The Extras - The Vault is Open: A Looney Review of Collector's Vault V1 Disc 1

Episode Date: June 25, 2025

Send us a textAnimation historian Jerry Beck and George Feltenstein of the Warner Archive officially "open the vault" in this broad review of disc one of the recently released Looney Tunes Collector's Vault Volume 1. Our far-ranging discussion includes a history of the last 35 years of Looney Tunes restoration, debunking of some restoration myths, select reviews, and Jerry's shocking "cartoons in a porno theater" story. When Jerry and George talk animation, you know it's going to be fun, informative, and always full of a few surprises. Looney Tunes super-fans, this is one podcast you don't want to miss!Purchase Links: Looney Tunes Collector's Vault Vol. 1Also discussed:  Looney Tunes Platinum Collection Vol. 1 (Blu-ray)Looney Tunes Platinum Collection Vol. 2 (Blu-ray)YouTube cartoon shortsThe Extras Facebook pageThe 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. [e-mail]

Hello and welcome to the X-Rays. I'm Tim O'Larger, your host. And joining me is George Feltenstein of the Warner Archive and animation historian Jerry Beck to review the recent release Looney Tunes Collector's Vault Volume 1 Blu-ray. Hi, George. Hi, Jerry. Hello. Hello.

Hello. These are some of my favorite podcasts, George. I enjoy all of them with you. But when we add Jerry and you two are talking animation, it's always fantastic. I learned so much and the fans that really enjoyed as well. So I know I've been looking forward to this and I think a lot of people are looking forward to hearing our review of this brand new Blu-ray. So what's been the feedback so far? I mean, it's only been

out for a few days. Well, happily, there was a plentiful amount of pre-orders and a plentiful amount of supply. So it was so refreshing for me to see people on social media showing their to see people on social media showing their release, that they had it in their hands on street date, which is what we always strive for. That doesn't always happen, but we're trying to eliminate a lot of those manufacturing and other delays that have been a problem. I think we're on a better track.

And getting this out as early as it did was just proof of that. Yeah, I mean, I think I've seen a lot of posts, a lot of people very eager to dive in. And I'm sure that some people are doing it today, we'll be doing it this weekend so that they can dive into this Collector's Vault.

I do want to just take one minute before we get too far into our review to remind people that if you haven't heard the previous podcast where we talked about the Collector's Vault, those are available both in audio podcasts and on our YouTube channel. And the point of this Vault series, Jerry, just to remind everybody, we have two discs. Yeah, we have, this Vault series is different from the Collector's Choice, because disc one really follows the same pattern of what we were doing on the previous series,

Collector's Choice, which is really deep dives into Warner Brothers cartoons that have never been on Blu-ray or DVD, restoring them. These are aimed at the collectors. Yes, everyone can enjoy them, but we are definitely aiming more toward the people who are collecting every cartoon. I know I personally was doing that decades ago when I was researching the animation. I was trying to locate every cartoon I can see. We know people are doing that now.

The other disc, what makes the Vault series spectacular is that we have a second disc. We have double the cartoons. The second disc are great, great Warner Brothers cartoons, classic Bugs Bunny's and Tweety's and that may have appeared on DVD, but this is their Blu-ray debut. If you're a collector, you've got a double dose here and for the collection and we'll talk about how great they look. These are the cartoons kind of as perfectly as we can have them. Yeah. And I mentioned this on a previous podcast, but the price point is basically the same as the old collector's vault depending on where you go

to purchase them. And this time though, you get two discs, 50 cartoons for the price of which you're getting about 25 before. So it's a great value as well. But let's dive right in. I mean, my first reaction is fantastic. Of course, I said that about the previous four releases, but I love the fact that, as I said, you get two discs.

So you get not only the kind of the more obscure ones on disc one that are definitely for collectors, but then you put on disc two and you've got so many of your favorites. But we'll hold off on talking about disc two because disc one has three brand new restorations. I thought we'd start there with those because I thought they looked terrific. And we'll start with, let's see, of Fox and Hounds from 1940, the Which way did they go? Which way did they go? Where did the dogs go? Which way did they go? Which way did they go? Where did the dogs go? Which way did they go? Yeah.

