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Jerry Beck said in a chat yesterday that the Censored Eleven have all been restored and Warner is going to give them their own release. It was supposed to be announced at Comic Con but wasn't, for some reason.

Awesome. I'm assuming that if they bothered to restore them, they'll bother to put them out on blu ray.

Titus wrote:Jerry Beck said in a chat yesterday that the Censored Eleven have all been restored and Warner is going to give them their own release. It was supposed to be announced at Comic Con but wasn't, for some reason.

That sounds like it'll be a release similar to the upcoming Chuck Jones Mouse Chronicles - a "one off" that they can sell on its own and not as part of the regular Looney Tunes line.

I'm not terribly familiar with the Censored 11, so a couple quick questions:

1 - Are they all originally Warner cartoons, or are they a mix of Warner & MGM?

2 - If they are just Warner, are there any MGM non-PC cartoons (Tom & Jerry aside) they could theoretically supplement the Censored 11 with?

captveg wrote:are there any MGM non-PC cartoons (Tom & Jerry aside) they could theoretically supplement the Censored 11 with?

Tex Avery's Uncle Tom's Cabaña and Half-Pint Pygmy.

captveg wrote:I'm not terribly familiar with the Censored 11

The Wikipedia article on the subject is pretty concise and informative.

Thanks for the feedback.

So it looks like swo wins a prize re: predicting Red Hot Riding Hood. Blu-ray.com is reporting that the V2 includes the following Avery MGM shorts: the Blitz Wolf, Red Hot Riding Hood, Screwball Squirrel, Swing Shift Cinderella, King-Size Canary, Bad Luck Blackie, Senor Droopy, Wags to Riches, Symphony in Slang, Magical Maestro, and Rock-a-Bye Bear. They don't say anything about whether they are HD or how they look.

Max von Mayerling wrote:So it looks like swo wins a prize re: predicting Red Hot Riding Hood. Blu-ray.com is reporting that the V2 includes the following Avery MGM shorts: the Blitz Wolf, Red Hot Riding Hood, Screwball Squirrel, Swing Shift Cinderella, King-Size Canary, Bad Luck Blackie, Senor Droopy, Wags to Riches, Symphony in Slang, Magical Maestro, and Rock-a-Bye Bear. They don't say anything about whether they are HD or how they look.

You would think this might be better advertised if they're properly restored like the rest, as I imagine this is a considerable selling point.

That's a pretty good sampling of his very best shorts, give or take a few. (Fingers crossed they're in HD.) In addition to Red Hot Riding Hood, Rock-a-Bye Bear is also new to R1. I've updated this post accordingly.

SD only , according to the review

RobertAltman wrote:SD only , according to the review

Right, I missed the obvious, thanks. Useless tack-on then. Though I suppose some of these have been out of circulation post-laserdisc.

Ah - I missed that too. Sigh. I don't understand these people.

Isn't Symphony in Slang already in 1080p on the An American in Paris Blu-ray?

Nope.

They are SD because they have not yet been through the cycle of restored shorts yet.

Hey people who got my hopes up, where is the censored set or at least a new BLU set?

duck duck wrote:Hey people who got my hopes up, where is the censored set or at least a new BLU set?

The blu sets appear to be a Christmas thing - so perhaps just once a year (I'm guessing they put a lot of work into the encodes etc to get them ready for disc - that or just lazy).

I wouldn't hold your breath about the censored set. Despite all of the talk to the contrary and shaming warnings on the first set, the second Tom and Jerry Blu set excluded some of the censored shorts. This led to an Amazon review bomb for the set (with 105 "1 star" reviews). So Warner pulled the release and its been in limbo ever since.

So if they couldn't make the effort of allowing "serious collectors" to have access to the few Tom and Jerry cartoons, I doubt the Warner PC police will ever allow them to do the censored 11. I'd think Criterion would have a better shot at doing them than Warner would (like Warner gave the BFI The Devils). Don't get your hopes up, because neither are likely at this point. Just like Disney and Song of the South. I never understood Warner's policy on this. They sell all these throwaway $5 cartoon sets aimed for children every week, but they suddenly worry that said children will be interested in the Bluray set, and that the warnings of "pretending this racial injustice never happened is the worst crime of all" aren't enough to scare the kids away? Why not just have Leonard Maltin walk on screen and pause the video and say "children, and those who might be easily susceptible must leave the room now, for there will be some brief moments of racially offensive material. Seriously, I'll wait here as long as it takes for you kids to leave."

