The Extras - Tom and Jerry The Golden Era Anthology Release Podcast

Episode Date: December 2, 2025

Send us a textAnimation historians George Feltenstein and Jerry Beck join the podcast to CELEBRATE this landmark release bringing all 114 MGM Golden Era (1940-58) Tom and Jerry shorts to Blu-ray, uncut, uncensored, and restored in HD. We trace the decades-long path through ownership changes, vault fires, and restoration choices that finally made it possible. George Feltenstein of the Warner Archive also addresses fan questions with a deep-dive into the restoration process.Purchase TOM & JERRY THE GOLDEN ERA ANTHOLOGY BLU-RAY The Extras Facebook page The Extras TV YouTube ChannelThe Extras Twitter Warner Archive & Warner Bros Catalog Group Join 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]

Hey, are you a fan of the Warner Archive animation releases? Do you want to get the latest updates and news right away? If you're on Facebook, we have just created a brand new Facebook group called the Warner Archive Animation Fans Group. And we celebrate past releases, but really we created this group because of all of the great releases that have come in this year and are anticipated in the coming years. So there have been a lot of great releases from the Looney Tunes, collector's vault series. There's the Tom and Jerry releases. There's all of the Hanna-Barbera

releases. I mean, there's just a wealth of animation coming from the Warner Archive. So we celebrate all of it. It's a community with other people who enjoy these releases and want to talk about them and share the latest news, reviews, and updates from the Warner Archive. So if that sounds interesting to you, check out the link here in the podcast show notes. And we hope to see you. soon. Hello and welcome to The Extras. I'm Tim Larger host and joining me are George Feltonstein of the Warner Archive and Animation Historian Jerry Beck, who are here to review the recently released

Tom and Jerry Golden Era Anthology Blu-ray. Hi, guys. Hello, hello. I assume you spent the weekend, like I did, reviewing this brand new Blu-ray and And it's fantastic. I love it. It's a really, it's a day of celebration. It's finally here.

All of those Tom and Jerry cartoons on one release. Amazing. What are your thoughts? Well, it's about time. I was going to say at the beginning of 2025, which has certainly been very much of a roller coaster of a year for the world. But at the beginning of 2025, I was looking forward to the Cinemascope, Tom and Jerry collection. Right.

And never in my wildest dreams did I think we would be here in December of 2025 with all 114 Tom and Jerry theatrical cartoons from MGM in one collection that, is a beautiful Blu-ray bouquet and a tribute to Mr. Hanna, Mr. Barbera, and all of their loyal staff that made magic at the MGM Cartoon Department for 17 years. It's an awesome experience in the true sense of the word, because I'm in awe of their work. And to be able to bring it to people's shelves is, the goal yeah well it's a it's a real day of celebration because of that i mean you had no inkling of this as you just said and here we are i know the comments and the lead-up from the fans has been

wow i never expected this and that's i think how we're a lot of us are feeling and uh enjoying it and uh jerry wanted to get your take i mean this day for you it's a very special day as well well uh george remind me george and i have been doing this sort of thing for years um when was the uh we did the uh laser disc set the art of tom and jerry three not counting the chuck jones one that's the thing we had to do three sets did we have the uh lady of the house shorts on those we didn't have any special features we don't have any special features well okay but did we didn't have uh did we have the car cartoons that featured that character. Yes, but they were edited. Yeah. We had the versions that Turner Broadcasting would let us release. Give people context for those who don't understand.

This is very confusing to people. Okay. But I'll do this really fast. 1986, Turner Broadcasting buys MGMUA entertainment company March 1986. As part of that transaction,

United Artists Corporation is sold back to Kirk Corian. So you've got MGM Entertainment Company, you've got United Artists Corporation. There is no more MGMUA. Three months flage. Ted can't afford to keep the studio, sells the name MGM and the logo back to Cochorian, keeps the library, sells the lot and the lab to Lorimar,

and MGM Entertainment Company, which was Ted's company, had to change its name since the name was sold to United Artists, and the Leo logo was sold to United Artists. and the Leo logo was sold to United Artists. Ted was left at the library that became Turner Entertainment Company, part of Turner Broadcasting. It was 1986. MGMUA Home Video was part of the Cochorian-controlled post-merger stuff in 86. And that's where I ended up working.

and we had the home video rights to the Turner-owned MGM Library, which cuts off at the end of April 1986. So during that time, I was eventually running MGMUA home video before I moved to Time Warner. And that was when Jerry and I began our Laserdisc sets, starting with Golden Age of Looney Tunes, and then Art of Tom and Jerry, complete techs savory. But the masters for those sets came from Turner Entertainment Company and Turner Broadcasting.