I was blown away by how good this looks and sounds. And it's a terrific cartoon. Yeah. It's sort of in that period when Avery and the others were exploring the chase cartoon. Avery was developing that kind of wise guy persona. You can see that this is definitely, you know, almost a companion to things like Wild Hare. You know, there's that wise guy, Fox. It's an extremely interesting cartoon in that there's, to me, in the very beginning, it's

got a lot of dark. It takes place in the early morning. You don't get that on the previous, any showings of it in the past when we were kids. It was a very dark looking cartoon. Now you can see everything. It's really funny. Avery, I believe is the voice of Willoughby the dog in it, which is pretty crazy. You know, George, maybe you could say something about the fact Why wouldn't a cartoon have been?

Restored like like that one earlier and there's reasons for that. It's not just that we've ignored it. There's there's Legitimate reasons why certain cartoons were at the end of the line Well, uh, you know, it's where they fall in the chronology that goes back really, I would say, to the 1980s. Because prior to that, you had a group of cartoons that were licensed to network television. They used 35-millimeter prints for the Bugs Bunny show, the Bugs Bunny Roadrunner Hour, the Daffy Duck show, the Porky Pig show. There started to be a lot of fractured network Saturday morning shows, but starting with the reruns of the Bugs Bunny show and whatnot.

That was all 35 millimeter. There were, to remind people that aren't aware, and I think most people that are watching slash listening to this are aware, it wasn't until Time Warner's purchase of Turner Broadcasting in 1996 that the entire Warner Library was reunited because all cartoons made before August 31st, 1948,

were in other hands due to the sale of the library by the Warner Brothers in 1956. It took 40 years for us to get everything put back together. The black and white Looney Tunes were sold to another company even before that, that ended up in the Warner lair, so to speak. So in order to have everything together, initially it was the impetus of home video that had people taking a look and saying, well,

what do we have? Now, on the Warner side of things, basically the post-50, if you will, there was a concerted effort of maintaining 35-millimeter materials. On the other side, it was primarily under the care of United Artists or ownership of United Artists from 1958 when they bought Associated Artists Productions until 1981 when MGM bought United Artists Corporation. During the UA period, all they really cared about was a 16 millimeter picket track. That's all they really cared about.

The 35 millimeter materials, the negative materials were stored properly in a nitrate archive, but it was all about 16 millimeter syndication and home videos started that there were some really awful, no offense meant to anyone, before I got to MJMUA home video there were these video for kids clamshell releases that were taken off 16 millimeter prints, you know, the Daffy Duck cartoon film festival featuring all my aching back, or it's a fake title I'm making up. When you have people that don't know of these American animated classic films and think it's kid stuff,

this is what happens. So that's how things were. When Turner bought MGM UA, sold the UA part back to Kirk O'Corian, and the Warner Library was put under MGM, as were certain rights to the RKO Library, that became Turner Entertainment Co. Because they sold the MGM name, that's why Amazon has it,

and the MGM Lion logo. So MGM Entertainment Company had to become Turner Entertainment Company. But within the first year of ownership, Turner Broadcasting went to all the pre-'48 cartoons and created off 35-millimeter release prints, mostly Technicolor, mostly Nitrate. They created one-inch analog video masters.

You look at them now, they're soft, they're dirty, they're not great. But when we saw them in 1987 and 1988, Jerry and I, it was like, oh my God, we're seeing these in 35-millimeter. Oh my God. It was, I got to digress. I got to, not digress, but I got to interrupt it with my own recollections. I love listening to this part of the history of it. I used to, even as a kid, and as I was getting more and more into the cartoons, I think you might have done this too, George. I don't think we ever mentioned it, but I used to think of

the pre-48s and the ones they ran on Channel 5 as- Who had rights to both packages. I call those the local versions. Whatever was run on CBS Saturday morning or on TV specials that they were doing in the 70s where they were taking from 35, and I was like, I used to call it in my head CBS level, CBS network level of these. And it wasn't until much, much later when I got involved with you and the MGM cartoons, and we started seeing these 35 millimeter transfers,

and George remembers, I went crazy. I went crazy right away on the 35s. Because we had never seen Wabbit Wubble look so good. And even though it looks like crap to us today from what we're doing, it was a revelation to see the next level of it getting closer to what it must have been like. We're living in another world now with some of the ones I've been, I've been watching on this rewatching now, where I just only can remember the dark, dingy 16 millimeter version, you know, and here it looks brand new, you know.

