Restoring the Looney Tunes

 

By themselves and especially during the 1950's and early 60's, the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies have not shown their age.  The clever writing, art, and characters make them just as good looking today.  However, as technology changes and the way we watch these cartoons change, the transfers themselves as with everything else began to age.  What's more, film is deteriorating and needs preserving.  Fortunately, Warner Bros. has done an excellent job thus far keeping them restored in pristine condition.  How did we get here?  Let's find out.

The earliest of these transfers we saw first were from 16mm prints made for local TV.  16mm wears, tears, and fades over time.  As a result, the look of something that just looks "old".  Grainy faded prints were the standard for syndicated cartoons, and while they don't represent what the actual master materials looked like at the time, they still looked like they needed an upgrade. 

For network TV however, Warner Brothers always prepared new prints for the Saturday Morning shows over the years.  These would be the standards in the 60's, 70's, and 80's.  However, they were far from perfect, as they were not technicolor prints revealing some fading and some of these prints were used then reused (usually by CBS) over and over again.  Not to mention they used single title cards instead of the theatrical ones (as covered on a previous blog post)

Stop Look and Hasten as shown on CBS in 1978

Despite these flaws, seeing them on Saturday Mornings were the best versions of these cartoons.  Color TVs were the novelty, so seeing everything in color was a treat.  If one were to view these on the TVs they had back then, they would be just fine.  Looking back now, they were indeed faded and a little worn.

But by the 80's, the era of film was starting to turn into tape, so instead of striking new prints, it's best to just transfer from 35mm into tape.  Little did they know back then that this was a downgrade as videotape can only show so much than the beautiful quality that 35mm can bring.  Still, these were for TV, not for theater, so for those watching wouldn't have mattered.  Beginning in the early 1980's, some of the cartoons were transferred over to 1 inch tapes.

Quackodile Tears was one of the first cartoons
to get 1 inch tape transfers

 These copies were big at the time, but only a handful of them were available to the public.  Only a couple of VHS's were released in the US under The Looney Tunes Video Show line while the rest were released in the UK.  Worse yet, many of these only exist in PAL time compressed format.  The reason these copies were so hard to find was because local TV stations still used 16mm prints and Saturday Morning networks were still using the same single title card prints.  Eventually, some of these 35mm transfers began airing, but by the time they did, it was too late.  The quality suffers on these tapes.  Ghosting and smearing is seen throughout.  And when everything went to progressive scans, THEY LOOKED WORST.  Sadly, some of these cartoons never got an upgrade after that for nearly 40 years.

Faded print of Aviation Vacation transferred in the early 80's

Meanwhile MGM just bought United Artists and began transferring cartoons onto 1 inch tapes, and that included the pre-48 Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies.  The quality of these tapes compared to Warner Bros. were much better.  However, MGM had no access to the original masters, so 16mm prints and some 35mm Eastmancolor prints were used, usually with the AAP logo.  Jerry Beck claims these were AAP 35mm masters, which I can easily see that, but they certainly weren't technicolor prints regardless if all 35 or some 35mm.  They seemed pretty cleaned up, but the colors are faded.  Many of these versions were the only copies used for nearly 15 years.  Interestingly enough, the Censored 11 were also transferred this way, but of course, only private collectors seemed to have gotten a hand of them and did not air on TV nor put on home video obviously.

Classic like Duck Amuck got brand new remasteres for
the Golden Jubilee Collection 

Back over at Warner Bros. a new line of tapes were starting in anticipation of the 50th anniversary of Porky Pig/the start of true classic Looney Tunes.  The Warner Bros Cartoon Golden Jubilee 24 Karot Collection was what the title entails, the best of the Warner Bros. cartoon collection.  New transfers were made for these VHS and Betamax tapes.  The quality was a little bit different compared to previous transfers.  Boarder colors surround the title cards at times.  For the first time, a handful of black and white cartoons got transferred this way.  These were far superior than what was airing on TV at that time, but they were still going by the best prints they had.  The worst preserved ones were the ones made for the Bugs Bunny and Friends/Porky Pig and Friends syndicated packages, so even the best versions were not the greatest.  Still, these 35mm versions gave collectors what they wanted.  Some of these copies would be the mainstay copies run for many years.  Some, despite better transfers later on in life, would return in reruns this way especially on Cartoon Network and Boomerang.  As time rolled on, these transfers fared better than those early 80's ones.  The correct scans made them much more watchable, but some of the prints still seemed washed up.