1996 is when Turner Broadcasting was purchased by Time Warner, and Turner Entertainment Company became part of Warner Brothers. So that is how these MGM, Tom and Jerry cartoons have been owned by Warner Brothers for almost 30 years now. And as I moved with the library to Warner Brothers, so did Jerry and I move our efforts at animation, which had a little hiatus there, starting with DVD and whatnot. But we were not as involved with Tom,

and Jerry's earlier DVD iterations. I certainly wasn't. Right. I had a peripheral involvement, but I was theatrical catalog, so I wasn't really supposed to be involved. I did help with the Looney Tunes, which Jerry and I, you know, collaborated on,

but I had no involvement with the earlier Tom and Jerry DVD and Blu-ray iterations. and there was a lot of back and forth about how to approach them and the fact that Warner Archive got its shot to do Tom and Jerry Cinemascope was very exciting and it really wasn't until after that hit the market

that one of my colleagues within the greater Warner Brothers Home Entertainment said let's do something big for Tom and Jerry 85th anniversary before the end of the year, and that created where we are now. So I just wanted to clarify that because there is still a lot of confusion because since 1986, the company that operated and operates now as an Amazon-owned company, And MGM is not actually the corporate successor to Metro Golden Mayor. They are MGM in name only.

They are the corporate successor on paper to United Artists Corporation. So a lot of people like, you know, 100 years of MGM, well, not really. It's a actual, the entity lives on at Warner Brothers. And that's why Tom and Jerry have played a very, very important role within Warner Brothers because there have been numerous Tom and Jerry new animation projects, direct-to-video things, and there was a theatrical feature, and there have been things done for television, and we're not here to talk about that.

We're here to talk about the absolute prime golden age of Tom and Jerry as overseen by Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera at the MGM Cartoon Department, beginning with Jasper the Cat, 1940 Push gets the Boot. And this collection has all the cartoons uncensored, uncut, And that's an enormous achievement, especially as a beautiful high-definition Blu-ray. So really, it's been almost like 40 years that you guys have been working on Tom and Jerry at some level. And this is the first time, I mean, that it's all-in-one-one release.

I think the first time was the cartoon movie stars video cassettes. Yeah. Because that was the first idea of we can. sell classic animation to adults right and that was Looney Tunes that was TechSavory Screwball

Classics Volume 1 that was Tom and Jerry and oddly enough in the VHS Beta Max era we didn't have initially a problem with censorship of

the cartoons the Tom and Jerry's but But the laser discs that came, there were three of them. The first two were all the Hannah and Barbera cartoons. Yep. But if you look back, the retail price, I think, was $125 a set. So.

And you needed multiples. Yeah. Yeah. So double that. So it's very exciting. The one thing that's wonderful about. those box sets, though, were the beautiful, you had the size to create, beautiful packaging, beautiful inserts. And I still have a sealed copy of all those sets. But I haven't put a

laser disc in a laser disc player in a very long time. Well, Jerry, give us a little impression on the importance of this with all of the episodes, uncut, uncensored, the fact that that, you know, the fans get this now. Yeah. And it hasn't been available at all. And it's an HD. Yeah. No, this is a real, what's the word, showing respect to the fans.

The cartoons are commodity. The MGM, you know, the companies that had the rights to put them out have, you know, there was a lot of cartoons. There were many multiple ways to put those cartoons out on various types of sets. You know, you can do it by theme, you can do it by this, you can do it by that. The bottom line is this is a work of art. These are great Hollywood cartoons. They may be the best Hollywood cartoons.

They're by MGM. Their budgets are right up there. Disney has been said to have the biggest budgets. I can probably agree with that. But MGM matches that. no question about it. They probably saw what Disney was spending for a short, and they matched it at least. And these cartoons are lavish. Nothing has been spared to produce them so they maximally work this way. I personally believe that MGM, back in 1940, for 10 years,

was waiting for a creator, a series, characters to match what MGM could give that creator to make a great series. They never quite got that. They got some great creators of iWorks, Harmon and Ising. But they never came up with characters that the audiences could relate to, the audiences would love and embrace. Hannon-Barbera under Isings Unit at MGM,

they hit the magic formula. They got it. Okay, we have characters. And now MGM backed them. They backed them through the war. through the post-war period, you know, into the 50s, Cinemascope. And these cartoons are, you know, they're beautiful. They're funny.

Seven Oscars. Seven Oscars. But the bottom line is they're funny and they make people laugh and everybody loves them. And in a bigger way, in so big of a way, they're the last classic Hollywood cartoons that were run on cable TV, on Cartoon Network. maybe they still are right now. I have to tell you I've lost track because, well, they're on me TV tunes too. The thing is they, they, even Bugs Bunny.