Faded. Pink. Yeah. By the way, I got an interesting theory. Maybe you have some little bit of cartoon research here for you, George. I've been showing, as you know, I'll leave some names out, but I do some local and legal public screenings of cartoons at a local theater here. I think you know what I mean. If you don't, I'll tell you. Of course. The New Beverly. And they use a particular collection of old 35 millimeter prints that they've acquired,

and they legally are allowed to show. And I only see these prints when they run them. I can help curate what they're going to show, and then I see them. And throughout the last couple of years, I saw something very interesting I hadn't seen before and I hadn't figured out before. They've been running what are British releases of pre 48 Warner Brothers cartoons. I said because once in a while, it'll say on their list, I've got a 35 millimeter of Bugs Bunny gets the Boyd or something like that. I'm like, they do. So I put it on the list, they run it and it has that British black and white title card that says the

British quarter censored. Yeah, sensors. And then the cartoon comes on. And it's it's it looks pretty good. It's it's it's a clearly a piece slash United Artists. Well, in fact, in fact, one or two of the prints of a United Artists, that rectangular old logo that they rarely use. The cool Transamerica logo, yeah. They'll start off with that and it'll dissolve into the Mary Melody. It's really cool.

But here's the thing I find really interesting. Those prints all have that end title that we never could understand that says the end. It says Mary Melody's The End. We've seen that in syndication. I now believe that. I was wondering about that. Why didn't they say that's all folks? Maybe it was a reissue thing.

Maybe it was a blue ribbon thing. Maybe it was. But I'm now beginning to think that the end title was created for England. I'm sorry if I'm digressing from our main subject. No, it's very possible. I think that's where they come from. I think that's what they did them for. That's all folks, maybe too colloquial for other countries. On the, again, on the Turner side, I want to debunk some stuff that, you know, because people on the internet have all sorts of theories.

98% of them are completely inaccurate and it just spins nonsense. People keep talking about the Turner dubbed version. Yeah, that's the famous one. Well, what was that? What that was, a year before Time Warner bought Turner Broadcasting, Turner started to prepare their Looney Tunes and Merry Melodies that they did own for more global distribution. They created new audio tracks. So you'd see this one copyright notice dubbed version 1995. This didn't really apply to everything, but they created a one size fits all thing that just

spun things really out of... And the fans all think that the cartoon must have some unusual dubbing in it or something that's... It's not the cartoon. It's not applicable outside of the United States, but what they did was they took those one-inch analog transfers off the prints and they did a conversion to D2 tapes. So the on the pre-48 material that was owned by AAP, UA, MGMUA, then TEC, Turner Entertainment Company, which is still a technical division of Warner Brothers Entertainment, the TEC part of the library never got proper 35 millimeter preservation and work. They did make inter-positives off of inter-negatives.

This is horrible to think about, off those prints. those prints and the people that did that were well-meaning but not enlightened and so a lot of those fourth generation elements were all that they could work with until the best thing that happened was the reunification of the library and the work that has been going on at Warner Brothers for 28 years to create proper photochemical preservation as well as 4K digital scans that we're doing, all the stuff that's been happening. But it's been an evolutionary process. And there's a lot of focus on that. What you're seeing on the Looney Tunes Collector's Vault is a combination of cartoons that have

either been mastered, some of the later ones that are maybe masters from 10 years ago or 12 years ago, that were 1080p NHD, but they're not off the original negatives. Those are more found on the second disc. But what we did was the WB Mastering Team went through, did color correction, did film element damage cleanup. I really want to make this very, very clear. Some people have actually condemned us for leaving cell dust and people don't realize

that's the way it was when it came out. And we don't want to take the road that certain other companies have taken where they try to make them look like they were made yesterday and that there were no cells involved that had cell scratches and cell dirt. We're trying to preserve the original theatrical presentation. That's squishing 35 years of post-1980s restoration efforts. It's just as technology has evolved, we've gotten from one inch analog tapes to digital D2 tapes

and digital D1 tapes, and then finally the remastering in 1080p, but coming from secondary elements and then later on, people became much more aware that we needed to protect the original successor exposure negatives where they exist. Thankfully, they exist on almost everything. And safety separations were made of those successive exposure negatives for protection on film. And now digital scanning is being done as well in 4K.

