50 Years of Colorized Looney Tunes

It was 1969....Scooby-Doo and Sesame Street made their big debut, Woodstock was hot, and man put his first step on the moon.  It looked like major changes were coming for the better.  That is........unless you were a Looney Tunes fan.  78 black and white cartoons were taken to Korea, retraced, and recolored to make them look "better than ever".....or so they thought.  Today, we commemorate (but not necessarily celebrate) these colorized versions of these cartoons debuting 50 years ago on TV.  We'll break down why did these happen, who commissioned them to do it, and the aftermath of it all.

First let's go back to 1955 when Looney Tunes made their first TV appearance.  Many movie studios sold their films and short subjects catalogs to TV distributors for money in the bank DESPITE AT THAT TIME movies and TV were fierce enemies.  In this case, a small distributor called Sunset Productions bought the black and white Looney Tunes (save for the Harmon and Ising Merrie Melodies for some reason) as WB had no use for them anymore since they are black and white.  This Looney Tunes package mainly starred Porky and Daffy (there were no Bugs Bunny cartoons in black and white) and featured the rarely seen Bosko and Buddy among other rare characters like Beans the Cat and Ham and Ex.  These films, seen in black and white in 16mm with their original WB titles replaced with new titles erasing WB altogether, were immediately sold to Guild Films as part of their buyout of Sunset (hence why you see both names on the cartoons).  In the 1960's, Seven Arts bought out Guild Films and restructured TV distribution of their library.  Those cartoons mixed with cheaper product Seven Arts distributed including Marine Boy and Johnny Zypher (lost cartoons to this day though are out on DVD through Warner Archive).  In 1967, Seven Arts bought out Jack Warner's stock in his company and became WB-7Arts, bringing those cartoons back home.

But by 1967 however, everything was in color.  In order to keep these cartoons running, a new package was commissioned to Fred Ladd who adapted Astro Boy into English, to produce new colorized versions of these cartoons.  Here's how it worked: 16mm prints were sent to a studio in Korea, where they retraced each cartoon frame by frame (ish).  The problem was that these studios had only the budget of an anime studio at that time so........the animation looks broken.  There are moments throughout that makes them look like bad cartoons.  The color choices are also bad.  They had to be big bright colors to say "Hey..it's in color now!!"  Finally these were shot in 16mm, meaning over time, they look worse with beaten up prints of these.  A newly syndicated package titled Porky Pig and Friends included the newly colorized 78 WB cartoons, the intro, outro, and bumpers to The Porky Pig Show, and the other theatrical cartoons that aired on The Porky Pig Show.  Interestingly enough, those show bumpers and such too were badly animated in the mid 1960's.  I mentioned both of these on my Worst Looney Tunes Ever post.

One of the many early Bob Clampett cartoons that got this horrible treatment.  Makes me wonder if one could sue for ruining their creations and/or (in a way) defamation.

Ferris Wheelhouse did 2 videos on the subject, and on one of them was a quote from Tom Minton, who produced Tiny Toons, Animaniacs, Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries, and more.  Here's what he had to say:  "All I know is what I gleamed talking to old timers.  Virtually everyone who was a writer, producer, or even a cel painter was offended by the crappy workmanship on full display in those late 60's overseas repainted cartoons, and Bob Clampett's rep seemed to suffer the most since the majority of the repainted shorts were originally directed by him, and the terrible re-do's still bore his name.  I was told that the deal was made by the suits at WB who were impressed by the first one or two repainted cartoons the overseas shops showed them.  It later became painfully apparent that more time and care had been spent on the first one or two in order to land the job of doing a million more, and that no executive making that deal was an artist and no artists especially none who worked on the original black and white shorts were ever consulted prior to the contract being signed.  American business at it nakedist, con'd by one of their own bait and switch cons, and bitten in the ass in the end.  The overseas studios were still using the same trick as late as the previous decade [2000's] doing a great job on the audition footage often using a superior crew than what the actual content [looked liked] once the contract was signed.  The studios seldom learn......."  Which begs the question, what was that audition cartoon WB saw?  Was it one of their own cartoons (as if so which one) or was it something else?

So WHO in the heck propose such an idea to do this?  Here is my THEORY: As with most big companies, one hand does not know what the other is doing.  Most of the control of the black and white cartoons seem to still be with Seven Arts.  It would not surprise me if the idea of colorization began BEFORE the WB merger.  This may also explain why these cartoons, despite now in color, were NEVER shown on The Bugs Bunny Road Runner Hour or other related shows in the 70's and 80's.  They were their own thing from Seven Arts.  Still the Porky and Friends package lasted a long time.  TV stations were given enough cartoons for them to air once a year (provided they only aired once a week), and they were given the option to air however they want.  Some of these appeared in Chicago WGN's Bozo Show.  Then in the 1970's, when the Bugs Bunny and Friends package began, it was the same situation...100 cartoons ready to play whenever they want.  Should a station have BOTH packages, they were able to run together.  Then to get even weirder, some shows, like Chicago's Ray Rayner, also had the AAP library, so they could, in theory, run ALL 3 packages before Cartoon Network ever could (but that's a different story).

Depending on the print delivered to Korea, how each cartoon was presented varied.  Some had WB titles, others had Sunset Guild titles.  The iconic WB Shield zooming is gone.  It was either focused in or dissolved in, but never zoomed.  And yes, the end titles with Porky saying That's All Folks were indeed redrawn.  It's hard for these prints to come by, but they did exist.  Another version of these cartoons have the titles replaced with new ones with the WB-7arts titles as seen on the WB-7arts cartoons from the late 1960's.  Then in the early 1970's, WB again made new prints of these while trying to erase Sunset/Guild completely.  A WB Looney Tunes title card from the late 1950's plastered over the older titles and end with the end titles also from the 50's followed then by the new WB TV distribution logo at that time.  By the mid to late 1980's, the WB TV logo was removed since that logo was finally defunct.