Believe me, no one loves Bugs Bunny and Warner cartoons more than me, but when it came down to it, the commercial viability of Tom and Jerry, their popularity is so huge. And global. One last thing I'll say, the original Hannah Barbera. Tom and Jerry that's on this set. You know, as we all know, the series was continued later by Chuck Jones, Gene Deich, and then later on on television versions. And then, in the wisdom of the Warner Brothers Studio,

our friend Sam registered people who work there now. When they do a new Tom and Jerry movie or something like they've done shorts, it's in the Hannah Barbarra style. They've matched, they got it. They got Louis Boy. They know they know they even got to get the music. Scott Bradley, everything's got to be like that because that's the only way it works. You know, it's the best way it works.

And that's why we're so lucky that Sam is here. Yeah. Because he, like us, he loves the great stuff and to have his team love the great stuff and it shows in their work. Yeah. And it works for multiple generations. But I think that's the other thing about Tom and Jerry that's so important. important is the characters never lost their popularity since being introduced 85 years ago.

No. And even to the point where when all the studios were selling their cartoons to television, MGM held Tom and Jerry back for almost a decade. Yeah. Because they were still making money with them in theaters all over the world. with the gold medal reprints, as they called them. Warner Brothers had the blue ribbon reissues. MGM had the gold medal reprints.

But they were releasing a schedule of classic Hannah and Barbera made Tom and Jerry cartoons right up through 1970, 71, I think. Yeah. And that also is one of the factors in what creates problems for us in the surviving film elements because the cartoons were so popular, the elements were used a great deal,

and that has caused some problems in trying to do the work we can do, which is something we can talk about as we get down the pike. But a lot of love went into creating this set, And I do, I've mentioned this before when we announced it, but a colleague of mine here at Warner Brothers Home Entertainment, this colleague was dedicated to seeing that all the cartoons got released,

uncut, and as a celebration of their 85th anniversary. And the tenacity and passion, of this colleague is chiefly responsible for this getting all of the blockades pushed down. So the cartoons are complete, uncensored. I think Jerry mentioned that one cartoon Yankee Doodle Mouse had something on it that was tied to the titles during the war that was cut for reissue

that doesn't exist anymore. But that's the only thing I can think of that is not part of the original cartoon that, I mean, they're all ostensibly uncut and certainly uncensored. And that the Blu-ray has a whole bonus disc with hours and hours of special features, including there's a whole story behind two of the special features, which we can talk about in a moment if you like. But, Tim, I have to ask you, I assume you've watched the set, and I would love to know what you think. Well, I love it.

I mean, just the quality of each short film is fantastic. I love the starting chronologically from the very first one, which was nominated for an Academy. Award and seeing the progression of these, seeing the introduction of the characters as you go. The transfers, I think, look fantastic. You just mentioned the music. Sounds terrific. And I'm not a nitpicker. I've mentioned this on some of our other podcasts looking at the classic cartoons.

I'm enjoying these in HD, hearing them, watching them. They're fantastic, and it's terrific. they're introducing these classics 80-year-old cartoons or, you know, whatever age they are, and they feel current. They feel very much because of how good they look and sound. And so you're going to have a whole new audience of young people, I think, in addition to the collectors, of course, who now have this wonderful treat in their hands. but you also have now these cartoons looking and sounding so good that a whole new generation, a whole new audience of people who know Tom and Jerry, they of course remember a little bit about them, but you put this in and from the get-go, you just see and are reminded why these are

classics, why they're so good. And I just really, really am enjoying going through this set. I haven't watched them all yet. I'm two, three discs in. And I want to watched all the extras, of course, because we want to talk about that. But they are great, and I'm loving it. And I think this is just a treat for both the collector and, of course, just any animation fan. And I did want to talk about one of the great parts you just mentioned, of course, and that's the return of Mammy Two Shoes, because that's a big part of the uncensored part. And we won't get into all the details of why the censorship. Many people understand and know that story. But it's so great to see and hear Lillian Randolph's voice, to see the slippers,

the skirt, everything in there, and to know that you're watching it the way it was originally made. Yeah. Well, I think that we don't want to avoid the elephant in the room, which is what happened subsequent to, let's say, 2010. 2011 was the first release on Blu-ray. of Tom and Jerry Golden Collection, volume one. And this was handled by our kids' marketing team, lovely people, some of whom are still here, some of whom are not. But a lot of love went into that set.

Some of the cartoons look amazing. Some of them, not so. But the entertainment value was there. and more importantly, the cartoons were complete and uncut. When it came to volume two, there were two cartoons that it was deemed by a legal review committee that existed at the time that they could not be released due to objectionable content, despite the fact that we had introduced using disclaimers and putting things into historical context. And ironically, the problem didn't come from the home entertainment area.

