The Extras - Whacky Adventures in Curating Looney Tunes Cartoons

Episode Date: October 7, 2021

“Here’s what I do.”Legendary animation historian Jerry Beck is back for part two of a multi-episode discussion on Looney Tunes.  In this episode, we dive into a fun-filled review of Jerry’s fascinating career curating Looney Tunes titles.  He explains the genius he has in hunting and finding and cataloging old cartoons (like all genius, it is actually unexplainable).  We try and puzzle out when he and legendary Warner Bros executive George Feltenstein first started curating the Looney Tunes catalog, with little success.  But we pick up with the 1996 merger of Warner Bros and Turner, which brought all of the Looney Tunes cartoons from the MGM library back under the WB banner.  That allowed Jerry to work with Columbia House for their VHS Looney Toons compilations in the late 1990’s.  That research was useful when he began his curation with George Feltenstein on the fan-favorite Looney Tunes Golden Collection, which was an immediate commercial success.  That led to five more volumes and then the Blu-ray releases on the Looney Tunes Platinum Collection.  Along the way we make a side journey to a military base for some film research, discuss the value live theatrical screenings have had on Jerry’s instincts for interesting cartoon curation, and learn about Jerry’s passion project (you have to listen to find out).The Sitcom StudyWelcome to the Sitcom Study, where we contemplate the TV shows we grew up with and...Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify The Extras Facebook pageThe Extras Twitter Warner Archive & Warner Bros Catalog GroupOtaku 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. www.otakumedia.tv

Hi, I'm film historian and author John Fricke. I've written books about Judy Garland and the Wizard of Oz movie, and you're listening to The Extras. Hello and welcome to The Extras, where we take you behind the scenes of your favorite TV shows, movies, and animation, and their release on digital, DVD, Blu-ray, and 4K, or your favorite streaming site. I'm Tim Millard, your host.

This is part two of a multi-part discussion with animation historian Jerry Beck about the iconic Looney Tunes cartoons. In part one, Jerry provided background on how he got into animation history and the importance of his friendship with the legendary Leonard Maltin. And he detailed for us the history of Looney Tunes, starting with the character of Bosco, which was influenced by Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse, and how that eventually led to the development of Merry Melodies to create musical cartoons for theatrical release, and then the evolution of Porky Pig and the instant success of that wacky rabbit, Bugs Bunny.

He also discusses the impact of key directors, including Tex Avery, and the voice of so many Looney Tunes characters, Mel Blanc. That is episode 14, and I highly recommend it as an entertaining background on Looney Tunes. In this episode, we dive into a review of Jerry's fascinating career curating Looney Tunes titles for release on home entertainment starting back in the 1990s. And he gives us detailed background on his collaboration with Warner Brothers executive George Feltenstein

on the choices that went into the fan favorite Looney Tunes Golden Collection that was first released on DVD and subsequently on Blu-ray in the Looney Tunes Platinum Collection. So here is animation historian Jerry Beck. That leads us right into, I think, kind of going back into your career in the late seventies, you were at United Artists. Is that where you first met George? You know, me and George keep trying to pinpoint where we first met. I moved here in 86 in LA, to LA. And I know, I already knew George when I moved here. And when we started talking about when he was running MGM Home Entertainment, we started doing the first compilations on VHS and Laserdisc of Looney Tunes. George and I were already old friends. But when we met, it's hard to pinpoint.

I worked for United Artists since 1978. And it was in what they call the non-theatrical 16-millimeter department in 1980 through 84. And that's where I first got involved a little bit with home video, actually. I compiled a disc for MGM, or I guess it was MGM UA Home Video at that time. And they asked, because I was like the resident cartoon person at the studio. If anybody had a question about their cartoon library, they came to me at that time. And that's kind of led me into how I got into doing programming for the video. But George worked there too. He worked there later.

He worked there later. He was at Films Inc. He probably gave you some of that story. And then he came over to MGM. Somehow our paths kind of didn't match up enough for us to work together. But I think we were aware of each other and we knew each other. We both come from that world of renting movies in 16 millimeter to high schools, universities, prisons, hospitals. That was the world we both came from. And the

people who worked in those kind of jobs, like me and George, were very knowledgeable about film. And we kind of had to be. That was part of the job. We had to know what all the movies were, so we could recommend things to people. So we were definitely colleagues in that way. We were colleagues in film collecting. I don't know if George wanted to mention that or not, but back in those days, there was no video, no home video. So the only way you could actually watch stuff over again, besides we had a fringe benefit of our job, we can take some of our work home with us. We can take some of the films home and watch them in 16 millimeter. They would even give us a projector to run them in our, at home. So we could watch the movies at home. But we also collected,

there was a black market, you know, an underground of people selling, you know, old TV prints of old cartoons and things like that. So we were part of that world of film. You were both from, you know, originally from New York, you're in that non-theatrical. So then do you recall when you first partnered on a Looney Tunes compilation? Well, like I say, you know, I had my toe in the water a little bit before I met George with this thing called MGM Cartoon Magic. I actually have a poster for it behind me. So that was on VHS? It was on VHS.