Edit-

Wait, what? Warner's website is selling the censored Tom and Jerry Volume 2 Bluray? Why doesn't any other website have it? So they're just going to let people "cool off" for a while and then release the same shit? I really hope Warner gets their act together. I wonder what Jerry Beck has to say about all this BS?

So I'm looking for help identifying an episode. I am fairly certain the episode I'm talking about is Looney Tunes.

When I was a kid (watching the re-runs), I have a strong memory of an episode about a businessman learning about running a business. I honestly don't remember much about the episode but one thing has always stuck out to me, and it's this exchange:

Character Giving Lesson About Business: "...and that generates more profit?"
Businessman learning (whose character represented a sort of human version of Porky Pig): "And he keeps the profit?!"
Character Giving Lesson About Business: "No, no."

That character then goes on to teach about how profits aren't kept, but reinvested in the business.

This is an out of left-field request, I know. But every day I'm reading news and I just feel like this episode, in just that exchange, encapsulates a really good point about business that feels totally abandoned in today's austerity-crazed world. For all I remember, the rest of the episode could be full of free-market bullshit, but I'd love to track this episode down and watch it again, I just don't know where it is.

Drucker wrote:So I'm looking for help identifying an episode. I am fairly certain the episode I'm talking about is Looney Tunes.

When I was a kid (watching the re-runs), I have a strong memory of an episode about a businessman learning about running a business. I honestly don't remember much about the episode but one thing has always stuck out to me, and it's this exchange:

Character Giving Lesson About Business: "...and that generates more profit?"
Businessman learning (whose character represented a sort of human version of Porky Pig): "And he keeps the profit?!"
Character Giving Lesson About Business: "No, no."

That character then goes on to teach about how profits aren't kept, but reinvested in the business.

This is an out of left-field request, I know. But every day I'm reading news and I just feel like this episode, in just that exchange, encapsulates a really good point about business that feels totally abandoned in today's austerity-crazed world. For all I remember, the rest of the episode could be full of free-market bullshit, but I'd love to track this episode down and watch it again, I just don't know where it is.

Sounds like it would have been either By Word of Mouse, Heir-Conditioned, or Yankee Dood It. All three of these shorts are on the Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 6, Disc 2.

Oh you are awesome. Reading the synopses it looks like it could definitely be Heir-Conditioned. Thank you so much!

Edit: Watching on youtube. It's defintiely Yankee Dood It. Thanks again.

Looney Tunes: The Platinum Collection Volume Three Blu-ray has finally been announced! Still no word on the Tom and Jerry set (probably will never happen at this point).

WB is releasing more Looney Tunes through their Archives.

PORKY PIG 101 (1935-1943) New on DVD
Run Time 743:00
MONO - English
4 X 3 FULL FRAME, ORIGINAL ASPECT RATIO - 1.37:1
99 CARTOONS in BLACK & WHITE plus 2 CARTOONS in COLOR
A 5 DISC DVD COLLECTION
Special Features: Commentaries on Select Shorts

That’s NOT all, folks! Warner Bros. first cartoon superstar, everyone’s favorite pantless porcine, Porky Pig, takes center stage. From his humble beginnings as the breakout star of a schoolhouse talent show in I Haven’t Got a Hat to his slimmer, slaphappy sidekick stage alongside Daffy Duck in Porky Pig’s Feat, across Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes, in two-strip Technicolor® and scintillating black and white, Porky’s ascent from rascally school gang member to superstar spokespig is fully on display in this 5-disc, 101-cartoon (plus some bonuses) collection. Presented in chronological order, with key commentaries by noted animation scholars and superfans on select shorts of significance, this tome contains all the ’toons you need to become a true professor of Porky Pig-ology.

Surprisingly this is only about half of his cartoons, though given how much he did play sidekick perhaps they are waiting for the rest on a Daffy or even Bugs set.

This is how they should have done these releases YEARS ago. I expect this will probably be on pressed DVDs for the initial run.