It came from a very high-powered executive who was involved in television, not even home entertainment, not legal, home entertainment. It wasn't anything like that. But this person had a lot of people. power here at the company at the time, and there was going to be a new Tom and Jerry series launched on Cartoon Network, I think, and she blew a gasket and said, you cannot put those cartoons in this collection. So it was announced. I think a lot of people who are listening or watching this discussion know that it was announced, Golden Collection, Volume 2,

And the negative response due to the omission of those two cartoons led the head of that business unit. At the time, our division was theatrical catalog, new theatrical features, and then television and family. And the person who was the head of television and family got together with the head of the family unit and said, if people are going to be so upset about this, we're just not going to release it at all. And the release was canceled. I don't think all the people that were doing their complaining realized that it would result in a release like that getting pulled. But that's

what happened. That was 13 years ago, I believe. If my internal calendar was correct, certainly 12 years ago, if not 13. So everything just kind of sat. And what was particularly upsetting is a good friend of ours, Constantine Nazar, who is a wonderful filmmaker, and who had worked with us on the Looney Tunes special features, which Jerry and I were much more involved with the Looney Tunes Golden Collections than at least I was on what had happened with Tom and Jerry.

But Constantine worked at New Wave Entertainment, and that was, what, 22 years ago, you know, started making special features for the Looney Tunes. He eventually approached Tom and Jerry as well. And he was working on two new documentaries for Golden Collection Volume 2 that no one ever got to see. And frankly, they weren't finished.

And here we are now, 12 or 13 years later, since the debacle of Golden Collection, Volume 2 that never came out, Constantine got to go back and finish the two documentaries. And it's a mixture on the Lady of the House documentary, which is about the character of Dinah, aka Mammy Two Shoes. Mamie Two Shoes was never really an official name for the character. Is that correct, Jerry? Yes, it was never. Yeah, you're correct about that. So what I love about the piece is it goes into the artistry of developing the character. And so many radio performers provided the voices for great classic animated cartoons.

But Lillian Randolph was one of those people. And instead of hiding the character, and burying cartoons that may have gags that are politically incorrect and a product of their time, everything is presented, uncut, uncensored, and celebrating the talented people that collaborated on making these things. And I'm hoping that that will spread to other films that we have in the library, particularly animated ones that have been suppressed, that it would be maybe time to open up those doors because we're all grownups.

And that's more important to say that these collections are made for adults. It says so on the packaging. There is a disclaimer at the beginning, but they were made for adults in theaters. And if kids were in the theater at the time, they were to be entertained as well. But these are not silly symphonies. These are not beautiful little animated cartoons. These are funny, funny cartoons. The beauty of MGM's cartoons and Warner Brothers cartoons is they have great artistry,

they have great writing, great animation, and they're so funny. And I don't think any other company has the monopoly, shall we say, of funny. any great classic American animation than we do. And to be blessed with Looney Tunes, Tom and Jerry, TechSavory, Popeye, we've got basically the best. And now Tom and Jerry, you can finally own all 114 theatrical cartoons that Bill, Hannah, and Joe Barbera made at the MGM Cartoon Department without any repression or censorship.

And that's quite an achievement. And it would not be possible without the passion and persistence of my colleague, who I will not name, to avoid the amount of telegrams if they still had such things, that this person would get thanking them. I'm very glad that everybody pulled together to make this happen, because they saw that it made tremendous sense.

And the net result will be, I hope, thousands and thousands of people being properly entertained and their days brightened by the joys that are to be had watching the cartoons in this collection. Let me ask just a funny question, but Jerry, have you seen these cartoons? the way they're presented now in HD? No. No. Even you are seeing something fantastically new.

There were many times where I had the disc on. I was sort of reviewing it. I do other things while I have it on. I listen to the sound, and I'll look up at the picture, and more than I can ever remember, maybe except for the Looney Tunes, George, George knows this, but I looked up and I couldn't look

I couldn't look down. I couldn't look down because the crystal clarity of some of the cartoons on here that I'd never seen that way before was killing me. It's so clear you can, to me, I call it, you can see the cells in the background. You know what I mean? You can see the, it looks brand new. I don't know. That's an experience I love because it's the way people saw it when these cartoons first came out, when they were first on the big screen. The colors. I mean, it's amazing. You know, we've, we've had Tom and Jerry on Blu-ray before, but this time around the way it's done and in order, you know, as a historian, whatever that means, as an educator, a teacher, teach the history of animation. This is a great way to learn animation and learn what, you know, what happened, how these characters evolved, and they did. You know, the Tom and Jerry of Piscuits the boot is completely different in style and look from Top Watchers, the last one. And yet, they're Tom and Jerry. They're Tom and Jerry all the way through. You know, the personalities are there. And it's just,

it's great. Yeah. Yeah, I enjoyed that part when you're watching those first five. You just see jumps between of the character design and just the confidence that the creators had even in, oh, we know where we're going with this and what making this work. We live in a world today where if somebody was pitching a cartoon, they have to pitch it completely formed, whether it's SpongeBob or Scooby-Doo even, it had to be, here's the characters, here's what they look like, here's the stories, here's the backgrounds. They didn't do that back then. Nobody came in and pitched Bugs Bunny or Tom and Jerry.

