Disney Shorts Go Blu-Ray

For Disney's Centennial, they are now putting their older shorts on Blu-Ray, calling it either Mickey & Minnie or Mickey & Friends, with awful-ugly clipart covers:

Not interested. You'll get a much better experience on the Walt Disney Treasures. It's like comparing the Mad Tea Party ride to Space Mountain (trust me, I've ridden them both!)

For starters, at least on the Treasures you'll get every one (i.e. a completist's whole kaboodle), even though I hated every moment of Mickey's Man Friday. Yes, I realize when it was made, but it is repellent!

Also, the age of the special feature has come to an end, so seeing all the interviews with Frank and Ollie and Joe Grant are just enough worth the $50, and that's just excluding the pencil tests and galleries and other treats.

The only thing that would attract me to the Blu-Rays is Hawaiian Holiday, just to watch Minnie do that hula in high-def!

Otherwise, though, they look pretty good, if these screenshots can be trusted:

I don't even know if these are authentic screenshots. They look like those fan redraws.

In a similar vein, I just got Walt Disney Treasures: Mickey Mouse in Living Color, which now completes all the Mickey volumes in the series for me. I am a two-year newbie to Disney cartoons, having before believed the Kricfalusian lie that they were all wimpy and unfunny, and upon actually watching them I love them. It's like seeing the Grand Canyon for the first time. I am amazed at how perfect just from a filmmaking perspective things like Mickey's Trailer and Alpine Climbers are. 

But anyway, see you in 2024!

Looney Tunes: Collector's Choice: Volume 2 Review

Happy day-after-Christmas! Mine was great, except I got nausea (and other things) off of some candy and eggnog Christmas morning, but it lasted about twenty minutes, so I was fine the rest of the day. Other cartoon-related presents were the first volume of Mickey Mouse in Living Color and the first volume of Floyd Gottfredson's Mickey Mouse, from the dreaded Fantagraphics, which I'll complain about it a later article.

After months of reporting, I finally got Looney Tunes: Collector's Choice: Volume 2 for Christmas! I'm going to keep this real short. Anyway, the results are good! 

They all look great, first of all. There was a tiny out-of-focus moment in Hamateur Night, but Fit 'N Catty looks like it was made yesterday. 

Maybe Daffy's Southern Exposure was too bright, but that could've just been my TV.

I'm glad the Davis and 40s' Tashlin grouping is finally finished up, though at the same time I'm sad. I still think Art Davis is one of the greatest cartoon directors of all time, and yet all we hear about is Bob Clampett on repeat! (Unfortunately, Elmo the Hick is the closest thing to me in a cartoon.)

The main difference between this volume and the previous you probably already know: it has some 1930s cartoons on it. If they are going to not give us the whole Waners filmography--but still give us some earlier ones--than at least give us what we want to see! And that's what they did, because it's mostly Tex Avery. It was about time Cross Country Detours was on home video!

Back to Daffy's Southern Exposure, I was really happy a Norm McCabe cartoon was on here. I think his cartoons are always funny. Most of these collections are what Jerry Beck likes and not what he doesn't (notice the overepresentation of the Boskos and Bob Clampetts on the Golden Collection, and also Porky 101 being almost literally devoted to the latter).  In his Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies book he says of McCabe's stuff: "weak gags." This series is thankfully breaking that rule. Maybe they can have those two on the Golden Collection that had added stock music.

A note: One of the cartoons is--despite being side-splittingly funny--built entirely around ethnic stereotypes. Considering the censorship applied to certain films, it feels like INGSOC's doublethink at work. Orwell was right, as usual.

But that's just a nitpick. Overall it gets an A, and it'd be an A+ if there were some special features!

Collector's Choice: Volume 2 First Feedback

A review of Collector's Choice Vol. 2 has just been released. 

Looks good to me:

Oddly, he says the sync on The Eager Beaver is off. I have never seen it before, so I can't comment. I might go watch it beforehand and then compare later.

I asked for it for Christmas, so I won't be reviewing it on its actual release date. Why was it delayed from November 28th to December 18th? Will it arrive for Christmas?

