these two if we're lucky enough to have a volume three. And it sounds like we might be getting there. So fingers crossed on that. If you haven't ordered this collection, you can still order it from Moviesing, from Amazon, or from others. digital retailers. So look for those links in the show notes and we'll have more information

and clips and everything on our YouTube page on Facebook. So if you enjoy the clips and you enjoy the podcast, be sure and subscribe and check all of those out. Until next time, you've been listening to Tim Millard. Stay slightly obsessed about Looney Tunes.