They developed the characters on screen, and we get to see that. In the first five, ten cartoons, we get to see the characters come to be, you know, and then they hit their stride, you know, by the war years, by the mid-40s, and it's, you know, it's the Tom and Jerry we love. Yeah, yeah. And then you see the introduction of each of the other characters, which is fantastic. And to know, oh, this is the first time that this character is on, it's really fun. George, I just wanted to clarify the cinemascope you mentioned, you know, that was a great release that was planned, was not known that at that point that this release was going to come out. But I just want to clarify if some people did just want to know, are all of them included here? Obviously, the answer is yes. And that includes also the three bonus cartoons that were on that release. That's correct.

Yeah, yeah. I just want to clarify that if you purchase the Cinemascope, it's a great collection. They are repeated in this set. If you didn't buy it, of course, you'll have them on this set as well. So those are all in there, and that's fantastic. I also wanted to talk about this booklet, which I'm holding up here, and it's got original sketches from the Golden Era. It also has kind of a timeline in it of some of the films.

It doesn't have them all in there. That's a nice bonus that is exclusive to the Blu-ray, as well as that extras disc, which has... The bonus disc is only on the Blu-ray. Only on the Blu-ray. Exactly. And it has the two new featureettes, seven archival featureettes, I believe. And then it's got excerpts from the movies. From Anchors Away and Dangerous Way, right.

So it's got those in there, and they look terrific. I watch those. they look fantastic. And then you have, I believe, 20 commentaries in this set as well. So a lot of great extras that are included in this set. It's also not out of reach from a financial standpoint. I think it's a very reasonably priced release. It's basically six discs for a retail price of $60.

thankfully I think some major retailers are discounting it a little bit but you know we're very proud of it a lot of work went into this when we first announced it you know I said what our approach was which was we looked at all the masters we made improvements our mastering team I should say specifically the mastering team made improvements to 60 of the cartoons that already existed as high-definition masters with additional color correction that needed to be helped, some audio issues that needed to be addressed.

They also did additional dirt and scratch removal, anything that would be film damage, but they did not remove cell dust or anything that would have been inherent in the original animation. So there were 60 cartoons that got, cleaned up there was not any digital noise reduction or grain management done there seemed to be assertions from some people have already seen it that that was used i have been told by my

colleagues who oversee these things that that was not done but what they did do was they based on the quality levels that we, you know, demand, basically. They clean them up to 2025 standards. So there isn't a, you know, a black speck on a negative is going to be a white spot on the film. And we like our films to be cleaned up. And there were 11 where we needed to go back to film. And that included the 23 that were in the Cinemascope collection.

You know, they already had been given an upgrade. So all in all, the quality is, I think, quite good. It's good to excellent. And one of the things that is potentially not known is that unlike the Warner Brothers cartoons, all the Tom and Jerry cartoons that were made on nitrate stock, very flammable, up through 1951, with the exception of six cartoons from that huge group, all the original negatives were lost in a tragic fire on the East Coast and an archive where they had been sent for safekeeping. we lost hundreds of MGM feature films.

The whole cartoon library went up in smoke, as did the Short Subjects Library. There were six that somehow they must not have been in the right box to go to the East Coast that we discovered around 2007. And some of those where the original negative is still extant are on this set as part of a number. new presentation, most notably the infamous mouse cleaning, which was one of the two cartoons

that precluded the release of Golden Collection Volume 2. So not only does mouse cleaning make people happy because it's uncut and it's a great cartoon and it's funny, but also it looks amazing and the reason is it's one of the six Nitrate era cartoons where we had the original to go back to. What MGM did, for those who don't know, is there were only two companies in the 1960s that saw the danger that lay ahead with nitrate film, and it was Disney and MGM, both Disney and Disney was basically just an animation and family movie company. They were in a big studio at that time, but they saw to it that they preserved all of their nitrate onto safety film. Similarly, MGM started a nitrate to safety conversion program in the early 1960s,

and for the cartoons, they preserved them by making what is called a color reversal internegative, a CRI, not a great film stock. is a reversal film stock that could be used to make prints. It could be used also to make another inter-negative. And they made a printing CRA and archival CRA on each cartoon. But after the big fire, those CRIs or elements made from them were all we had to work with. and that has caused some problems along the way, including for the creation of this set.

But overall, I think the results speak for themselves. Almost everything looks absolutely spectacular. And for those that don't look quite as good as we had hoped, everybody did the best they could, given the film elements that exist here at this studio. that doesn't mean that there isn't possibly a perfect nitrate technicolor print in someone's basement in Bucharest. That may be. But also when you've transferred, we never transfer now, and certainly not in my time, you don't transfer from a print unless there's nothing else.