Yeah, I did a couple of those VHS tapes at that time. And then I moved. And then in 86, I had worked in film distribution, not only with non-theatrical, but from 84 into 86, I worked for Orion Classics, which was similar to Sony Pictures Classics today or United Artists Classics before it. And it was run by the same people, Tom Bernard and Mike Barker, who still run Sony Pictures Classics today. I worked with them.

It was a very small department. And we distributed art films to art theaters, so to speak. So I had a background in film distribution. That brought me to Los Angeles, where I worked for Landmark Theaters. And we started distributing compilations of new festival animation programs. We did these little theatrical programs that would go to repertory theaters. And at that time, George was out here. And I got, again, I don't even remember us meeting out here. I kind of think, I kind of think I met him at one of the film collector shows. They'd have these little weekend film collector shows with people giving movie stars,

giving autographs and people selling old movie stills and things like that. I think we re-upped there. And I had already had out my book. I had done my own book called Looney Tunes and Merry Melodies with my partner, Will Friedwald. And we did a book called Looney Tunes and Merry Melodies, which was basically a filmography of the Warner Brothers cartoons, but more in depth than what was in Of Mice and Magic. It really just told you what goes on in each cartoon, all the credits. I mean, as much information as we could pack in that book. That was in 89 it came out. And somewhere around that time, I must have communicated with George and ended up writing the package copy.

In my mind's eye, I can't remember if I picked the cartoons or if someone else did and I just wrote the package copy around it or what. Maybe I started doing that. George started something called Cartoon Movie Stars on VHS. And it was like, you know, bugs. You know, one disc. I don't have it in front of me rolled up. But when I say disc, I mean VHS tape.

One tape would say bugs with an exclamation point. And then another one would be daffy and Tweety, you know, that kind of thing. And he'd started that, and it was really great because not only was it great to get the cartoons, but the packaging itself was hip and cool, and you wanted to buy it. And Laserdiscs had come in, and I think I know that I created on my own a, here's what I do. I knew how many cartoons could fit on one side of a laser disc. I don't know how I knew that. I don't even know this. At this moment, I don't know the number. Let's say it was 12. I mean, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know how many cartoons could fit on one side of a laser disc at this time. I'm sure somebody listening to your podcast right now is writing in saying, you fool,

it's only eight or something like that. But let's say it's 12. I actually, on my own, came up with this, like, if you were going to do, maybe George said to me something like, what if we did a laser disc set and it was five discs and each disc side had 12 cartoons? What would you do with that? And I, he may have given me that challenge. And I know that literally overnight, because I love challenges like that overnight or the next day I sent him back this list of here's what I would do. You know, the first one would be Bugs Bunny and it would be like the best Bugs Bunnies. You know,

the second side would be Looney Tunes. I'm not even looking at the actual thing that we did. It's called the Golden Age of Looney Tunes. And we ultimately did, I think, five volumes of that, I think, is what we did. And it was every cartoon that Turner had the rights to at that time, minus the infamous Censored 11. But other than that, everything else he had, including cartoons that could have been on the Censored 11 list, were on this thing. And the first one was very, all of them were very curated. The very first one I wanted it to be, just in case we never do this again,

I wanted to make sure certain cartoons were out on Laserdisc, just for me and for George. And that's the way I program. That's the way I do stuff because it's happened time and time again, you do something that you think maybe we'll have a chance to do another one or the third one or the fourth one. And then you find out they're not going to do it anymore. It's not a budget. It didn't sell. So I try to load the first one with the best stuff so that people clamoring for the next one, I hope. Or maybe if there's never a chance and it's never coming out again, make sure the ones I really want are on there. One good example, I'm sure

nobody's figured this out, but a cartoon I love that's not well-known, although it is more today than it's ever been. But back then was a cartoon called Catnip College, a Mary Melody cartoon that has no famous characters in it, but has a great soundtrack and a great song in it. And I really like it, just personally like that cartoon. And it's nobody else's favorite back then. You know, 30 years ago, it was nobody's favorite. But I would always put it on the first things of anything I do because I want to make sure it's, you know, on Laserdisc, on Blu-ray, on DVD. I want to make sure it's there. That's like my little, like my little signature is that, that Catnip College is