A Petition to Bring Back Coyote vs. ACME

Yes, people actually want this film. I found where somebody wants 10,000 signatures to release it. As of today, there are 9,656 signers, so they're about there.

The man in charge of the petition, Steven Byrd, stated:

This petition is deeply personal to me. Months after a tragedy struck my family, I found solace in being a part of the film "Coyote vs Acme". Although I was just a background actor, I was part of scenes that would have made my mom, dad, and son incredibly proud. My mom was an ardent fan of John Cena, my son loved wrestling as did my dad; this movie held immense emotional value for us.

I am very sorry for this personal tragedy Mr. Byrd has experienced, whatever it may be. However, it is highly probable that the film must be unreleasable. As a "background actor", he most likely has not seen it in full. 

He updated on the 14th saying that Warners is going to "sell Coyote vs. Acme to another distributor!!" Who, Wownow Productions? What does this mean?

Some Norman McLaren

I just yesterday discovered the amazing world of experimental animation, so now I'm hyped. I was really looking for Oskar Fischinger, but I stumbled upon Norman McLaren, who I'd heard about before, and always wanted to see. I had what sci-fi fans called Sense of Wonder; I guess that's how UPA felt when they saw his work in the Fifties. I wish I could make one!

I feel like showing off the two weirdest, Loops and Dots.

As you all probably know, he made these by drawing ink on rolls of film, and by this scratching these synthesizer-ish sounds would play. I really like it, being a big fan of electronic music.

I still can't believe these were made in the Forties.

They're For Kids...Who Cares?

Carl Barks and Tarzan legend Burne Hogarth at the 1982 San Diego Comic-Con. Surprised so many legends could fit in one room!

"A little nonsense now and then is cherished by the wisest men." 

-Willy Wonka

Fans of cartoons and comics unfortunately have the tendency to overdefend their interests, usually claiming they were not "made for kids", and so they really aren't immature reading about them, or caring about them. But first, a quick personal story:

I was ten when The Dark Knight Rises came out. By then I had been introduced to the Caped Crusader through the video game LEGO Batman, which concurrently introduced me to comicbookdom (I have not been cured). I remember staring at that flaming poster with anticipation (I later saw it from Redbox the next year). After being spoiled by the crime/thriller straight-believable interpretation of Christopher Nolan, I decided, at that tender age, that superheroes were better that way. I even rejected the term "superhero" as too goofy; I liked "vigilante" better.

Others have this mentality. I remember a review of Rob Liefeld's Youngblood saying it felt like it was written for 12-year-olds. uUh, did he know the audience? 12-year-olds! Yes! (Critics have blasted Liefeld's work for being too "unrealistic"--as if comic books are "realistic". They were never meant to be, and i like them that way. Also but I am a superfan of his out-of-this-world extreme drawing. Sue me.)

Another example is the term "sequential art", coined by the inimitable Will Eisner. Presumably "comic book" sounds too childish, so they invented this tortured word. 

I changed later as I got older, oddly enough. Now I've noticed that I like superheroes better gimmicky and silly. Unfortunately, "serious superherodom" opens up some uncomfortable questions about the genre, but that will be discussed some other time. I am not putting down the Nolanverse, since I am a big fan, but with movies you have a certain degree of fantasy an audience simply will not swallow. 

One odd variant of this is the type that prefers one type to another. This is in Mike Barrier's case. He ha always resented the hatred of comic books within literary academia. But with all respect to him, I resent his contempt of superhero comics. For example, when speaking of his 2016 trip to Comic-Con, he speaks of Pogo fans: "Everyone on the panel loved Kelly's work, but with an adult sort of love that would probably baffle devotees of, say, Harley Quinn." And when referring to the 2012 release of The Avengers:

I think all superheroes—and thus all superhero comic books and movies—are inherently frivolous. Whether they're frivolous in an enjoyable way, or simply shallow and childish, is up to the people writing and drawing the comic books or making the movies. Shallow and childish wins almost all the time, with the occasional remarkable exception like Bird's Incredibles.

He only makes a debarment for the aforementioned Will Eisner, who is, of course, one of comicdom's greatest geniuses. But this is like saying Westerns are only good when they're directed by John Ford, or noir when directed by John Huston, and everyone else just sucks. Eisner--and Ford, and Huston--are sui generis.