So if you look at a day at the zoo, for example, that is a result of going back to the original success of exposure negatives, scanning at 4K, getting rid of all film damage, using Technicolor prints as a color reference, and we have these beautiful new masters, and the audio is restored as well. On the older masters that you find on disk 2, they were gone through and film damage

was removed to the best that it could be done. And they were all given additional color correction tweaks. And we also did some audio restoration on many of them so that this 50 cartoon collection so that this 50 cartoon collection could really be welcomed by the fans and the enthusiasts. And Jerry and I, I think we qualify as fans and enthusiasts. I think so. I want to mention another fan thing, but just to quickly, once in a while, especially I've heard this more 10, 15 years ago, if there's been some, you know, a cartoon that's been remastered, and I don't even know anymore what the complaints were then, but they would have a complaint about

some aspect of a cartoon. And I would always remind people that this cartoon was restored for this video, for this project. The masters, the negatives, the raw materials of the cartoon, nothing was changed and tweaked or ruined. They think that we, again, I'm talking about 15, 20 years ago, that we might have ruined the cartoon. That's it. You guys ruined it. It was that way. And the thing is, they don't understand that sometimes that don't worry if you do, that

if something is amiss, which again, I have nothing here to complain about, we didn't ruin the cartoon. All the material is there. It all can be redone supposedly. It's just something I like to impart because I've heard this complaint. Actually, now I think about it, I've heard it more for other studios, where they will dub in a new music to cover a music cue, you know what I mean? Or something like that. And they'll think that's it, they ruined it. You know, and I'm like, I think it's important people know

that there are levels to these things. We are trying to present them, as George says, the best way, the way it was originally, we hope, presented, the way it may have looked at that first answer print screening at the studio, which is, I think is the way they look to me. I have never seen some of these cartoons look as good as they do here.

It's a whole other experience. I'm in my salesman mode right now, but it is another experience to see these proper. When we got the test disks in, I'd say this about two months ago, six weeks ago, Jerry came to my office studio. We went through and it's one of the things I live for is his oral expression of excitement when he

sees how they look and how beautiful they look. The oh-wow's come from both of us. We're very proud of this release and hoping to improve upon it for the next one, because we have a lot of interesting ideas. We certainly know that the list of great cartoons that still await their high def debut is very hefty. And I'm also hopeful that certain cartoons that have been on the border, which showed up on DVD, but have kind of taken a backseat for a while. I'm always fighting, frankly, but I'm fighting the good fight to let people maybe reevaluate

what we can make available. I'm hoping we can broaden that availability. That's about all I can say. Because it's a hope and a prayer, not a reality. But I'm always in there fighting for you folks. So, because I'm one of the folks and so is Jerry. And so are you, Tim. Yeah.

Well, I did want to talk about some of the actual cartoons. Yes. On disc one. So far, I mean, we talked about two of the restored, totally restored for this version, cartoons of Fox and Hounds from 1940, Tex Avery. And then that's also A Day at the Zoo is also in Avery. And I didn't say anything about A Day at the zoo, but again, amazing restoration and really a lot of fun. And this one has the voiceover, but it's got so many punchlines and gags in it.

Yeah. I think I mentioned this last time that it's been completely forgotten. It's become part of the cliche of classic cartoons, but Avery invented that narration idea. Obviously, he took it from travelogues and sports reels that they used to have, but it was innovative, very innovative. So much so, it was mentioned a lot in the trades. In fact, when Avery moved from Warners to MGM, they not

only mentioned, maybe not completely accurately, creator of Bugs Bunny, because we know there's no one creator of Bugs Bunny. There were several, but Avery was certainly very important. But they mentioned creator of Bugs Bunny and I forgot how they worded it, but the narrator, they mentioned the narrator cartoons because that was unique at that time. And I forgot how they worded it, but the narrator, they mentioned the narrator cartoons because that was unique at that time. And I think the first one was nominated for an Academy Award. And so they continued that idea. When anything worked really well, they would continue it.

And what's great is unlike some lesser studios, they didn't just repeat the ideas over and over again. The sequel kind of cartoons to that are hilarious and stand on their own. tomorrow. Some Sunday morning. This Sunday morning, John. If there was only something you could do... Yes, John, That did it. Smart, aren't you?