one of the first ones. I have luckily before getting involved with doing these things on disc and physical media, I have before that. And I still, to this day, do a lot of public showings of cartoons. So I've seen cartoons a lot in public. I mean, of course, I've seen a lot watching television or having 16-millimeter prints, but showing them to the public, doing theatrical programs, working for United Artists in the non-theatrical business. I actually compiled a lot of 16-millimeter reels for rental purposes. I actually showed a lot of them in New York in public and I got to hear audience reaction. Oh yeah, this one doesn't play well. I love it,

but it doesn't play well. I would know what plays well with an audience. And then of course, my own opinion of what I think is something people should see. So that's the way I come at it. I come at it with, whenever I do any kind of curating, I start with a bang, I end with a bang, you know, start with a great one, end with a great one, have something great in the middle, but you can put the little weaker ones or your test subjects, sort of, you can pepper them in in the middle. And, you know, I've also found that variety is a good thing. I actually prefer, I know I'm jumping all around here with this answer. I prefer, you know, doing cartoon collections that have what I call a mix. I less so,

although I've done it many times, less so am I interested in doing collections with a single character. And I believe me, I do it all the time. In fact, I have a Woody Woodpecker set that's coming out from Universal in the next few weeks. It's coming out on Blu-ray. But I find that less interesting. Audiences like the mix. They like to be a Bugs Bunny, followed by a Daffy Duck, followed by a miscellaneous cartoon, followed by the one with the singing frog. They like that mix. It plays better. I've learned lots of little things from doing public shows. Audiences get restless after 12 cartoons. 10 to 12 is the magic sweet spot for a public show.

Never have it all be all Tex Avery, all Bob Clampett, all Chuck Jones. Never have it be all Bugs Bunny, all Casper the Ghost. If you have it be a mix, it plays great. It plays great and they want more. If you do it all of one, they've got headaches by the end. So these are little tricks of the trade. So I try to do that. It just depends on what kind of the collection we're doing. If we're doing a Bugs Bunny collection like the 80th collection, clearly we're going to concentrate on Bugs Bunny. You know, we just have to find some clever way to do it. Before we jump to Bugs, I did want to talk a little bit about the fact that in 1996, Time Warner purchased Turner.

And so that Looney Tunes cartoons all kind of came back under the umbrella of Warner Brothers. And I think that opened up the possibilities to do that Looney Tunes Golden Collections. When did you and George start talking about the actual curating? Because you just, you know, you've given a really nice background on how you strategize the curating.

When did you guys kind of start talking about it and kind of realizing, hey, we have a real opportunity here? Stay with us. We'll be right back. 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.

You can find the link on our Facebook page or look for the link in the podcast show notes. Well, as you said, 1996, I think it was around 1995, 1996 that we did the final Golden Age of Looney Tunes laser disc set came out. I think Image distributed it for some reason. But DVD, I'm sorry, DVD actually, yeah. You can tell me when DVD started. I know it started in the late 90s like i i know i bought my first dvd at version records yeah yeah 96 97 is that same time and then i held off myself getting dvd because well because it wasn't as en masse at that time. I remember buying, getting slightly off subject, but I bought my very first DVD was the Bob Clampett Beanie and

Cecil DVD because at the time that collection and what's in it, and I guess I could sell it still the same way, is it was very unique. Bob Clampett cartoons and a ton of bonus material that has never appeared anywhere else except on those DVDs. That's what forced me to buy a DVD and then to get a player. But it was definitely around there, right around there that I personally was like, okay, George, we got to, let's do DVD. Now he moved over and you maybe you can remind me when he moved, when it moved over from MGM to Warner. When did he move to Warner brothers? Had to be around that time. Yeah. It had to be right around that time. The transition for him, you know, maybe took a little bit longer before he actually got the official Warner brothers.

Right. Yeah. You have to understand that, um, George was full time while we're talking this and my involvement, I'm doing other things. I'm writing books. I was working at Nickelodeon in New York in the 90s, being bi-coastal. So I've had other jobs and gigs and crazy things. But working with George is I stop everything and we do what we're going to do for George and for the cartoons for Warner Brothers throughout the uh, it's just the way it is. It's just, it's part of my being. And so, uh, when something comes up and we, George and I talk all the time and we're always talking about what could be, we were talking about, uh, DVD collections practically from the beginning, late nineties. Here's the thing though.