However, Barrier is crazy about Carl Barks and Walt Kelly, which he touts as "superior" to that flashy Stan Lee stuff he flippantly attributes the junkyard too.

It is attitudes like that that feed the hating machine. Why be such a purist? Since I draw animal comic characters, I may now be more partial to those--Kelly especially. But I still love the superhero stuff. I don't have the time I used to too to keep up with them like I did a decade ago, but I still am a fan, and they are still influential on my artistic thinking.

But there's a deeper question they should be asking: Who cares? 

So what if we like something for kids? We live in an age far better for the grown-men-who-like-childish-things crowd, myself with them. But we lie to ourselves needlessly. Even if they are for children, or look like it, or seem like it, it's much better than watching smut, like porn or splatter. We are much better off happy.

No Coyote vs. ACME, But a Road Runner Book

Special thanks to reader Jonathan Avery Wilson for pointing this out to me.

I had predicted a big bomb to fall on a live-action-animated film called Coyote vs. ACME. But it looks like the movie's never happening! 

According to Deadline, there has been a $30,000,000 writedown on a movie that costed $70,000,000 to make. It apparently scored well with test audiences, but they apparently thought it wasn't profitable enough to release.

"So long, screwy! See you in St. Louie!"

In a similar news story, according to a user on The Internet Animation Database, a book called 75 Years of the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote is supposed to come out in September. It supposedly is a big bunch of lists, like ACME products, mini bios, etc... (All this and more is already in Looney Tunes: The Ultimate Visual Guide). I assume it's supposed rto be--or was--a tie-in the this movie. Will it be published?

Either way, I'm not too interested. I am more into collecting animation books that are either memoirs were written with the cooperation of the participants, not giant coffeetables that have less depth than an article on the Looney Tunes Wiki.

Speaking of that, it is not on the Wiki or anywhere. I can't find it anywhere on the internet. Is it fake? Either way I'm not buying it. 

It's the Cat by Mark Kausler

In 2004 Mark Kausler--the best modern-day animator--made his own cartoon, It's the Cat. It was originally on Cartoon Brew when they used to host 2D-animated indie shorts. Kausler made it because, according to him, he wanted to tribute animation from the 20s and 30s, in the Nolan/Iwerks tradition. He conceived it during a lull on Beauty and the Beast. Though cartoons were "cartoony" when he made this, they were not fully-animated, so this makes this more a treat; he did it all straight-ahead, while two inkers traced every drawing.

What's strange is that there was a sequel, called Some Other Cat, that had been "inked" already, but it must've cancelled production at some point.

Sadly, the film cannot be seen anywhere, as hard as I've tried to find it. But a pencil test version is available. It's probably the closest thing to Golden Age since the Golden Age. Considering that it has no dialogue or story to speak of, and it's only four minutes, it's 100% better than the garbage pretending it's "animated"--so called. You could probably just take one still drawing and it beats Adventure Time any day. And that's just the pencil test! 

Here are some snapshots:

And here is the actual film, albeit pencil:

The website is still active.

My First Carl Barks

I decided to become a cartoonist last year, so I started reading some old "animal" comic strips and books for study and enjoyment. I've already tried out Walt Kelly and George Herriman (the latter is funnier than the former, but I love former's characters better).

For my birthday I got one of the billion volumes of reprints of Carl Bark's Disney comic books from Fantagraphics. I had asked for Vol. 24: The Golden Nugget Boat at random, not knowing why there was no Volume One. Unfortunately, this was made up of the Sixties stuff, which is apparently The Good Duck Artist's low point of creativity.

I was a little confused with the stories, even though I liked them. First of all, they weren't in character. Donald was kind of a blank; no tantrums or anything. Huey, Dewey, and Louie weren't sadistic and were kind-of sidekicks. The stories were more of the Silver Age Superman variety than cartoony frolics. Were they all like this?

I had some problems with Fantagraphics handling of some of this, as I discussed in the last post. Overall, though, I enjoyed it, and hope to collect more. I also hope to learn from it!