When Nickelodeon picked up the Looney Tunes in 1988, they also got these redraws, but it didn't take long for them to realize "you know what.....we can't show these anymore."  Interestingly enough, for Nick at Nite they would air the black and white versions of these cartoons, but color was still necessary since it is a kids network after all, and even WB agreed it was time for a change.  Starting in the 1990's, newly colorized versions of these cartoons were released and began airing in place of the older versions.  As for the Porky and Friends package, sources claim it was still made available right up until 1994, but with newer packages like Merrie Melodies starring Bugs Bunny coming about and because many of the cartoons from the Porky and Friends package were no longer exclusive being shown on other networks, it's highly unlikely that the Porky Pig and Friends package lasted past 1989.  Somehow, these redraws still showed up time to time on Nickelodeon followed by Cartoon Network.  Specifically, Porky's Midnight Matinee, Daffy's Southern Exposure, Porky's Bear Facts, Wholly Smoke, and Puss n Booty.  The redraws aired AS LATE AS 2003.  Grey Market releases on home video, however, made them available even to this day, as well as fan video uploads.  It seems likely that WB will NEVER use these versions again in future releases be it TV, Streaming, or Home Video.

Meanwhile over at Turner, who just bought tons of property including the AAP library, they commissioned a major colorization project on the black and white feature films and the cartoons.  Previous owner United Artists pretty much put an end to reruns of the black and white Merrie Melodies cartoons that they owned since there were no major starring characters like Bugs Bunny in there (unlike Sunset's package with Porky).  But in 1988, new colorized versions of these old cartoons were made to air on the Turner networks.  Unlike the feature films, they did not use digital to colorize their cartoon library.  Instead, like WB-7arts, they commissioned Fred Ladd to retrace them again.  Thus, like the Porkys, the animation is choppy and weird.  Sadly, because of different ownership, these were the only colorized versions made for the cartoons.  What's weirder yet, in 1995, when Turner made new remasters for the networks (called dubbed versions for the WB cartoons), they made new masters ready to go for BOTH VERSIONS of the cartoons.  While not seen as much because of their age and relevancy, these versions continued to air until the early 2000's.  Don't rule them out as dead and buried.  It's possible that these turned up on Boomerang over the years, and it's not impossible to think that they can show up again at any point.

Back at Warners, a new restoration/colorization was taking place.  Reruns on Nickelodeon were very popular (so much so that Nick needed to have their own cartoon series for themselves and thus, the Nicktoons were born), but they needed improvement.  Starting in 1990, some of the black and white cartoons were digitally colorized.  This preserves the original animation, unlike the original colorizations.  A company called CST Entertainment Inc. was hired for the job.  The first batch was completed in 1990, the next batch was done in 1992.  By 1995, approx. 100 Black and White Looney Tunes were colorized.  This meant more cartoons were colorized that never were before including the classic You Ought To Be in Pictures as it combined live action and animation.  However, not all the black and white cartoons made the cut.  The Bosko and Buddy cartoons were and are no longer rerunable.  Some of the wartime era cartoons were not worth colorizing as they too were not rerunable anymore (until some of them showed up on Toonheads in the early 2000's).  Some other cartoons such as Scrap Happy Daffy, Africa Squeaks, and Robinson Crusoe Jr. got the colorized treatment in the 90's, but never aired due to them now being too politically incorrect.

Porky's Pet was never redrawn in the 60's, but finally got colorized in 1995

Although they were co-funded by Nickelodeon, they didn't just air there.  A new series called Merrie Melodies Starring Bugs Bunny and Friends showcased some of these new versions as did That's Warner Bros!, The Daffy Duck Show, and The Bugs 'n' Daffy Show.  They also appeared on a handful of official WB VHS tapes.  Wherever Looney Tunes were found on television, these versions were nearby.  The colorized versions continued to air on Nick until 1999 when Looney Tunes started becoming exclusive to Cartoon Network.  Cartoon Network quickly picked these up when Turner merged with WB in 1996.  The colorized versions continued to be used on Boomerang over the air and on their streaming service, but would end their course in 2024 due to the need of HD content as opposed to the standard def versions alongside Boomerang's streaming app shutdown, thus retiring all forms of colorized versions for good.

While the fans continue to shout that the original versions are the right way to watch them, the colorized versions, whether they were badly redrawn or digitally enhanced, were a necessary evil.  Black and white cartoons and some shows are no longer marketable since the rise of color television, and had they been locked away, chances are they would be locked away forever simply because they are in black and white.  Yes, many mistakes were made; many unforgivable, but many historical and amazing cartoons ended up seeing the light of day again.  And in the end, because of this, many fans demanded seeing these original versions which they did...they were shown on Nick, on Late Night in Black and White, on Toonheads, and The Bob Clampett Show, plus many home video releases restored them in full black and white glory.  This includes the Golden Collection and Porky Pig 101 DVDs, showcasing the best of black and white.  Because of the need of HD content, recently it was best to go back to the original negatives since they have the highest quality and restore them from there, and thus despite airing on kids networks like Discovery Family Channel, no longer would they air in colorized form but restored in HD in black and white.  In the end, fans demands were seen.  Still, we needed these colorizations more than we want to admit, and their purpose was served during the times we needed them most.