You've got a good head on your shoulders. Well, the third, the totally restored one here that I know everybody was really looking forward to seeing, and again, looks terrific. The 1949 each dawn I crow. This is a dark story, but I totally really enjoyed this cartoon. It's a very strange cartoon. I will admit, I do have on my blog, cartoon research, I think I've done my, I have to admit I've done a list. I do like my favorite Bugs Bunny's, my favorite

cartoons. At one point I did my least favorite cartoons. And I have to say that that was one of the ones that I've always had lower on my list because it was so odd. It's about killing this rooster and it's got this strange narration I never understood. And I just, it's just for me, I had a problem with it. Now that said, as I have with many, many of the other cartoons that we've talked about on this show, I remember even a gay paris in particular, these were things I wasn't crazy about. But when I saw the restored versions, I'm like, okay, I get it. All right. I like this. Also, I've learned that that cartoon was a kind of a parody of a very famous radio show, The Whistler, that had that kind of spoken narration thing at the beginning. I didn't know that. I've known it now. Now I'm listening to the Whistler on SiriusXM. But yeah, it's very good. It's a great free link from a primo

period. Gentlemen, anything you want to say about it? I think it's terrific and how much better it looks now, it's stored. We had put it as an extra on the movie Each Dawn I Die, which obviously the tie in there is obvious. But it looked awful. But that's all we had was standard definition from the Turner era. And we still have so many that need to get that upgrade. And that's the purpose of this series.

We want to continue making them available. And by having 25 and 25, we're getting 50 cartoons for basically 50 cents a cartoon, which is a lot less than Jerry and I used to pay when we would buy a little silent eight-millimeter movies as children. It's a wonderful time to be a Warner Brothers cartoon fan. Yeah.

Because so much is now available. I do want to mention that they finally listened to me and put the platinum collections back in print. And I think the community is very excited about that. And people I work with are now learning of the potential People I work with are now learning of the potential that is held within these animated masterpieces. And even the ones that aren't masterpieces are still impressive. And they need to be recognized and treated with the same care and reverence as any other

classic in the library that's live action and feature length. These are great American classic films and we need to protect them and make them available to the public. Well, I did have one comment about each Don and Crow and that is that I had to, I'm watching it and it looks so good that I had to double check when it was released because I'm like this must be a 60s cartoon. But no, it's from 1949 but it looks like it was made much later and it's fantastic. I'm glad to hear you changing your opinion on it a little bit because coming at it without

all the history. See, I come at these not knowing how poorly they looked necessarily because I just saw them on TV. You know, I haven't been collecting them or seeing them. But of course, they look better than my recollection on TV, but I don't sit there and minutia them or remember how poorly they looked. And so when I see them, I'm just like, well, beautiful. It is- You know, when we were kids and we were watching them on TV from 16 and then collecting film

prints in eight millimeter or maybe 16 millimeter and they're fading and they're doping. But you know, we didn't think, I didn't never thought back then like about how, what kind of bad print is this? You know, the only clue is what I said before, where we would see the, what I call better, cleaner versions of, you know, of other cartoons with Bugs Bunny on the CBS, you know, Saturday morning or on prime time. That was the only differential back in those days. It wasn't until much later when George and I got into the business and then we could see from circumstances

of being in the business, you know, what a 35 millimeter print of a cartoon looks like. I've got a strange story that relates to a cartoon that's on this disc. And it's a little strange, I'm going to keep it as clean as I can. I work for United Artists in New York, and they were, as George knows, at 729 Seventh Avenue in Times Square, right? It was between 48th and 49th Street. And we were surrounded by- Right across the street from Popeye's Fried Chicken.

Right? And it was the Metropole Cafe, a topless place was next door. There were porno theaters all around the building where I had to go into work. It was sleazy. This is back in the 70s and 80s. Before, really home video really, really took off. It was like the beginning of it, really. And people, you know, it was cost too much money to even have a, I couldn't even afford a tape player back then. And I

worked for United Arts and I was involved with shorts and I was involved with booking shorts to, you know, non-theatrically in that time. And one day I was able to find out internally how I found this out, I can't remember anymore. But I found that a print of a cartoon was booked to the World 49th Street Theater, which was a porno theater. That's where Deep Throat was for like three years. Forever, yeah. And I found out that they, in fact, they found out that they were playing like

Pink Panther cartoons. What they did was, I learned later, that the theory is that the porno theaters would book cartoons, and they did, as chasers. And so they wanted to get rid of riff-raff. I mean, they never turned the lights on in those places. People would like live there practically in these porno theaters. And so having a cartoon on wouldn't keep them there. Let's put it that way. They would get up and leave maybe, you know, time to go.