My Problems With Fantagraphics

If you are a cartoon fan, you have probably encountered Fantagraphics Books, which reprint old comic strips, as well as old Disney comic books. Unfortunately, their collections are badly flawed, and I wish somebody else would handle them. 

Strike One: Overall Unprofessionality 

The main offender here is the Pogo series. The flap for Vol. 1 says it is "the best damn comic strip of all time." Then the "Swamp Talk" commentaries by R.C. Harvey cites literally Google and Wikipedia as the extent of his research. I am not kidding.

I am 21-years-old and a non-collegiate and I could do better...and have done better.

Strike Two: Unusual Schedules

They started the Pogo series in 2011, with one-a-year with twelve volumes. Volume Nine will be released next year. I can not find a reason why they have published these so sporadically. As for The Complete Carl Barks Library, they started with Christmas on Bear Mountain, Scrooge McDuck's first appearance, but as Vol. 5. To this day, there has been no Vols. 1-4. I can find no explanation for this.

For some reason, Barks (and Don Rosa, presumably) have their stories printed out of order in the collections. Again, there is no explanation for this, since there was never any continuity in the stories, all being ten-pagers.

Strike Three (You're Out!): Overpoliticized Commentaries

The current trend of today's America is to add politics to everything because the internet has created a brood of moralistic crusaders, blue-nosing their ideas into entertainment. Unfortunately, Presentism is applied too, so somehow the the past had Twentieth Century social axes to grind. For example, The George Herriman Library Vol. 2 has an essay arguing that he somehow applied CRT ideas in his strips--which is odd, considering that he had no political affiliations other than being "a pacifist" and never voted once in his life. Even though Herriman was a man of color masquerading as White, there is no sort of underlying racial commentary underneath that is definite, most especially not a hundred years ago. His only playtime with politics was his numerous jabs at Prohibition. His racial references are the typical stereotyping for African-Americans common then.

Additionally, Krazy and Ignatz were not black and white, as the Sundays reveal:

In the Carl Barks series, it made some claim that Uncle Scrooge somehow showed the evils of capitalism, or something, implying he would approve of Occupy Wall Street. (Apparently, "Carl Barks" translates to "Karl Marx".) Racial undertones are also implied by the contributors.

Maybe these contributors need to stop reading comics and get some fresh air, because in their boredom they have discovered the important allegories of Gyro Gearloose.

If you think I am only targeting the Far Left, I would be just as frustrated if it were Rush Limbaugh or Alex Jones forcing their ideologies on the past. It is stupid, one-sided, and irritating. Yes, people like Walt Kelly would parody politics, but at least it was the concerns and controversies of his day, not what people talk about now.

I have considered writing to Fantagraphics to request they stop this, but if they cared how people felt, they wouldn't be feeding me this bullcrap! I have also not bought their collection of Floyd Gottfriedson's Mickey Mouse comic strip (animals are my thing), and who knows what abuses are within its two covers.

A New, 2D-Animated Looney Tunes Movie Revealed

On October 26th Animation Magazine dropped the news that a full-length, traditionally animated Looney Tunes movie is coming out in late 2024. It is hilariously titled The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie. It is directed and produced by Pete Browngardt, of Looney Tunes Cartoons fame, and will come out in late 2024. Yes, it is theatrical. 

"According to the distributors, the movie unfolds a rich Porky & Daffy story that fans have never seen before: In this buddy-comedy of epic proportions, our heroes race to save the world, delivering all the laugh-out-loud gags and vibrant visuals that have made the Looney Tunes so iconic, but on a scope and scale yet to be experienced."

I am intrigued, unlike how I feel about the supposed Coyote vs. ACME. I was never a fan of Looney Tunes Cartoons, though. It felt like a bad modern cartoon pretending to be a good old one. This may have to do with Browngardt being behind two of the worst animated abominations ever conceived, Uncle Grandpa and Secret Mountain Fort Awesome. But the fact that a full-length, fully-animated Warner cartoon is coming to theaters is miraculous. Save me a seat!

