My Problems of Having Already Released to DVD Cartoons Being Put Out on Blu-ray

One thing that really irks me is the fact that fellow Looney Tunes fans have been wanting cartoons that have already been released and restored on DVD to be put out in High-Definition on Blu-ray and I seem to be the only one bothered by this. Ever since I first found out that not every Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoon was not restored on DVD and Blu-ray in 2015, it has been a dream of mine to get all of the rest of them restored on disc properly. With HBO Max restoring a huge chunk of the remaining cartoons that had left to be restored on disc, and with Warner Archive restoring specific cartoons that had not yet been restored at all, new sets such as the Bugs Bunny 80th Anniversary Collection (2020), the four Looney Tunes Collector’s Choice volumes (volumes 1 and 2 were released in 2023 while volumes 3 and 4 were released in 2024), and the now ongoing Looney Tunes Collector’s Vault line (2025-present), we have thankfully been getting more and more long-missing-in-action cartoons finally being made available on these sets. The first discs of the Collector’s Vault sets are a continuation of the Collector’s Choice sets, which is collecting cartoons that had not been restored on disc prior. To me, THAT is the selling point of these sets, because I think it’s important that we get every cartoon that CAN be put out on disc is properly restored on either disc format first. The second disc of these sets, however, collect cartoons that had already been restored on DVD, but not Blu-ray. It’s basically like they want to retire their DVDs (Golden Collection and Super Stars), as if they’ve gone HD crazy. First of all, this kind of drives me nuts as the restorations are perfectly watchable on DVD and they really don’t look THAT much better on Blu-ray (the Mouse Chronicles DVD set also has a Blu-ray edition, but I’m not bothering to get the latter because both editions have the special features. The three Platinum Collection Blu-rays (2011-2014) had DVD editions that had all of the same cartoons, but lacked the special features on the Blu-rays. It’s for the special features alone that I have both the DVD and Blu-ray editions of all three volumes. Not to mention, the Golden Collections (2003-2008) have tons of special features, none of which appear on the Collector’s Vault sets, not even the commentaries and music-only audio tracks for specific cartoons). There are some exceptions, however, as cartoons that some people might count as having been released to DVD officially DO need to be put on Blu-ray with those being corrected full frame versions of all the cartoons that were incorrectly cropped to widescreen on the first two Super Stars DVDs (2010) and the HBO Max restorations of all of the cartoons on the Porky Pig 101 DVD set from 2017 that hadn’t been remastered prior to its release.

Secondly, there’s also something concerning the quality of the new restorations done from 2012-2015. These restorations look darker than previous restorations, probably due to budgetary reasons. The discs that have these darker restorations include Looney Tunes Mouse Chronicles The Chuck Jones Collection (2012), Looney Tunes Platinum Collection Volume 2 (2012), Looney Tunes Super Stars Porky and Friends Hilarious Ham (2012), Looney Tunes Super Stars Sylvester and Hippety Hopper Marsupial Mayhem (2013), the cancelled Tom and Jerry Golden Collection Volume 2 (supposed to be released in 2013), Looney Tunes Platinum Collection Volume 3 (2014), and Tom and Jerry The Gene Deitch Collection (2015). I still think these restorations look pretty sleek, and a lot better than what had been seen prior, but as seen below, it’s common for fans to be unsympathetic towards budget problems, because they think this makes the colors look skewed, and want these to be redone. The only one of these that needed to be redone was “Riff Raffy Daffy” due to its original negatives having been missing, and it was redone twelve years later via a then-brand new SuperCinecolor print. Everything else, I’d be glad if they’d just stay as they are.

Lastly, there’s the matter of putting some particular cartoons out on disc. In this case, it’s the cartoons from the DePatie-Freleng (late 1964 to early 1967), Format Films (mid-1967), and Seven Arts (mid-1967 to 1969) eras. Several other Looney Tunes fans despise these cartoons, basically for the budget problems and literally nothing else (I will talk more about why I find these criticisms pathetic when we get to these particular cartoons in 2027). Some of these cartoons had been put out on previous discs including “Pancho’s Hideaway” (1964), “The Wild Chase” (1965), and “A Haunting We Will Go” (1966) on Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 4 (2006), “Norman Normal” (1968) on Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 6 (2008), “Sugar and Spies” (1966) and 8 of the 11 Rudy Larriva Roadrunner cartoons from 1965-1966 (specifically all except “Run Run Sweet Roadrunner”, “Tired and Feathered”, and “Just Plane Beep”) on Looney Tunes Super Stars Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote Supergenius Hijinks (2011), “Corn on the Cop” (1965) and both Bunny and Claude cartoons from 1968 and 1969, respectively on Looney Tunes Super Stars Porky and Friends Hilarious Ham (2012), and “Road to Andalay” (1964) on Looney Tunes Collector’s Choice Volume 4 (1965’s “Suppressed Duck” was one of the cartoons that was incorrectly cropped to widescreen on DVD, so obviously it needs to be put out on Blu-ray in its correct aspect ratio). Almost all of these cartoons were among the gigantic batch of cartoons that HBO Max restored in 2020 and they all look really good (the only ones from this era that aren’t restored as of this writing include “Assault and Peppered”, the aforementioned “Run Run Sweet Roadrunner”, “Snow Excuse”, “Feather Finger”, “Quacker Tracker”, “The Spy Swatter”, “Hocus Pocus Pow Wow”, and the final Warner cartoon from the Golden Age, “Injun Trouble”). But despite these new restorations, fans have still been stubborn about these cartoons and hadn’t wanted them put out, even to the point of requesting that every 1930-1964 Warner cartoon be released in high-definition first. Obviously, that request is going to be impossible because there is absolutely no way that we will be getting the Censored Eleven and other racially insensitive cartoons out before the late 1964-1969 cartoons. And with the number of Warner cartoons from 1930-1964 left to be put out on disc restored properly decreasing with every new release, people who hate these cartoons are just simply going to have to accept the fact that these are going to have to be put out eventually.