That's what that's what that's a purpose that that happened. That's a fascinating story. I did not know that. Now the what I learned that I couldn't believe it. And so one time, so I decided, I'm a bachelor, you know, I just decided they're next door. And I said, Well, it says here, they're running a Pink Panther. I'm gonna go over there and check it out. And I did. And they did run the Pink Panther exactly as I said, the movie would be over, they'd run some porno trailers. Then they ran the Pink Panther cartoon. I saw people getting up. Now, my point of this story is, I let that go. But one day, said, and George, you'd have the same

curiosity. It's the booking sheet said, birth of a notion. Wow. That was a classic Robert McKimson, great. Daffy Duckhart. And one of the shorts that's on disc too. That's why I'm mentioning this. And so I said, wait a minute, at that time, it was only whatever crappy print

was running on channel five. We didn't even have home video yet. So I said, they're running a 35 of Birth of a Notion? This was like, I have to go and see it. I can't believe, I admit it, I admit it. I went to a porno theater, I gotta write this as an article, to see a Looney Tune. And I did, I went there and it was a beautiful

five millimeter tech print and it was tech, I could tell you. And I was like, I never forgot that experience. My reason for even bringing all that up is that it's on this set and it's of course restored from the original camera neg it looks like. It's, I have never seen it look on this set. And it's, of course, restored from the original neg camera neg. It looks like it's I have never seen it look like this. It is, as we've said, as boring everybody with the fact that, yes, again, crystal clear.

I've seen that cartoon a million times in my life and in many, many ways. But it never looked this good. It's amazing. And you know, that's all I have to say about that. My experience with Birth of a Notion. There you go. That's a great story, Jerry. It's a great story. Not what I was expecting today. I cleaned it up a little bit. Well, before we jump to this too, I did want to mention a couple others that I just don't want to not talk about.

And that's first off, the Dixie fryer from 1960. Pappy. Huh? I'm hungry. Well, hotten up a can of black-eyed peas Elvis. Oh, Pappy, we's chicken hawks. Why can't we have chicken? Because there just ain't no chickens around here.

That's why. Mmm. I crave to taste the chicken so bad, I declare I can almost smell one. Sniff, sniff, sniff. Papi, look! I'm gonna get that old chicken. That's what I'm gonna do. Chicken!

Elvis, drop that leg. Y'all knows ours gets the drum of steak. Now go start the fire, and I'll get the critter ready for the oven. Hey, what's coming... I say what's coming off here? I'm getting y'all ready for dinner. If you don't mind, sir, I can dress myself for dinner. Oven's all ready, Papi. Well, come on, boy. Give me your hand. Here now, hold on. What's all this hoop to do about? Me and Elvis is pondering on having y'all for dinner.

For dinner? Well, now, that's mighty neighborly of ya. Uh, what's on the menu? Roast chicken. Namely, y'all. Oh no, no, no, no, I'm a rooster, not a roaster. You just have to find yourself another chicken. I just thought this is a terrific cartoon and beautiful animation, voicing, storyline. What are your guys' thoughts on that one?

Very highly requested by the fans. Yeah, that's one of those, I think, one of those Pappy and Elvis, right? Yeah. The two pros and whatever they are. And I'm always amazed. People love, I have to admit more than I, but I love Foghorn, Leghorn cartoons. They're all great,

they're not all the same. There's some great one-liners in all of them, there's some great situations. Another one that's on here that I'm nutty about, and it's a really late one, is Banty Raids. We'll talk about that. But everybody's got a favorite on those and people really, really want them. My feeling is, I'm just surprised when I hear people ask for specific ones that means something to them. I'm not sure what that means. A lot of people tell me that Foghorn reminds them of their dad and or my dad loved these cartoons and it was a bonding moment for a lot of people.

That's something I've learned throughout the years. My dad didn't really care about Foghorn and Leghorn, but he's a great guy and I believe it is that. But yeah, I mean, we live to serve, right? We want to give people what they want. Well, I guess I could see why people enjoyed it. I just thought it's got so much humor. Yeah, I love just it's got it's got great gags. It's Yeah, that's one of those later ones. And I believe the the two characters, or at least one of them is Dawes Butler.

