Posted on 01/03/2023 8:11:10 PM PST by grundle
Disney lobbied the federal government to change how copyright law works to protect Mickey Mouse, but over at Warner Bros. Discovery, they can’t even be bothered to keep Bugs Bunny on their own streaming service. As of the very end of 2022, 256 Looney Tunes shorts have been removed from HBO Max, covering everything from 1950 to 2004, which is about half of what that the streaming service had when it launched. Older shorts from 1930 to 1940 are still available, but Vulture notes that the deleted cartoons include “What’s Opera, Doc?” (see above), “Rabbit Of Seville,” “Duck Amuck,” and “One Froggy Evening” (as if the death of The WB wasn’t enough of an insult to the great Michigan J. Frog).
But wait, there’s more: HBO Max has also pulled seasons four through six of The Flintstones, which amounts to 78 episodes, leaving only the first three seasons on the platform (where are kids supposed to learn about The Great Gazoo now?). Variety explains that these shows were licensed to HBO Max by Warner Bros. (once more for those in the back: THAT COMPANY OWNS HBO MAX), but the streaming service reportedly decided not to renew those licenses (with ITS OWN COMPANY) to save money. That’s in keeping with Warner Bros. Discovery’s crusade against animation and animators, with WBD boss David Zaslav having already gutted his company’s cartoon offerings earlier in 2022.
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Why don’t they spin it off into a sub-channel, like Disney + has with Star Wars and Marvel Movies?
I bought most of the collections 15 years ago. At that time they came with a nauseating disclaimer by Whoopi Goldberg.
Pulls Loony Tunes shorts.
To make room for Kevin Mouse and the House Antics.
Three episodes just today.
now you did it :)! you got the luney tunes and flintstones themes playing in my head.
My favorite one is where Bugs Bunny pushed Joe Biden down a mine shaft.
I hope they left that episode up.
What the hell was that?
Is it cancel culture stuff again? Those cartoons were not only well drawn but also so well voice acted and the scripts were hilarious.
This is an outrage! Everything I know about opera I learned from those cartoons.
Wonderful parody, when the Simpsons did that sort of stuff.
“Duck Amuck?”
“One Froggy Evening?”
“What’s Opera Doc?”
Of course, it had to be some of the best WB cartoons ever! Oy!
Is Foghorn Leghorn gone too?
The Communist Purge Continues To Grow Exponentially & Nothing Is Being Done About It!
I always thought WB lost their sense of humor as the original crew went elsewhere or died. Their original cartoon artists, voices, composers and, most of all, story writers, were top notch in every way and generated more laughs per reel than the competition for many years. Too bad it didn’t last.
Nothing can top Tex Avery cartoons, though in terms of laughs per reel.
I had only seen it probably once as a kid (or maybe just the Fats Waller frog scenes?) but here is a controversial cartoon:
Swing Wedding is a 1937 cartoon by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Directed by Hugh Harman, it is part of the Happy Harmonies cartoon series.
A “sequel” to The Old Mill Pond, the cartoon portrays a wedding celebrated by a group of frogs in a swamp. The frogs are designed as caricatures of various African American celebrities of the 1930s, such as Ethel Waters, Stepin Fetchit, Louis Armstrong, Cab Calloway, Fats Waller and the Mills Brothers.
Notes
First to be labeled as “A Hugh Harman, Rudolf Ising Cartoon”.
Though hailed as “’one of the finest one-reelers in all of animation” by some commentators,[1] others have derided the use of Zip Coon-type figures and stereotypical dialogue (including expressions such as “Who dat?” and “Yowza!”).[2] The film also contains a controversial scene in which a frog musician uses his trumpet valve as a syringe. The scene plays on the stereotype of black jazz musicians using drugs before performing.[3]
This cartoon was re-released in a shorter version called “Hot Frogs” in 1942.[citation needed|date=]
Discussion only, not the cartoon:
https://metro-goldwyn-mayer-cartoons.fandom.com/wiki/Swing_Wedding
One of the best things about the old cartoons was the music and how it matched perfectly the action, especially Tom and Jerry cartoons.
Those cartoons were carefully crafted to appeal to both kids and adults. Bugs Bunny cartoons sometimes had famous parodies of Humphrey Bogart, Mae West, Teddy Rooseveldt etc., which would go over the heads of the kids but which amused the adults.
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