No Warner brothers DVD collection came out until i believe 2003 right unbelievably of course we had two we had 9-11 in between there but we had a lot of things that were in the way but the main thing was and i may have this wrong i'd like to know this is almost like a game we could play with me our memories on this i know that i I was pushing for the Looney Tunes, not to mention Looney Tunes and a million other things that the company owned on DVD, definitely since the beginning of George being there. But it took forever. In fact, one of the things that satiated me, and I'm forgetting the date exactly, I think it was 1999. Because I have to remember other things I was doing, you know, in my professional life when certain things as how I'm remembering what years

they are in 1999, I believe, even though I was pushing for the DVD release, remember Columbia house? Yes. Remember those, those VHS tapes by subscription and you, and they would start doing TV series. I have still, I just sold actually a week ago because I just moved. I sold my complete collection of the monkeys, my complete collection of lost in space, my favorite Martian. These are all things bought by subscription from Columbia house on VHS. Right. And they contacted me. Thank you. And they contacted me, thank you, and asked me if I would curate a series of Looney Tunes VHSs for Columbia House.

Warner Brothers was not interested. I think Warner's didn't even release VHSs then. They had done some without me before that on their own, but they didn't really do that sort of thing. But, but it was, it was at, it was the first time that the Turner owned pre 48 Warner cartoons and the post 48 Warners owned Looney Tunes. I could finally do curation using both. And so, and they, they had to be done by certain themes. Although I, again, I kind of remember me coming up with the themes, but they wanted, you know, each one to be like a, you know, a new issue of a magazine, like, okay, this month you got Looney Tunes dogs, you know, and it was all dog cartoons,

Looney Tunes around the world. I would come up with all these different themes. And of course I did directors, you know, a male blanks that, you know, and I would write copy on the back that would kind of tie it all together why we have this. So I did that. I can't remember. Somebody out there can tell us. It was like at least 15 volumes. Might have been more than 15.

But that's a year, more than a year's worth of subscription. And then I followed that up with doing Woody Woodpecker for them. They asked me to do. But and that was pretty cool. So that's what i was doing as far as curation of cartoons during the period when warner brothers was not doing it and we were always pushing for it i know george was always pushing for it why 2003 the reason was the feature film uh looney tunes back Action, which most people have forgotten existed.

It was sort of a follow-up, believe it or not, to Space Jam with Brendan Fraser. It was live action animation. Steve Martin is in it. And Joe Dante directed it. And it's actually probably the best of those features. That was coming out. And they wanted to tie everything into it. In fact, I did a book in celebration of that at that time. It was a book called Looney Tunes, The Ultimate Visual Guide for DK Publications. Really good book about it. Just basically a picture book of every Warner Brothers character and all about them. It's a good book called The Ultimate Visual Guide to Looney Tunes. That was also 2003. Also, they were so, that first volume is very odd because they didn't want to spend any money restoring the cartoons. And some of the Looney Tunes were restored for Europe already,

particularly a lot of Tweety and Sylvester cartoons. So the bulk of, if not all, of the first collection was made up of stuff that already was existent, already remastered for DVD, which looked miles better than what Turner had and what Warner's previous. I mean, it's just unbelievable quality. Uh, it wasn't today's HD standard kind of thing, but it was just jaw droppingly good quality.

Did it have everything I would do? No, but, um, mainly our career curation, as I recall, for that first volume was me saying, basically looking at a list of what was done and which ones to omit or which ones we'd make sure don't put on the set. It was a very small list. And so, you know, he made the best out of that. The real curation going with whatever we wanted to do starts with volume two.

I think volume two is even better than volume one. Also on volume one, as well as all the others, but volume one, George and I did the most of our creative work was the bonus materials, the extras. We did all sorts of things. Again, I'm not looking at them right now. I could go over to my shelf and pull it out. But I remember we, what did they say, batting for the seats, the faraway seats. We really, really took a deep dive with the bonus materials. I'm still to this day proud of the bonus materials on all, I forgot again, five or six volumes of the Golden Collections. And I especially want to give a hat tip to Constantine Nasser, who was the producer of all of the documentaries that were done. A good friend, there still is my friend today. But we also included a lot of bonus material that was just

archival stuff, like shorts nobody knew existed, like one called Orange Blossoms for Violet, Shorts nobody knew existed, like one called Orange Blossoms for Violet, which was a live action short that Chuck Jones and Frizz Freeling did at Warner Brothers. But it was not done for the cartoon department. It was done for the shorts department. And it was mainly writing and compiling old stock footage from silent films. Max Sennett had done a whole series of films using monkeys, chimpanzees in dramatic scenes. It doesn't make any sense. They took this old footage and re-edited it and had Mel Blanc and Bea Benederat do the voices. So it sounds like a cartoon. And it's Chuck Jones in prison. There's something nobody knew about. And there's literally dozens and dozens of things like that.