And transferring from a dye transfer technicolor print has also the danger of even more more softness. The beauty of a technicolor print, especially nitrate, is that the color doesn't fade. But MGM did not save its nitrate print library when they converted things over to safety. I don't know what they did with their nitrate prints. There is nothing in our paperwork, which goes back to the 1960s, that indicates what was done with the nitrate studio prints. But my assumption is that when they made a new safety studio print, they may have just pitched the nitrate print because it was old and beat up or whatever. But MGM was one of those companies that made sure they had a prime, proper print of every short cartoon and feature.

And on these cartoons, theoretically, we should. have two CRIs as they intended, but over time, some of those elements have been subject to vinegar syndrome or some kind of destruction. And there wasn't an added layer as there was for feature films. For the Technicolor feature films, they made safety separation master positives, which are basically fine grains, black and white. each one designed to reflect going through the prism of the camera and so forth and so on. They didn't do that extra level of protection, unfortunately, on the cartoons. So it's either CRIs or elements made from the CRIs,

and that's where sometimes we get into a little trouble. But we did the best that we could with all that we had. So for the 114 cartoons, 60 were given additional color cleanup, and 11 were remastered from film. And one of those 11 happens to be the aforementioned mouse cleaning. Well, maybe this is a good transition then, George. Some people sent questions to the extras who have. received a copy and had a chance to look at it. Maybe now is a good time, Jerry, that we could answer or go through a few of those questions.

Some of those questions came in. I don't know if these people actually saw the set. I think they're just speculating. Maybe a combination, yeah, possibly. Let me see what we've got here. Okay, I don't know the names of the people. I'm just going to read the few questions. First one is, and George, you may have answered these already.

So let's see what we got here. We know for certain... I don't know where the Lindberg baby is. No, that wasn't the question. We know for certain that the original nitrate negatives of MGM cartoons produced up to 1951 were lost in a vault fire in the 70s. Recently, however, it was initially thought that the original nitrate negative of mouse cleaning, but which George later claim was a safety copy of the negative, has been discovered. Was this a safety copy obtained directly from the original camera?

Negg or from the excessive exposure negative. Furthermore, are there similar copies of other MGM cartoons, I guess they meant to say this way, and are these the absolute best copies to use for MGM cartoons up to 1951 in absence of the original negatives? So, George, what would you say about that? You've already answered that mouse cleaning was from the original camera neg. It's one of the few that exist. I'm not sure what the rest of that question would be,

but after an original Cameron egg, what's the best, for cartoons, what's the best master film elements that one could use if you didn't have the original Cameron egg? That's the question. Well, this kind of relates to what I was talking about before. It turns out that there are a total of,

13 MGM cartoons where the nitrate survives. Six of those are Tom and Jerry cartoons. The other seven are not. There are a few Texavries in there. And some of them have already surfaced in the Texavory set that we did. But that is, when you look at the scope of several

hundred cartoons and that six survived, that's a heartbreaking reality. By looking in our inventory, I had thought that what was initially a discovery in 2007 of these 13 nitrate original negatives, I had thought that they weren't because they said they were out and I didn't have the detail.

When we started working on this set and the subject of mouse cleaning came up, I did further research and found that, yes, what had happened was when these 13 were discovered by yours truly in the inventory, the listings, I had mentioned this to the people who were overseeing preservation at the time. They made what MGM should have made before the fire.

They made successive exposure positives that were basically a backup to the negative. That's what you do. CRI is not the best way to go forward. So, for example, on a lot of the technical color restorations, we've been releasing on Blu-ray, where we've been recombining the original negative, some of those original negatives aren't complete

because of the big fire in 1978. So we've had to go to separation positives for those burnt reels. Some films burnt entirely, like all but one reel of Singing the Rain burnt. Oh, my God. So the reason why Singing in the Rain looks as good as it does is because of the separation master positives.

They did not make separation master positives when they were doing the nitrate to safety conversion in the 60s and 70s. Instead, they made CRIs. For these 13 cartoons where the original negative somehow stayed on this coast, there were successive exposure, safety positive protection masters made. that's what I saw subsequently in the inventory, and that was when we actually looked for what we had on mouse cleaning, we found out that there are six Tom and Jerry's, some of which had been already used, and one or two of the TechSavories were already used on, I think, volume three. So that's basically the story. Now, when we talked about Tom and Jerry's, on an earlier podcast to announce this, I had given the instructions the mastering department. If you see a 1960s MGM Lion, because I know that the Golden Collection,

buying one was filled with them, I said, you know, there's got to be something better. You should have this CRI. And it turns out that specifically I know one, I'm trying to remember which one it is. But there's an early cartoon where I saw that, I checked it out, and it turned out that the best surviving element was an internegative that had been made in the 60s. And it was another generation away, but it was the best available element because CRA had been damaged in

such a way or had warpage that couldn't be fixed. So the best unified presentation, because, you know, I was looking at these discs before they were replicated. I saw the lion from the 60s, and I called the mastering team, I said, what's going on? I said, we're not supposed to use it. Well, it turns out that on several of them, the best element we had was another generation away, which was a disappointment. And there are just a small handful of shorts that don't look as great as I wish they did,