If one wonders why these copies showed up on Cartoon Network instead of brand new transfers made much later, according to The Bugs Bunny Video Guide, it comes down to one word.....TRANSLATION.  When Cartoon Network got their first batch in 1996, they needed versions dubbed in Spanish, and the quickest copies were the ones supplied to Warner Bros. in 1995 for a series of tapes made in Mexico.  As a result, many of these copies became the standard again, and of that batch a monster load of them were is PAL format speeding up the cartoons and high pitching the audio, making quality of those cartoons even worse.  They still turn up on Boomerang time after time.

1986 transfer of Daffy Doodles 1984

But the Golden Jubilee was a success, and everyone wanted to get into the act.  This included unauthorized companies putting out public domain Warner Bros. cartoons, but also MGM/UA which did their own transfers for a new VHS line, Vid-Y-O for Kids.  Sadly, they were a mess.  Some of them have different opening titles using the AAP logo then the Blue Ribbon titles using the 1939 Merrie Melodies theme.  Many just start with the title cards without the opening Warner Bros. shield and logo.  They also have blue boarders surrounding the titles similar to what Warner Bros did in 1985.  Some of these continued even to this day to be out there.  However, attempts were about to be made to replace these botched versions as Turner bought the AAP library.  MGM continued distributing them for VHS during that time, but under new management in the home video department.  Enter George Feltenstein, who would oversea some of the latest cartoon and film remastering from Warner Bros and MGM for more than 30 years.

Cartoons like Little Red Rabbit Hood were much better, but
still, they seemed murky

Cartoon Moviestars became superior to the Vid-Y-O for Kids as it respected the cartoons much better.  Transfers made for this series of tapes were much better.  Some still have borders surrounding the titles, some even still have the AAP logo at the beginning, but they were complete and original.  These transfers were done from 1988-the early 1990's.  It was assumed some more would be made for the Golden Age of Looney Tunes Laserdisc sets.  Sadly, many of the non major character titles and some titles that didn't make the cut on Cartoon Moviestars did not get new transfers using those from the early 80's.  There were a few improvements however such as erasing the AAP logo off the prints.  A handful (but not many) of the cartoons did indeed receive new transfers.  One major one was A Wild Hare, which has a strange print history.  There were three copies out there in the early 90's.  First the Blue Ribbon copy used on both the laserdisc and the VHS tapes such as the Bugs Bunny Collection and Cartoon Moviestars.  Then in 1990 when Turner released a documentary called What's Up Doc, a Salute to Bugs Bunny, they struck a 16mm dupe print of the original version.  One easily assumed that when they put it on the laserdisc again as a bonus including the original version it was the same dupe print.  Well I'm here to tell you, that's not the case.  A new 35mm print was struck of the original version, and at the time of its release, even when the dubbed version came out a few years later, this was the best copy around (at least until 2008 when restored in HD from the original masters).  Some of these copies are still in circulation, and at the time these were exciting.  Many of these seem like 35mm transfers even if they were from 16mm or non original masters.  However, by today's standards they seem a little bit soft and because they weren't original masters, a little bit faded.

Two other interesting notes: new transfers were made specifically in 1988 for Bugs and Daffy the Wartime Cartoons.  These had black boarders surrownding the cartoon.  They were only used once save for Falling Hare as that transfer was reused for the Golden Age of Looney Tunes, and never aired on TV that way.  Also around 1994, United Artists for some reason made new transfers for Bugs Bunny Superstar.  They fared better than previous versions save for some audio issues on a few and wrong titles on A Corny Concerto, but these are hard to find and one would consider themselves lucky to have such prints (me).

Meanwhile, Saturday mornings and syndication of the post 48 cartoons were still iffy, and TV is changing drastically.  With tape being the norm and being better quality than ever (much better than faded old prints) and now cable is entering the ring, it was time for a change.  It was also getting close to Bugs Bunny's 50th.  Warner Bros. commissioned a whole bunch of new transfers of as much of the Looney Tunes as possible.  New prints were struck from all eras of Warner Bros. Cartoons, black and white and color (and even the redrawn cartoons got new transfers).  From the early 30's to the late 60's.  Gone were the color bars in the beginning of the titles.  Instead, everything looked authentic and everything looked great.

 There were two batches: one done for Nickelodeon in 1988 and one done for The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show.  Of these transers, new ones were done off of those as TV stations had no interest in the full versions just yet.  For Nick, a copyright 1988 could be seen on the opening titles.  Meanwhile, new title cards were made for The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show.  But for VHS, nothing was altered.  At that time and for many many years these were not only the standard, but looked absolutely great.  While they varied from print to print the colors were still rich and they never looked dupy anymore.  As scans went to progressive, of course you will start seeing scanning lines making them, like every other TV show from that era, look pretty old.  But when you compared these to what was airing on TBS, TNT, and other Turner owned networks airing what they had, it was clear that Warner Bros. was able to use the original first generation masters while Turner was unlucky enough, no matter how hard they tried, to not have these on hand.  So as a result, Bugs Bunny looked brownish at times.  

