Warner Bros. Discovery pulls hundreds of Looney Tunes shorts from HBO Max

AV Club via Yahoo ^ | January 3, 2022 | Sam Barsanti

[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.

[newfreep]

My favorite cartoon growing up...just old enough to get the "message"

[cport]

Nailed it! Hope you don’t mind, I borrowed your last paragraph to comment on a you tube thread.

[ConservativeWarrior]

Thanks, and go for it.

Please clean up my typing errors, though. haha

[Osage Orange]

She's on my list of people...I want to outlive.

Is that wrong of me....?

Quoting George Constanza.