We found blooper reels, live-action blooper reels from the studios from the 30s. We found kind of like my lifetime project in restoring the Looney Tunes. The one thing they haven't restored yet. But as far as I know, we're going to, hopefully within the next year. And that's, but I mean, who knows? I could have said that five years ago. I'm an optimist and I believe in possibilities. But it's the Bugs Bunny show. It was a 1960 ABC compilation show called the Bugs Bunny show that was on in primetime. And it's sort of forgotten, but not forgotten.

It's people that, oh, you mean the Bugs Bunny Roadrunner Hour or the Bugs and Tweety show or the famous opening, you know, over church or lights. Everybody knows that. Well, what you don't know is the rest of the show. You think you do, over church or lights. Everybody knows that. Well, what you don't know is the rest of the show. You think you do, but you don't. They haven't been seen since the 1960s. They haven't been restored. There's reasons why some of them have to do with the negatives and decomposition and it's reuse throughout the years for Saturday morning. They literally cut up the original negatives. So there's a lot of issues on it, but it is totally doable. It's totally restorable. It's a passion project made 30 years

ago when I worked on my book that came out in 1989, Looney Tunes and Merry Melodies, the illustrated guide to the Warner Brothers cartoons. We put in a complete filmography of the Bugs Bunny show. The researching of that took months because there's no records. Nobody cares. Warner Brothers, you know, I used to think back then when that book came out, I'll bet somebody out there just thinks I went over to Warner Brothers and grabbed all these information charts that they have or something and just reprinted it in my book. No, everything in that my book was original research because nobody had any information, nothing. And Web's Money Show is one of those things. And I think when we finally restore it and show people what it was, people are

going to be like, two things. One, wow. And number two, you mean we had this all along and we didn't restore it? And we didn't put it on television? We didn't put it on HBO Max or the Cartoon Network? What was wrong with us that we didn't do this? I mean, literally, it's new animation that isn't seen anywhere else by Chuck Jones and Frizz Freeling and Robert McKimpson with voice new, not heard before in 60 years now, Mel Blanc. I mean, why are we not showing this? Why are we not putting this out on video and Blu-ray?

I've been trying to get this done. There's been a ton of roadblocks, but I'm thinking based on things I know, we're going to try to make it happen soon. That would be terrific, yeah. Yeah. But my point of bringing that up was we put what I call Frankenstein versions of some of the Bugs Bunny shows as bonus material on some of the golden age, uh, Looney Tunes, golden collections, bonus material. If you watch any of those, there's a title card that explains

things at the beginning of it. And, and the footage goes from color to black and white. Why would that be? Well, because the black and white sections are, we don't, the color neg is missing. We have the black and white, we don't have color. So there's all kinds of issues, but if you want to see roughly what these might've been like, you can see them on, on that as one of the bonus things. And, uh, we put a lot of effort into these bonus, these bonus things that we did on all of the sets. And I'm very happy because to me, you know, if you, there happens to be a box set of all six golden collections as one that I would absolutely buy that if I were somebody interested in the history of Looney Tunes.

Everything's in there. Not every cartoon. About 50% of the cartoons are in there, but the best cartoons are there, and the bonus material is the complete education on them. I started at Warner Home Video in 2007, so you had already released think, probably three volumes or something.

Oh, yeah. Or more before that. One of the questions I always wanted to ask you was, how did you find all of that bonus material? Okay, I'm going to be immodest. And I'm actually a modest person. I don't, you know, really grab a lot of credit. But if I hadn't done, if I weren't involved, if George weren't involved, and if I hadn't done so much research in the years before we did those, for books and for my own enjoyment

or whatever, if I hadn't already been involved in the world of film collecting, if I hadn't been involved with certain documentaries that were made about cartoons that I got involved in, then we'd find these things. If I didn't know my friends at the UCLA Film Archive who showed me that there was this short subject called The Adventures of the Roadrunner, which turns out to be a pilot that Warner's made at the very end for a Roadrunner show, but it was released theatrically. And they showed me, at the time, the only existent version of it, which was chopped up, but it was there. I could see it with the credits. And I'm like, how come nobody's ever seen this before?

If I hadn't seen all this stuff in my travels in the last 15 years or so prior to that, then you would never see this stuff. One guy, I'm sorry, but one person just accumulating all of this and knowing that, okay, that's over there at UCLA. This is over here at this place. Our Air Force Base has that. This has, I mean, that's the only way that stuff could have came together because, and again, it sounds immodest. I don't mean to be, I don't know how else anybody would have figured this stuff out. It's just part of my travels that I figured out or found or saw or know where some of these bones were buried. I get it, Jerry, because having worked at Warner Brothers and I think, you know,

also just being a fan, you make assumptions when you're not in the studio that you think, oh, the studio is going to take care of this or they're cataloging this. And really the studio is so focused on the current, on what today. And it really took that just explosion of the home entertainment market and the money that it brought in for the studio, I think to generate the interest to go back, to look at some of the stuff. But that doesn't mean that anybody working there had the knowledge. People had retired, moved on. It took somebody like you on the outside who wrote the books and who had the interest and the passion for it. So I totally get that. And I, I understand that, but I always, I thought, gee, how did Jerry find this stuff? You know, how do you actually hear about the pieces and you and George? I'm not, you know,