It is not exactly well known if new transfers were made in the 90's for Merrie Melodies Starring Bugs Bunny and Friends, laserdisc releases, nor That's Warner Bros.  It seems very likely that they may have, but there wasn't too much difference compared to the late 80's transfers.  What DID happen however, were newer transfers made for the black and white cartoons.  And the reason for this was for new colorized versions due to Nickelodeon's reject of the redrawn colorized cartoons, but also to air these on Merrie Melodies is syndication.

The first batch happened in 1990 and at first were made exclusively for Merrie Melodies.  A new batch happened in 1992 for Nickelodeon once they started showing full titles to the cartoons and also wanted no more use for the redrawn colorized versions of these cartoons.  However, they didn't do all of them just yet.  Still, this meant new remasters of the cartoons which looked great despite being colorized.  The very last batch was made in 1995 bringing an end to the redrawns supposedly (but not really).

So which cartoons were colorized when?  I figured it out.  First, look up the episode list of Merrie Melodies starring Bugs Bunny and Friends.  If a cartoon aired on that show, it was colorized in 1990.  All other cartoons that have a roman numeral number during the "new copyright" means they were done in 1992, and the rest that say "1995" mean they were done in 1995.  Wholly Smoke was the first of these to get this treatment.  The last may be Scrap Happy Daffy or Confusions of a Nutzy Spy, but both never aired so I'm not sure.

During this time of computer colorization, as mentioned before, it was unclear if new transfers were made for the color cartoons since Warner Brothers may have wanted them to look good for Fox and The WB, but these masters seems to show these cartoons in terrific shape, so perhaps there was no need to make new copies for the post 48 cartoons.  However, Turner was launching Cartoon Network in 1992, and it became apparent that the best of the Turner library needs new remasters, and that included the Warner Bros. cartoons they had.

In 1995, Turner began airing and releasing their cartoons under their "dubbed versions" label.  This was

so that they can also be used for foreign distribution as well.  These called for new remasters and some digital cleaning as well.  They used the best possible copies that they had, and for the most part they looked great, but they still had no access to the original masters from Warner Bros., so each cartoon varied from print to print.  New end titles were created with a new copyright on each one.  Nearly every cartoon was done this way save for those not ending up in distribution anymore.  The only cartoons that did not have new titles were those without any dialogue such as Good Night Elmer and Peck

Up Your Troubles.  Meanwhile, while the button wasn't hit high, DVNR was used on some of these cartoons.  As a result, some lines were erased.  This was the only way restorations of any kind could be done at that time which causes controversy with animation fans.  The dubbed versions of these cartoons would be the standard for many Warner Bros. cartoons for years to come.

Despite these being the latest transfers compared to the post 48 cartoon library, the latter still proved superior due to use of original masters.  Even though they were of much better quality and possibly these were done digitally instead of analog (albeit in standard def only), it was clear that the pre-48 looked much older compared to the post 48's.

But a new age is coming: the digital age.  This meant that analog tapes are starting to become obsolete and are being replaced with digital copies.  The other thing happening was the coming of DVDs, providing much clearer picture than what any videocassette can provide.  That didn't mean everything is in high definition, but it did mean much clearer pictures.  Warner Bros. saw this happening and began restoring their library this way.  However, it wasn't a mass restoration project, just select titles such as The Wizard of Oz, but it would be a start of things to come.

The Abominable Snow Rabbit would be among the first
Warner Bros. cartoons to be restored digitally

Starting in 1997, Warner Bros. began doing new scans of the Warner Bros. Cartoons, but this time going straight to the original master negatives as opposed to just prints.  They also began the digital process of removing any signs of dirt or damage to the film as well as color correcting to make them look good.  This did not involve removing any grain or cel dust shot on film as it would alter the cartoon instead of preserving it.  At first there was some DVNR, but it was mild DVNR, and soon after cleaning intensified by going frame by frame .

The first batch was done between 1997-98.  There were two versions; one with a new copyright notice and one without such.  Most of these were from the post 48 package with one strange exception: a colorized version of You Ought to Be in Pictures.  Sadly not every cartoon got this treatment.  Worst yet, some of these didn't make it to the states.  The ones that did were only because they ended up on VHS, Laserdisc, or a strange format called VCD.  Warner Bros. had no clue how to market these to DVD as when they inherited the cartoons from Turner, those ended up selling better than their own Looney Tunes.  Still, we were lucky enough to see some of these end up on VHS and even some on TV when Cartoon Network gained full access of these cartoons.