Bosko-Rama

I had recently reported on The (In)Complete Bosko Blu-Ray release, but apparently Thunderbean has got a Harman-Ising collection planned, called Hugh Harman and Rudolph Ising Rarities. 

The list for Staunchfield's set "includes films from their years producing for Warner Brothers and MGM as well as early efforts, sponsored and Government films and more, all in new digital scans. The collection includes Easy Does It, Winky the Watchman, Good Wrinkles as well as pilots like Sir G Whiz, Down the Drain and others." I have no idea what any of those last things are.

A restoration for some Harman-Ising film from 1951 about prunes called Good Wrinkles.

Will there be competition, now? Which Bosko will triumph? There is no release date for the Thunderbean Blu-Ray. there seems to be a lot of that stupid Bosko around, I guess all these are holdovers for when Warners finally releases a Happy Harmonies series. Hopefully those will be handed out tomorrow instead of candy!

Gimme Felix!

Recently Steve Staunchfield said that a Felix the Cat collection had been in the works from Thunderbean, but got cancelled after the license for the character was sold to Dreamworks. Considering that people have been making public domain home video media with titles involving copyrighyed characters since the dawn of time, I don't know how this was much a problem.

I've always hated that there was no high-quality DVD or Blu-Ray of the original Felixes. I always ranked Otto Messmer as second only to Disney, even above Tex Avery. I enjoy Avery's work more--they're more polished--but Messmer was an undisputed genius, and I regret he got stuck with Little Lulu instead of adding his fingerprints to the Golden Age.

I think there is a Felix on a Cartoon Roots volume from Tommy Stathes, but I never bought any of those. honestly, I was never a fan of silent animation that's not Felix or Oswald. Stathes is my total inverse: he only likes silent animation except Felix or Oswald! (Staunchfield is my inverse too; he prefers the B Studios while I favor Disney, Warner Bros., MGM, etc...) The only real collection I found was some cryptic DVD called Sullivan/Messmer from the mysterious manufacturer "Tom's Vintage Films", with a beautifully-detailed cover:

Presumably this is from Stathes's closet.

I don't know how to end this post, so I'll just showcase one of my favorite Felixes, Flim Flam Films. It has some Averyesque fourth walls and the irrelevancy usually associated with the early Mickeys:

Bambi's Mom: An Education for Death

There has been some backlash for the apparent plans to not kill Bambi's mom in an upcoming live-action remake of that film, according to Forbes. The movie's screenwriter Lindsay Anderson Beer said “Not to spoil the plot [a joke, presumably], but there’s a treatment of the mom dying that I think some kids, some parents these days are more sensitive about than they were in the past.”

The main defender of this decision is the author of The Case for Cancel Culture Ernest Owens. He says, “We are in a different type of world now, there’s a lot of violence on TV, there’s a lot of grotesqueness, and I think this classic film should be seen with a different perspective for kids." (A guy who wrote a book about cancel culture says that we live in a different world from the past? That's new!) 

This guy is right here, but I've gotta say the shows on TV for kids are not for kids. Gravity Falls (Disney) and Regular Show are shows all kids should not watch. So when was freaking out kids a problem?

The anger is all predictably conservative. Tomi Lahren said “I'm waiting for this Bambi remake to have a trans deer, or maybe the mother dies from climate change.” The YouTube channel The Quartering stated, in my opinion accurately, that “If kids could relate to a deer 80 years ago, they can probably do it now.”

I must say I hate both sides, because both want to silence the other. Left wants to cancel/censor Right; Right wants to cancel/censor Left--all the same. This is not a political blog, so I will say no more (Please no politicking below, because nobody cares if you hate Trump or Biden or whoever). There is also legitimate complaints and desires from both sides, but I want to point out that Bambi has no political or dated agenda whatsoever, which exposes the real reasoning behind the remake: $.

A lot less vivid in reality.