George has been a part of that. Even I don't know myself. I still remember going to working on my book in 1988, which came out in 89. I remember going out to Norton Air Force Base, which I don't think exists anymore. I've been, I think I going out to Norton Air Force Base, which I don't think exists anymore. I think I was told there's this Air Force Base out here in LA. Maybe the base still exists. But what I found out was that they had all the military film archive was part of that base. It's out in San Bernardino, way out. And I remember I had to get permission from generals. I had to get government clearances to visit this archive, this film archive, to go in there to see some of the films that ended up on the Golden Collections,

ultimately, and even being shown on television recently. These special films that Chuck Jones made for a military recruitment that he had made. How I even found out about them, I don't know, but I can't remember right now. But just said, but I remember trying to track them down and then tracking them down. They were only visible at that time at this Air Force base. And I had to go there. And I still remember the whole thing was I've never had that experience before or after the whole thing with, you know, the guards at the gate, you see them in the movies all the time, the guard at the gate, showing your papers, being admitted in, being led by a guard with guns into this film building where everything was clean as a whistle.

You could eat off the floor. It was so clean. And they took me to the place where the film was. They pulled out a little shelf, a little stainless steel shelf with a roll of film on a core. And a military guy with his gloves took it, brought it to a moviola and did it you know just like a you know a guard at uh at the palace in england he you know no expression you know he put it on the moviola that was his job he was trained how to put a film onto a moviola put it on for me and i got to watch it i said could i watch it twice because i watched it twice

all the way up there yeah the whole thing was crazy I mean, that's what you had to do to see these things. And, again, I'm proud that you don't have to do that. You know, now you can just go to the Golden Collection and look at it because Warner Brothers, I told them about it. They got permission. They transferred the film. I mean, the things that, you know, that we had to do, I've had some of them, like an Orange Blossoms for Violet,

a member, a friend of mine found it. It came up in a collection of film he bought and he said, have you ever seen this? I go, no. And he showed it to me and I go, wow. And that stayed lodged in my mind. And later on it was in the negative is in Warner brothers vault, but who knew this? Who knew that it was related to the cartoons? You know, uh, similarly, my friends at the UCLA film market, let's see, again, I get around. I had a lot of connections. I'd done a lot of stuff. I had a very good friend, my good friend, Jerry Goulden. At the time, he was at the UCLA Film Archive. He showed me this one that's called this Vitaphone film from 1930, Cryin' for the Carolines, produced by Leon Schlesinger. And it was the thing he did before

doing Looney Tunes. And it featured illustrations, cutouts, not animated per se, but it was an organ, like a guy playing the organ, and you saw these visuals. It was a very creative film. And it was a precursor by Leon Schlesinger to doing cartoons. And i this is cool so we put that on the set you know just anything that related to looney tunes in that way uh you know we we put on and you know and it's it's a fantastic you know road and a fantastic universe of material i'm forgetting everything we've shown and put on there but a lot of good stuff on these uh as well as well part of the reason i started this podcast was because working at Warner Brothers, Warner Home Video, I just saw the wealth and the importance of what's called extras.

And how much that these extras, you know, that you found for the golden collection, they are key parts of the story. They tell you history, film history. They really give you just so much background and the wealth of what is there. Obviously some fans know about it. There's a hardcore fans that get into it, but there's just so many people that I wanted to bring more exposure to the extras and why they make it the reason to buy versus, Hey, I'm just going to stream this and watch the cartoon or the show. There's just such, you know, if you're a fan, there's so much more that you can sometimes get with these releases. I mean, I had done, I had done, um, in that weird period between 1997 and

2003, uh, somewhere in the universe, again, of 1999, somewhere in that universe, I was connected to the Cartoon Network a little bit and worked a little bit on this Toon Heads. They had a show on Sunday nights called Toon Heads. And I got the opportunity to work on at least three of which only one or maybe two came out. Two came out and I worked on probably four of these special Toon Head episodes. One called Toon Heads, The Lost Cartoons and another one called Toon Heads, The Lost Cartoons, and another one called Toon Heads, something like Cartoons Go to War. And I'm working on those. And again, these were like 1999, 2000. That's another area where I was able to look for and dig out some of this odd, odd, odd material. The one called The Lost Cartoons features just weird,