The next batch began in the early 2000's for Japanese DVDs.  They were mostly just Tweety cartoons.  This was because Tweety was the most marketable Looney Tunes character right next to Taz (and especially with young girls).  It still was mostly post 48 because even though Warner Bros. held all the original masters to everything, only the post 48, or at least most of the post 48 cartoons, were handled with care.  Because Warner Bros. had no full ownership of the pre-48 cartoons for years, things got damaged, badly preserved, or lost altogether, and required more time (and more money) to restore.  Warner Bros. did a test restoration for one of theses, Falling Hare, but it didn't went anywhere other than used as a bonus feature later on (for comparison of storyboards) as it was riddled with DVNR, thus proving more work needed to be done.

In 2003, some more cartoons were restored this way for the Golden Collection, but around that time a new method was done to the cartoons.  In anticipation of higher definition television, some of the

cartoons were now given better frame by frame restorations looking closely at each frame to clean up dirt and then color correct.  The first of these batch were a handful of pre 48 cartoons like Yankee Doodle Daffy.  The result, amazing.  These cartoons shined like never before.  No more brown looking Bugs Bunny on these, and no more easy to tell if post or pre 48, they started to become pristine for DVD.  A few more standard def restorations were done in 2004, but would be the last batch to do so with most of the cartoons now being in HD.  By 2005, all future restorations would be done in HD.  This style or restoration would go on from 2003-2012.

Cropped widescreen version of Apes of Wrath

Were they perfect, not always.  One time, they did restorations for the post 53 cartoons to be in 16:9 cropped widescreen.  This meant that the bottom and top of some of these cartoons were lost.  This caused a major uproar in the animation community.  Those restorations were done from 2010-2011.  Many of these have since been corrected to 4:3.

Starting in 2012, a new kind of HD restoration process would begin.  What's different with these compared to the past ones were the colors.  They all seem a little bit darker.  Some say this was due to Warner Bros. cutting the restoration budget on these causing the colors to not be touched up like they were in the past when they had the money.  Others think that it was the total opposite where Warner Bros. decided to totally ignore the technicolor process by selecting their own colors to make them look "new".  Whatever the reason, these new restorations were with darker colors.  For some, like the Sniffles cartoons, things only got better not worse as the cartoons were starting to look pristine that weren't restored before.  For others, like Rabbit Seasoning, a controversy arose.  Sure they seemed more colorful than the standard def restorations, but are such colors correct?  This process was done on some of the cartoons until 2014 when Warner Bros. threw their hands up and said "no more Looney Tunes restorations; it costs too much money and Blu-ray sales are going down."

But meanwhile, a test remastering process was done in 2012 with two cartoons: What's Cookin Doc and I Taw a Putty Tat. Interestingly enough, another cartoon was transfered this way too, Those Beautiful Dames, for The Busby Berkeley Collection for some reason in 2006.  The Warner Archive Collection home video line was looking at doing a line of cartoon releases but didn't know where to start with the theatrical cartoons.  Most of their releases were later Hanna Barbera releases and no restorations before hitting some restoration work later on with other later Hanna Barbera releases.  They had no money to do a restoration like the actual home video company did.  They tested the waters by doing a Bugs Bunny Superstar stand alone DVD release by including previously restored cartoons with two additional cartoons that were part of the documentary.  Enter these two test remasters.

I Taw a Putty Tat is colorful but grainy in Bugs Bunny
Superstar

Noticed I said remasters and not restorations.  This was because 1 inch tapes were no longer cutting it anymore, so they figured that making new progressive scans would do the trick.  They also went for the quickest film prints they could find.  For What's Cookin Doc, they went for a quick easy to scan 35mm print.  It still looked a little bit faded, but a beautiful 35mm print compared to previous transfers made 15 to 20 years prior.  I Taw a Putty Tat was from a 16mm print with the original titles (but no soundtrack thus using it from Bugs Bunny Superstar and therefore no original title music).  Compared to previous transfers, it was a much more beautiful print than previous transfers/prints used.  However, 16mm makes the film much more grainer, and no restoration meant that some scenes were more scratchier than others and no where near as pristine as the Golden or Platinum Collections.  

