Why the Warner Bros. Classics YouTube Channel is Exceedingly Frustrating

Before we begin, some historical context is required. So, from 2003-2008, a total of 356 out of the 1000 Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies were restored on the six volumes of the lovingly curated Looney Tunes Golden Collection DVD series. These cartoons were restored from the original negatives and looked a thousand times better than they had been seen prior. More cartoons had been restored in other home media lines such as the Looney Tunes Super Stars DVD series (2010-2013), the Looney Tunes Platinum Collection Blu-ray series (2011-2014), and the unique Looney Tunes Mouse Chronicles DVD set (2012). However, new restorations temporarily stopped after the release of Platinum Collection Volume 3 (2014) due to no more restoration budgets. There was a new DVD release called Porky Pig 101 in the fall of 2017 that collected all of his black and white cartoons plus his two color appearances from that period, and while that set had all of the new to disc cartoons unrestored, they were at least in their original black and white and uncut (most of these cartoons had been colorized later on, which is in my opinion, the biggest sin to do to a black and white film because color was not the way it was meant to be seen). That was the only new release in a six-year period of practically nothing. Then, suddenly, in 2020, a miracle happened: almost all of the remaining Warner cartoons that were never restored before were now presented in beautiful new restorations that premiered on either HBO Max in 2020, or MeTV in 2021, 2022, or 2023, or the short-lived WarnerMedia Ride in 2021. Most of these restored prints even turned up on home video via the Bugs Bunny 80th Anniversary Collection Blu-ray set in 2020 as well as the four Looney Tunes Collector’s Choice Blu-ray volumes from 2023 and 2024 and will continue in the new Looney Tunes Collector’s Vault Blu-ray line with the first volume being released next month (a few cartoons that weren’t restored for HBO Max were specifically restored by Warner Archive for these volumes. 1955’s “Beanstalk Bunny” and 1947’s “Catch As Cats Can” were restored for Volume 1; 1944’s “Brother Brat” and 1940’s “Ghost Wanted” were restored for Volume 2; 1947’s “Mexican Joyride” and 1948’s “Riff Raffy Daffy” were restored for Volume 3; 1949’s “Holiday for Drumsticks, 1954’s “Muzzle Tough”, and 1945’s “Peck Up Your Troubles” were restored for Volume 4; while 1939’s “A Day at the Zoo”, 1949’s “Each Dawn I Crow”, and 1940’s “Of Fox and Hounds” are set to be restored for the new Collector’s Vault set). So, today, almost everything has been restored. However, the YouTube channel that Warner Bros. owns doesn’t treat these cartoons with the respect they deserve as they present the cartoons that hadn’t been restored prior to 2020 in outdated, unrestored prints! This would be acceptable in the 2010’s, but with this now being 2025, this is absolutely inexcusable (I would even argue that it was inexcusable to still be using unrestored prints once a cartoon is restored in general). Once a cartoon has been restored, then the restored print is the only way they should be seen from now on. And for anybody curious, I typed up a whole list of cartoons that were restored in the 2020’s and when their restorations specifically premiered to the public for the first time (of course as new restorations continue to occur or appear on disc, the list will be updated when they do).