I know that irony is not coincidence, but I feel like saying it's ironic that the death of Bambi's mom is being removed from the story because that's the glue that holds the mess together. Of the first five Disney films, it is by far weakest. Not as weak as Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan or Cinderella, but it pales before Pinocchio or Dumbo, animation's two great masterpieces. Good animation can't save a bad story, or--in Bambi's case--no story at all. This will be a strange analogy, but Bambi is kind of like a long Tex Avery cartoon: it's "a deck of cards" that you order from least to greatest and then it ends. With Tex it is perfect because the laughs build up and up and you can't stop, such the case when I first saw Magical Maestro and Northwest Hounded Police. Bambi instead has cuteness or drama instead of gags, so it is instead choppy and tedious. Bambi himself was not a character, especially compared to Dumbo, and he never speaks. I have other problems, but I'll end by simply was not good adaptation material unless a story was added, and one wasn't. Where was Baloo when you needed him?

I don't know about you, but this whole Bambi change sounds like the teacher's story, where it's the rabbit's fault for getting eaten...

The (In)Complete Bosko Vol. 1 is Coming Soon

Apparently, Not an Animation Historian! has restored 10 Bosko cartoons from both Warner Brothers and MGM and has a Blu-Ray set for release soon. A lot of the Warner Boskos (at least) are public domain, so if we have those Van Beuren abominations on Blu-Ray, why not the Talk-Ink Kid? For the book, during the summer, I had took notes on what Boskos can be watched on YouTube, all of them in grayish-blue hues, so this is a welcome effort!

If you are unfamiliar with him, NAAH is an amateur restorer whose done a bunch of YouTube videos showing off his pretty reconstructions. I particularly liked his fixing of Mr. Bug Goes to Town, which I watched for the first time last week. Here's a preview:

I must say I'm happy to see us young nobodys making money off of cartoon stuff, especially considering my book. I'm hoping it'll accompany this growing awakening of Golden Age Animation.

Unfortunately, I will not be able to review this collection upon release. I have to save up for buying Christmas presents, but I might request it for a holiday surprise, but I confess Collector's Choice Vol. 2 or another Walt Disney Treasure is high on my mind.

It ships around the end of this month to the beginning of November. It can be ordered here.

100 Years of Disney Animation

Today is the 100th anniversary of Walt Disney's first commercially-released cartoon, Alice's Wonderland, which is mind-boggling, I must say. It was actually made in the summer of '23, but it was released a century ago today to the masses.

The story behind the cartoon is simply that Disney made it out of desperation to salvage his dreams to be a filmmaker (animated or not),  because soonafter Laugh-O-Grams, Inc., went kaput. It was made with KC Film Ad equipment and staff, and Walt took it with him to LA to live with his Uncle Robert and brother Roy. It was noticed by Margaret J. Winkler, the States Rights distributor of the Fleischer and Sullivan films.

Just like Harpo's tattoo!

According to the Internet Animation DataBase, the cameramen were Ub Iwerks and Rudy Ising, with "technical direction" (animation?) by Hugh Harman and Max Maxwell.

Now don't get me wrong; I love Disney and his cartoons. He truly made animation an art form, and anybody who uses the term "Disney style" with contempt apparently has no idea what that means, and it's not cuteness. But honestly I find it baffling that he thought this film was good and that Winkler showed any interest. The latter can be explained by the fact that Sullivan and Fleischer were bowing out, and she was as desperate as Disney was. Maybe I think Sammy Shrew is good and you all don't.

The problem with the short is that nothing really happens (literally too, since it was all a dream). It is just a pilot, I know, but it doesn't grab your attention except the novelty of "a person within a cartoon". To add insult to injury, it shamelessly steals from Out of the Inkwell and Aesop's Fables. The only redeeming quality is historical: Harman, Ising, and Iwerks are all visible in the studio segments. The fact that they were all my age (I turn 21 in two weeks or so) is stunning too.

Ising is at left, Iwerks above him, and Harman sitting.

My dislike of the whole Alice series is probably why I feel this way, because I find it fist-on-your-cheek-lazy-eyed boring. Messmer and Felix would rule the barnyard (literally!) until this series was done.

But even with it's faults, it was the start of something magical. After Alice died a worthy death, the Oswald series would show how much was being put into making animation a transcendent art above all film,. It's a shame he's not here to fix the mess we're in now with gunk even worse than Filmation ever was.

I hope that the rest of the celebration of Walt Disney's animation legacy will reverse that.