Still, since fans didn't mind considering they looked better and it was two cartoons (not to mention they may already have a copy of Bugs Bunny Superstar from collecting the Golden Collection and may not want another copy), and some confidence was given to Warner Archive to try this again.  Plans were already being made for a big Looney Tunes release for the fans which would end up being all the black and white Porky Pig cartoons.  So making new transfers helped clear that issue, but there was another one, having the ok from Warner Bros Family Division and Legal Department.  Eventually, the Family Division finally ok'd it since they realized these cartoons in particular they would never put out.  Now to get the Legal Department's ok.  After 5 years of deliberating, the Legal Department gave the ok to allow these to come on DVD as long as there are disclaimers galore on the discs saying these contain racial stereotypes and some of the cartoons may not be suitable by today's standards.  With that, the same exact process was done to most of the Porky Pig black and white cartoons for Porky Pig 101.  

Despite a choppy title, A Coy Decoy looks great even
not restored.

Now comes the controversy.  I must point out that Warner Archive NEVER EVER made these changes on their own; these were done many years ago.  Some of the film prints used were incorrect.  Whether it was to avoid using the Guild Sunset logos I don't know.  Some of the cartoons just start with no WB Shield zooming causing a jump cut right into the titles.  Some of the cartoons used the wrong music cues.  Of those, most of these reused the opening music to Porky's Tire Trouble over and over and over again.  This alone pissed off some Looney Tunes fans the most as ALL the original music to these cartoons easily exist.  I must point out again these were NOT THE ORIGINAL MASTERS AND WERE USING THE QUICKEST FILM PRINTS THEY COULD GET.  Most of which came from 35mm with others either from 16mm or perhaps a 35mm dupe print (but that wouldn't make sense).  These changes might have been done for reissue prints in the late 40's early 50's perhaps.  Why they would, I don't know; companies at that time had no interest in preserving cartoons so what's a little alteration here and there.  Warner Archive could have gone just a little bit further to fix these issues, but probably didn't have the money to hire an editor.

Porky and Gabby still looked dupy on Porky Pig 101

Despite these goof ups, the cartoons looked much better than their previous 90's transfers, and not all of them were screwed up this way.  Once you get past the issues and the fact these were not as pristine compared to the previous remastering processes done, they are enjoyable and fine.  However, this was still causing quite a controversy, and Warner Archive decided not to do this style of remastering anymore and go forward with full restorations.  And fortunately, Warner Bros. as a whole was starting to do something big the following year.

Cartoons like this Road Runner cartoon now look better 
than ever

Starting with some of the Popeye and Batman cartoons in 2018 then full speed ahead the following year, Warner Bros. began doing HD restorations to most of their library with anticipation of HBO Max coming.  It took a little time for this to happen to the Looney Tunes, but by 2020, some of these restorations debuted.  At first it seemed like just some Bugs Bunny cartoons for an upcoming Blu-ray release, but it became clear as the year went on they were trying to finish the job as much as possible getting all the Warner Bros cartoons restored in HD.

One of the many photoshopped titles now used on these new restorations

At first the restorations were being praised because the colors were much better compared to previous restorations from the 2010's/previous transfers.  However, as they kept going down the road, something seems amiss.  A handful of cartoons had DVNR.  Some of the cartoons looked too cleaned up losing

The new recreated titles for Aviation Vacation
is missing....something......

grain.  There were also some small music issues here and there (though nowhere near as bad as Porky Pig 101).  But the biggest issue became the recreated titles.  They looked cropped down with photoshop and recreated.  Perhaps there were plans to make these into 16:9 copies and made these so that you could see all the text.  Fortunately, that's never happened (yet).  The titles do seem authentic, but some goof ups were made such as missing texts, wrong colored rings, and even stranger mistakes than that.  

At the end of the day and possibly ending this blog post, this is where we stand:  While not perfect, we have made progress in restoring the Looney Tunes for a new generation.  In 2008, only 3/10 of the cartoons were fully restored with a ton of cartoons not being touched upon due to financial issues and also issues with the Looney Tunes brand.  By 2021, that number is now 3/4 of the entire library thanks to major Looney Tunes projects in the works and the need to restore these cartoons for the new digital age.  In 1978, all the cartoons looked kind of murky, even the best quality prints looked faded.  Today, the colors shine bright, dirt is removed, and are now more pristine than ever.  While the entire library has not been restored yet, it is great to see these newly realized versions of these cartoons.  To everyone involved in getting this job done, I thank you.  As you can read, it took YEARS to get to this point, and who knows, as technology changes, they may have to rework these cartoons again, but it looks like the Looney Tunes will be preserved for a long time.  That doesn't mean we're done with hard work; there's still much work to be done by all major studios in preserving classic cartoons and raising awareness that these are all time classics like The Wizard of Oz or I Love Lucy.