you know, extra stuff that isn't stuff prior to doing bonus materials and extras. They were kind of the run-up to that. And I, when we finally, we didn't show complete subjects, we just showed excerpts from a lot of weird stuff. So by the time we were able to do Looney Tunes, uh, the golden collections, um, I said, wow, we now have the opportunity to run these, some of these as complete subjects as bonus material. And I thought that was, you know, a dream come true. So that's where a lot of the stuff is shown in full for the first time. And I think that, you know, I spoke to George in previous podcasts, but his passion and yours together to bring these classic cartoons to the adult market,

not just in a kid's bin in Walmart or something, but to really bring them to the adult fan who has an interest in the extras, who has an interest in the history because they remember back to their childhood or whatever. And to place that really has been a valuable addition to the not just entertainment market, but to the cartoon history.

You know, if these cartoons weren't aimed at adults in the first place, yeah, I know kids always love cartoons. And, you know, of course, later on, Hanna-Barbera TV cartoons are really aimed at children. I mean, and there's nothing against an adult point of view, you know, representing them that way. Certainly the Flintstones and the Jetsons and Johnny Quest were on primetime. So those were aimed at grownups. But my point is,

is that the classic Looney Tunes were never really aimed at kids. And my point is to try to bring it back, bring the public perception of them back to that these aren't just for kids. They were not meant that way in the first place. And that's that. I mean, again, if I were trying to make that argument there, I say for Scooby-Doo, I'd have a hard time making it because it was aimed at kids in the first place. But the Looney Tunes were, you know, belong on the adult shelf as far as I'm concerned. Well, we've talked now about the release on DVD and then the Platinum Collection kind of extended that to Blu-ray, I believe.

Were you involved in that Platinum Collection? Oh, yeah. Yeah, the Platinum Collection, definitely. Obviously, with the Platinum Collection, luckily, George and Warners, I think from Volume 2 up on the Looney Tunes Golden Collections, they started remastering them for high def. And thus they had them ready to go for Blu-ray. So we didn't really have to do new work for the main cartoons. We did put on, I have to say I didn't do my homework in advance to remind myself what

new stuff is on there. There were some new things we put on the Platinum Collections and as bonus material as well. Things we couldn't get, you know, that wouldn't fit, you know, on the previous ones. Just some leftover material. I think there's a cartoon called The Door, which really doesn't count. It's an independent film that was produced, believe it or not, by the now infamous Bill Cosby. But back in the 60s, he produced an independent cartoon. And it has jazz music by Clark Terry. And it's just an oddity. It's an anti-war film, very much of its time, like 1968, 69. And it has gotten throughout the years lumped in with

the Looney Tunes and Merry Melodies, even though it is so far away from being one of those. And anyway, just by virtue of it being lumped in throughout the years with the other cartoons, uh, we finally, we put it on one of the platinum collections. I was kind of happy about that because it was kind of a shoe that didn't drop like one more thing we need to put on, but we, yeah, I mean, you know, the Blu-ray, uh, I got to do some unique curating there. Uh, I, I did, I did something different, which I liked and I wish we could have continued. It only lasted three volumes of the platinum, but I wish we had gone on. I was beginning to curate cartoons by certain characters that in the curation makes some sort of sense. Like there are only, and most people don't know this, but there are only five classic Looney Tunes with Marvin the Martian. There are

only five classic Looney Tunes with the Tasmanian devil, only five. So I started to group them. There's only like, I want to say three or four, at least four with Witch Hazel, that character a lot of people know from the Bugs Bunny cartoons, but there's only four. So I started putting together the little groupings, the beaky buzzards, the characters that are known, but they're only in a few cartoons. So let's put them together in little curations. And I started doing that in the first two volumes. And I like what I did. I'm glad I did that. I think it's a great way to have those. If you really want to find them fast, they're right there. Little cute little things like that I was trying to do. That leads us to a discussion about releasing Looney Tunes on 4k. Have you

heard anything about that? Actually, no. I guess that's a George question. I haven't really heard that. I mean, I'm still wanting to release. There was one Bugs Bunny, Lumberjack Rabbit that was done in 3D. In fact, it's on the 80th collection. And in fact, I do the audio commentary and I mentioned that it was made in 3D. I'd love to see us release the 3D cartoons that way. There was a Popeye cartoon made in 3D. I don't have a way to show 3D myself on a 3D cartoons that way. There was a Popeye cartoon made in 3D. I don't have a way to show 3D myself

on a 3D TV set, but I think it's something we should do. I think it's something that should be out there. People should see it. Well, I do recall that George said that when it comes to a new medium like 4K, you know, it's going to take a little longer for the classic films to be put out just because of the marketplace and the economics of it. And I assume that that's going to be true for classic cartoons. I'll say one thing. I'll say one of my, I said this to other people before. I wonder if George said it because George and I have talked about this. Something's happening right now in the biz, in the biz. That's pretty interesting. And people like me and George are noticing it and recognizing it. What it is,