but our team did the best that they could with the best elements that we have. you know, when you start getting into, well, we found a print, you're still another generation away. Maybe that would help. You know, so I'm not saying that this is the definitive be all end all. There could be things in archives, you know, there could be something in people's basement. But there's not going to be our original negatives and separation positives. But if you want to see what perfection looks like, and it just so happens it's a great cartoon that everybody's been asking for and it's noted it says second cutting on the original negative and that means that

they change the titles for the theatrical reissue whenever I see second cutting or third cutting each time my heart drops a little bit because of course we want everything to be as original as it was but like

the cartoon Yankee doodled mouse that has a wartime reference that was cut out of it that we probably will never see again unless someone's got a print from the early 40s. So that kind of answers that question in a long way, but it also explains the great amount of detail and research my colleagues went through and putting all this together.

Yeah. There's a couple of other questions. Again, these are, you know, you're sort of, I've answered them, but people ask, here's the question about the, were all the problematic metro color restorations from the 1960s? I don't think they made restorations in the 1960s. So were all the problematic metro color restorations from the 1960s made in the previous years redone for this set using technicolor copies?

You know, this guy is a question, but I don't think he understands. Right. So for clarification, when MGM reissued the cartoons that were made in the 40s and 50s in Technicolor, to use their own lab and to save money, they made Metrocolor reissue prints, hence the internegative I was referencing before. In some cases, the best surviving element on a particular cartoon, Speaking from 2025, in certain cases, is a third generation internegative, which is a disappointment. And it is very possible that, you know, long before you or I were involved in this process, or maybe you were when you were at MGM before I was, the original transfers of these cartoons to one-inch analog videotape could have been made

from elements that no longer exist. Safety elements that could have gotten lost, stolen, destroyed, water damage, thrown out. I mean, now if we have an element that has warpage or some kind

of damage, we can handle that because our scanners are so smart. You know, they can adjust for that. And I hate to say this, but Jerry, you'll, you'll understand what I mean. There was, and unfortunately to some degree still is an attitude among people handling film. The cartoons are a lesser important ilk. And I think you should respect a cartoon the same way you respect any classic piece of film history.

Even if it's a bad cartoon. I mean, regardless of what it is, you want to protect it in the best way because this is the legacy of people who are no longer here and we want to protect their legacy and be a champion of their legacy and make everything available with the best possible quality. I had the experience, I'll say, of working people when I first got into the industry of people who had the absolute, they were not bad people. They were nice people. And they really cared about what they did. But they made some incredibly short-sighted decisions. A perfect example of this.

is when all the pre-48 color cartoons and the black and white merry melodies, which were part of the MGM slash Turner library, when they were put onto videotape, 35 millimeter nitrate prints were captured onto the one-inch video tape. And to protect those cartes, cartoons, you should go back to the original negative, all of which on the Warner Brothers cartoons, we have, I think, you know, 99% of the original negatives. Instead of going back

to the original negative, they took these prints, made internegatives from the prints, and then interpositives from the internegatives. So four generations away, spending seven figures to make these protection elements, which are totally worthless. But these people thought they were doing the right thing. It might have been somewhat of a ill thought-out process. Thankfully, when those cartoons came back to Warner Brothers, proper thought processes went into getting the original negatives, going back to them.

And we don't have that luxury on the MGM cartoons, with the exception of these 13, including the six Tom and Jerry's. So we're just grateful for what we have. And I should also add that even though CRIs, color reversal internegatives, are really an abysmal kind of element, we've been able to yield great results working with them because of the tools that exist now

in scanning and color correction without tampering with the inherent organic nature of the animation? I want to ask, make sure I get one more question. I also want to just quickly clarify, everybody who writes in has got some vilification, which is not unwarranted towards metro color prints. Now, what they mean, what I believe the writers mean is reissues. That's what they mean. They mean, if they're saying a Metro Color print of a Tom and Jerry cartoon,

they're talking about a reissue, obviously. And because those in the 60s in particular, I believe, it'll say Metro Color right underneath the MGM Lion, right, on the opening logo. And this is a simple answer. I think I know the answer. But what was Metro Color? It wasn't an Eastman color, but it was a lab?

It was like, yeah. The whole industry, in 1954 you know started in as early as 52 that's when we got

Warner color but basically the single strand Eastman color process made filmmaking in color cheaper

and also the cameras were not bulky and they could you know have much more flexibility in the filmmaking. The net result was that MGM's lab could process Eastman Color. They eventually put the Metro Color name on what they printed. 20th Century Fox put

Deluxe, Color by Deluxe, on theirs. Technicolor was still printing dye transfer 35 millimeter in the United States until 1974. So even though the three strips weren't going through the Technicolor camera, they were still doing the imbibition process of making dyed transfer prints. In 35 millimeter, as late as 1974 here in the U.S., 16 millimeter, they stopped in 1970, and the U.K. stopped in 77, in Rome, in 79. And I could go on and on about technical color, but I won't. But the point is, is that the Metro color, uh, reissues have the more 1960s lion on the head.