And I'm not sure he gets, I don't think he gets credit, but he's a very famous voice in a lot of Hanna-Barbera cartoons and whatever. And he's one of the voices that really enhances that cartoon as well. Well, a couple others that I just, I'm just saying I had as kind of personal favorites or I thought they were noteworthy. I'd love to take orders from You from 1936, that's a Tex Avery where the kid scarecrow wants to be like his father. I thought that's a charming one and it looks terrific.

It is and that is representative of what the Looney Tunes and Merry Melodies initially were set out to do. I'd love to take orders from you right is a film a song that was written for a Warner Brothers film of the era and The cartoons were initially designed hence Looney Tunes Merry Melodies to promote songs either written for Warner Brothers films and or songs that were published by Warner Brothers music publishing companies, which are unfortunately no longer part of our company.

But that was the initial purpose. They'd say, okay, you got to make a cartoon about September in the Rain. You got to make a cartoon about Shuffle Up the Buffalo. And they do it. And they do a great job. And I'd Love to Take Orders from You is a beautifully drawn, gorgeous restoration. And it's just never seen it look that good.

Yes. That's that's the anytime anybody mentions the 30s cartoons, any of the 30s cartoons, those looked those always in the past looked worse than the 40s cartoons. You know, they just looked worse and you see them in 35 when you see them restored, it clicks in my head a little bit more about how these cartoons were able to be on the same par with, dare I say, Disney. Disney was doing a whole other world of what he was doing.

How would the other cartoons, how did they even think they were in the same world as Disney? But they didn't. But when you see them restored, you get a better idea of, oh, okay, these look great. Better than I thought. I could see why people loved them, enjoyed them almost equally with the Disney's. Yeah. Another one from the 30s that I felt the same way in terms of how good it looked and everything is that one from 1936, Let It Be Me. Yeah. 36, Let It Be Me. And that has the singing rooster, the crooner. And I guess that's maybe

Bing Crosby or, you know, it's... That was the idea. Yeah. Bing Crosby was the big thing. A thing about those particular ones that we've been talking about, Let It Be Me and I Love to Take Orders from that era, was these were the earliest ones that Warners used Technicolor for. And they were purposely making them as colorful as they could. Something I did not realize watching the faded prints

that we all grew up with, these cartoons are more colorful than we ever knew. And, you know, again, we're seeing them the way they're meant to be seen. We gotta be careful walking down these cellar stairs. We might get hurt. Well, there was another one that I wanted to ask you about and that's a kitty's kitty from 1955.

And that has that sadistic little girl who torments Sylvester. But I was laughing my head off watching this. What are your guys' thoughts on that one? I like them. I mean, in my life, in all of the years I've been involved in decades, I've come to appreciate Fritz Freling more than I think I ever did way back when. Oh my God, he was great. I'm so happy I got to meet him. I got to interview him a few times. I'm constantly marveling at a lot of the cartoons that I thought were maybe not so hot. I'm looking at them again and I'm thinking this is just he was great. Even into the 60s with the Pink Panther with the earliest of those he really knew what he was doing. I'm beginning to wonder, dare I say it this way, not that he was watching

them, but I'm beginning to wonder what frizz what Walt Disney might have thought of his feelings cartoons because he won Oscars. And the reason I say that is most people don't know that frizz was from Kansas City and worked for Walt Disney there. He came out to work on the Alice and Oswald cartoons here. Freeling and Disney had some kind of a falling out, to put it mildly. And Freeling went and stuck with Harmonizing, first sinking in the bathtub and onward, you know, the entirety of Warners. So, Fritz Freeling's name was not unknown to Walt Disney.

And to see him get Oscars in the future, like Bird's Anonymous and this and that, I kind of wonder about that. But Kitty's Kitty is a great little cartoon. It has a bit of the UPA, more stylized backgrounds in it, even the design of the little girl. It's just pure comedy. It's pure timing. It's funny. I don't even know what else sticks up. Even though it's a little girl and it's got Sylvester in it, again, it was made for all audiences. And this is a good film that really demonstrates that

because the gags are kind of sadistic. Any pet owner or hater, maybe, would really, really laugh at the things that happened to Sylvester in this cartoon. It's very well put together, very well designed. And, you know, it's not the little girl. She's like kind of the, our sympathies are with Sylvester in this. Of course. You know, so it's, you know.