is it's going back to the way things were before VHS, before Betamax, before the mid, when was that? The 80s? The mid, yeah, the late 80s. Let me put it this way. I got my first VHS player. I wasn't a beta adopter, but I remember one of the first things I ever got on VHS was a bootleg of Grease because that was brand new at the time. So whenever Grease came out, like in the late seventies, right? So, so by, by 1980, that's when, uh, the first video store that I know of in Manhattan opened up and then they were selling brand new videos and videos were videos were $80 or $100. You wanted to buy one.

You know, if you wanted to buy VHS blank tapes for $20 a piece. People don't remember that era. That's 1980, folks. But before that, or even during that period, the movie studios controlled how you, the public, saw a movie or cartoons. Let's just stick with movies, big movies. You saw them in a movie theater. You couldn't take them home and put them on your shelf. You couldn't buy them later.

You couldn't own them like a book. You just saw them in the theater. And if you didn't catch it in the theater, if you were lucky, it would replay at a repertory theater in years to come. You know, here in L.A., we had the New Art in New York. We had many, many what they call repertory theaters. The Film Forum is still there today. That was one of them.

The Thalia in New York. There were many, many repertory theaters. The Regency was a great one. The Regency was practically the TCM of movie theaters in New York. They ran constantly every day, a double feature, usually from Warner's or MGM. So it really was like TCM. They ran the classics, the Maltese Falcon, and all that over and over again. Right.

They had a calendar, and you knew which day to show up. The studios controlled the movies. You could rent them in 16 millimeter, but you had to pay the studios. You could watch them on TV, but but you had to pay the studios. You could watch them on TV, but when this TV station deemed to run it, you had no control over the movies. VHS was a great freer, liberator, where we can now own Casablanca. We could look at it anytime we wanted to. And things kept going from there with the new technologies. But what's going on right now with streaming and the decline of physical media is a return to the studios of their complete ownership of a movie. Now, yeah, you could go on HBO Max and run a classic Casablanca whenever you wish.

You can do that now. We have that wonderful ability these days, but they own it and you don't have, you don't own it. You don't have a physical copy of it. Okay. Maybe that's okay for 99% of the people, maybe 95% of the people out there. That's okay to them. But, um, as Jerry Beck, as a guy who likes to show curated programs in movie theaters and the studios no longer make 35 millimeter prints. OK. And they don't even give you the DVD of it or or or a high def version or what do they call it? Did you forget the name of it? But the the the thing they supply to movie theaters that the digital version of it that they supply, you know.

of it that they supply. You know, I need to be able to curate. I need to have, oh yeah, this Blu-ray set and that Blu-ray set, and then put together the program I want to show. I need to do that for my class. I teach at four different schools. I need to be able to show them what I want to show them. Technically, what am I going to put on HBO Max and then look for the cartoon? I can't do that in a classroom. I got to have it ready to go. I put on a program. And now let's take a look at Chuck Jones's What's Opera doc. And then I want them to be able to see it instantly. So we could do that back in the old days with 16 millimeter films or 35 millimeter films. We could do that in the old days, but we can't do it now. Or it's getting to a point where you can't. I can because because I have my own ways and means, but you know, uh, the studios

are going back to controlling and their ownership of the films and that's okay. It's they're right. They made it, they own it, but it's something we've had since 1980 through, you know, 2020, 40 years, right? 40 for 40 years, oh my God, for 40 years, we've had this wonderful control of our media that we, the public, have never had before or we may not have in the future. I'd like to point that out. You've been listening to the second episode

of a multi-part series discussing Looney Tunes with animation historian Jerry Beck. In our next episode, we dive into a discussion on the Bugs Bunny 80th anniversary collection and get Jerry's input on the recent Space Jam film. For those of you interested in learning more about what was discussed in the show today, there will be detailed information on the website at www.theextras.tv. Also, follow the show on Facebook or Twitter at TheExtrasTV or Instagram at TheExtras.TV to stay up to date on the latest episodes and for exclusive images and behind-the-scenes information about the episodes and upcoming guests. And if you're enjoying the show, please subscribe and leave us a review at iTunes, Spotify, or your favorite podcast provider. Until next time, you've been

listening to The Extras with Tim Millard. Stay slightly obsessed. The Extras is a production of Otaku Media, producers of podcasts, behind the scenes extras, and media that connects creatives with their fans and businesses with their consumers. Contact us today to see how we can work together to achieve your goals at www.otakumedia.tv or look for the link in the show notes.