And that's why specifically, when I saw one of those, when I was looking at the disc replicas right before they were about to replicate, I questioned, because I said we need to fix all those, I thought they could have gone back to the color reversal internegative, which would have had the older, MGM Lyon and Color by Technicolor written on it. They couldn't because the CRI no longer existed. So something happened along the way.

Their intention was to have one CRI that was archival that you wouldn't touch unless something bad happened. And they were supposed to use the printing CRI to make all their prints and internegatives. So on this one cartoon that I was looking at, I can't recall which one it was, but it had a 1960s logo, lion logo, and I went and inquired, then found out that we didn't have anything better to go back to. That's not to say that 20 years ago, that CRA might have been around for a one-inch

standard definition master. So that explains it. If you see the MGM cartoons in standard definition and you've got, you know, a blue lion and it's a blue square around it because they were trying to stay within TV safe, you know, basically it's in a box. Those are usually the early, early transfers that were done off of CRIs or even off Metrocom. Prince. The last question, just because a lot of people have asked me this, and I think you should answer it,

is the rationale or the thinking with the bonus cartoons that you put on to Warner Archive Collection feature film releases. For example, somebody pointed out, the Marx Brothers at the circus features a really rare MGM cartoon called Jitterbug Follies, but they were a little, they didn't think the quality was as good as some of the other bonus cartoons that they've been getting from other features. So, George, explain the whole thinking there and what you do about it. When we put bonus cartoons on a feature or short subjects, it kind of takes us off the Tom and

Joey's subject for a minute, but it's a perfectly appropriate question because we have used many Tom and Jerry cartoons as bonus material because we want to create that going to a night at the movie's experience. And with very rare exception, nothing comes to mind where we actually did this,

we use whatever is on hand. The jitterbug follies and wanted no master, I would love to see remastered in HD, two milk gross cartoons. Yep, you know. Yeah, we want. This is what was available. We used the same extras on the DVD about the circus, so we wanted to port them over.

We don't have a lot of budget to work with on providing extras. I wish we could create documentaries and all sorts of things for, you know. We do often being able to use these cartoons and sometimes shorts, we do provide a way for people to own. in HD certain things they've never been able to own before. A lot of the cartoons that were supposed to be in Golden Collection Volume 2, they were mastered in HD. Now they've either been kept the way they were or improved upon for this set. But we did put those on several releases that date from 1948 to 1956 or seven, you know.

But that explains it, that when we put a cartoon on a, short, that is no guarantee that it's been remastered. It's just there as a bonus. People are buying the movie. They get something else. Besides that, it's a nice extra. Right. Well, there you go. There's the answer. Well, George Jerry, this is a great day, a great celebration of a fantastic release. It's going to make so many people happy this Christmas to have this. I'm just loving going through it. And there's a lot of cartoons on here. It takes some time. And a lot of, a lot of special material because all the special features from all the previous collections, including the two new ones, which are quite substantial. But everything from the

past was repurposed here. So it's really a celebration to honor William, Hannah, Joseph Barbera, long may they reign. Yes, yes. Well, as always, George, Jerry, thank you for coming on and explaining to the fans all the work and all of the people who should be thanked and celebrating as fans. You say this all the time, George, how, Jerry, you guys are fans too. You know, I just had a mission to stars. You're fans of these.

You've been working on these since the 80s, you know, in one various form or another. and the joy to bring them out now in HD in one set, uncut, uncensored, and now available for everyone, it's fantastic and a great celebration. So thank you for coming on the extras, as always, to share that with the fans. You're welcome. Thank you, Tim. Well, thanks again to George and Jerry. It's always great to hear directly from them about these fantastic animation releases from

the Warner Archive that they've worked. worked on so tirelessly over the years to bring to us fans. If you haven't yet ordered your copy of the release, there is a purchase link in the podcast show notes. I highly, highly, highly recommend it. You want to own this set if you're an animation fan, and especially if you're a fan of classic Tom and Jerry animation. If you aren't yet subscribed or following the show at your favorite podcast provider,

you may want to do that. We will have more animation in the coming months and into next year. So you want to be sure that you don't miss anything by being a subscriber. Until next time, you've been listening to Tim Millard. Stay slightly obsessed about animation. Hi, this is Tim Millard, host of the extras podcast. And I wanted to let you know that we have a new private Facebook group for fans of the Warner Archive and Warner Brothers catalog physical media releases.

So if that interests you, you can find the link on our Facebook page or look for the link in the podcast show notes.