Looney Tunes: Collector's Choice: Volume 2 Cartoon Listing

Some good news, folks! The list of cartoons on Collector's Choice is all good! No Buddy!

According to Looney Tunes DVD and Blu-Ray News, they are:

• Behind the Meat-Ball
• Brother Brat
• Catty Cornered
• Cross Country Detours
• Daffy's Southern Exposure
• Ding Dog Daddy
• The Eager Beaver
• Fair and Worm-er
• Fin'n Catty
• From Hand to Mouse
• Ghost Wanted
• Greetings Bait
• Hamateur Night
• Hare-Breadth Hurry
• A Hick, a Slick, and a Chick
• Hiss and Make Up
• A Hound for Trouble
• I Wanna Be a Sailor
• The Leghorn Blows at Midnight
• Lickety-Splat
• One Meat Brawl
• The Penguin Parade
• Rabbit Rampage
• The Rebel Without Claws
• The Wacky Worm

I am very pleased with this selection! 1940s Tashlin is finally finished up with Behind the Meat-Ball and Brother Brat. And yay, more Art Davis! I was surprised to see The Rebel Without Claws, for obvious reasons. I guess we have gotten Hare-Breadth Hurry; begrudging so, presumably (in my article on the Blu-Ray's announcement I predicted it wouldn't be on there because of Jerry Beck's dislike of it). Still no Leghorn Swoggled, but maybe in April.

Coyote vs. ACME: The Next Disaster?

I had heard back in 2018 or so--before I got into cartoons--that a "ACME" movie was in the works. Apparently, it's still happening. It is called Coyote vs. ACME, and was supposed to come out July 21st, but got shelved for Barbie.

It is apparently half-live-action, and stars John Cena. According to comicbook.com (what does this have to do with comic books?):

In Coyote vs. Acme, after every ACME Corporation product backfired on Wile E. Coyote, in his pursuit of the Road Runner, he hires an equally-unlucky human attorney to sue the company. When Wile E.'s lawyer finds out that his former law firm's intimidating boss is ACME's CEO, he teams up with Wile E. to win the court case against him.

The film is said to be based on the fictional The New Yorker article "Coyote v. Acme" by author Ian Frazier. Published in 1990, the piece imagined a lawsuit brought about by Wile E. Coyote against the Acme Company who provided him with various devices and tools to aid his pursuit of Road Runner. The devices frequently malfunctioned, leading to the humorous failures, injuries, and sight gags Road Runner cartoons are known for.

It has already been rated (PG), so a release date will be very soon.

I can not imagine this will be any good. I avoided Space Jam: New Legacy and it's supposed to suck (I'm mixed on the original). But I'm more concerned because most of the revivals of the last ten years have been terrible.

But here's the thing: if it's going to be at least an hour-and-a-half, will it be Wile E. miming the whole time? Will they have a neo-Blanc intellectual voice? And will the Road Runner even be in it? 

A bet: a free pizza that it doesn't come out!

Looney Tunes: Collector's Choice Volume 2 Announced

I was just browsing the Internet Animation Database Forums and found out that, apparently, another volume of Collector's Choice comes out November 28th. I have not seen this on Cartoon Research, but there is a cover, so it must be real! If this is some perverse, demented prank, why the 28th?

I really liked the first volume. I was so happy that there was a bunch of Art Davis, one of the wackiest nuts in cartoondom. For once they have cartoons you want to see, and not discs devoted to Buddy and Beans, or random topics.

There is nothing saying what's on there yet, but a Reddit user has a wishlist, which isn't a lot to my liking (too much Thirties and Sixties). Why Leghorn Swoggled is still not on DVD is criminal, since it is the funniest of all the Foghorn Leghorn series. A fan-favorite we'll probably never see is Hare-Breadth Hurry, which Jerry Beck hates. And if you're smart you've noticed how much the collections--especially a certain piece of "gold"--revolve around his interests (Clampett, Bosko, etc...). You will probably say "Well, I hate it too!", but my father and his late cousin were excited when it came on, so somebody likes it.

I commented on the thread with "All I Want for Christmas is You", which no one thinks is funny, except me.

Keep checking for updates on Warnermania!