I'll add in as a parent of a daughter too. Just the way kids, little girls want their animals, they love their animals, but at times you're like, oh no, stop. Because they can be so unintentionally mean to them. But I just found that one very funny. And then another one that I wanted to ask you about, because I thought it looks fantastic and it's so different but I really enjoyed it and that was good night Elmer from 1940. I mean it's just Elmer Fudd with this candle. Yeah, yeah. It's one I always had a problem with because with some very very rare exceptions I'd have to rack my brain to remind myself there's hardly anything cartoony in it.

The animation is very intricate. It's very real-ish. And it's dark, literally, because it's at night. And I always felt that that's a film that could have been done in live action. It might have made a great Edgar Kennedy short or something. But seeing it finally, you know, restored, it's beautiful. The animation is beautiful.

It's not rotoscoped. I didn't think it was, but it all takes place with this human character. So why wouldn't it be maybe? But it's beautifully done. The shading, this is early Chuck Jones human character, so why wouldn't it be maybe? But it's beautifully done, the shading. This is early Chuck Jones, before he was given a lecture by Leon to follow what Avery and Clampett are doing.

We want funny cartoons. And not that this wasn't funny, but it's Disneyish, really, is what it is. It's the frustrations of a character against an object that he has no control over. And it's really a study. It's really, really- It's beautifully animated. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But it's very different than the others for that reason. And it calls attention to itself for that reason. But I really enjoyed it. I thought it was really, really interesting.

Then you have a couple others that I thought were notable because I think they're the first debuts of the goofy gophers. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. Go on. And the Squawk and Hawk, I think, as well. Is that the first Henry Hawk, right? I believe so. Yeah. I just thought those were notable for those reasons for obviously fans of those.

We also have the first Daffy Duck cartoon on the other, I think on the other second disc. Right. And so we have like a bunch of firsts. Yeah. Which I think are very important. In fact, I think we have the first Speedy Gonzales on here too. What's interesting, Jerry, before you jump to that, is that this is like, you know, we've

called it alternately, disc one here is alternately called Collector's Volume Five. The fact that these firsts are only now coming out, I thought was really noticeable. Because you would think like the firsts would be released maybe a little bit earlier in the process. I don't know. It's just a thought. Stanislav I don't know. The firsts aren't, strangely enough, not usually, sometimes they are, but not usually the best because they refine the characters. If this character got a good reaction, hey, let's make another list and make it. This is what they did back then. That's how Bugs Bunny came to be. He didn't just emerge in one cartoon. It was several cartoons where all the directors

had a say and could make different variants till they got to the wild hair of the pre-node. True, but everybody wants to see first. Oh, what was the first? You know, the fact that even now, even now collectors are like, oh my gosh, I get to see the first of something this late into the series, I think is fantastic because whether, you know, not everybody's watching these rankings. You know, they just want to know, oh, this was the first attempt or the first time this character came. That's an interesting thing Yeah

George I know you like you like these good There was a time where people just watched them for entertainment and not scrutiny and analysis Everything else that you know has been added to the equation. Fair entertainment. Can you imagine this would be a scene in some movie where some time traveler goes back to 1945 and the person coming out of the theater and he says, did you just see the cartoon inside sir? He goes, yes, it was a cartoon.

I was watching the Clark Gable picture and he goes, well, do you know that in the future people will be obsessing over that particular cartoon and all the subsequent ones? And they'd look at that person from the future as crazy. Well, some people today look at it as crazy and we're the ones that have to fight that battle to get them to not do that. But I feel that our congregation of enthusiasts is expanding and growing. And I'm hoping that will continue. Yeah, yeah, sure. Well, this is the end of part one of a multiple episode of this Looney Tunes Collector's Vault Volume One discussion. You can look for the next episode coming soon,

but until then, if you wanna learn a little bit more or see previews of the release, we have some first looks on our YouTube channel and on Facebook, so you can look for those there. I'll provide some links to that in the podcast show notes as well as a link to the actual release if you'd like to purchase it This is a fantastic release highly recommended as you can tell So if you haven't yet, please subscribe or follow the show

That way you'll get the information on the next episode and all of our animation Release episodes with Jerry and George as soon as they come out until Until next time, you've been listening to Tim Millard. Stay slightly obsessed about animation.