Warner Begins Looney Tunes Rollout with 4 DVDs
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Some new DVDs based on popular animated characters like Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck hit retail shelves on Tuesday as part of Warner Bros. film studio’s plan to reinvigorate its library of Looney Tunes cartoons.
The studio, owned by Time Warner Inc, also raises the curtain on a new movie, “Looney Tunes Back in Action,” on Nov. 14 that puts the Looney Tunes gang in a live-action feature film starring Brendan Fraser and Jenna Elfman.
George Feltenstein, senior vice president of the classic catalog for Warner’s home video group, said the DVD release culminates a roughly six-year effort to restore old cartoons, that in some cases date back to the 1930s.
“Every cartoon is restored on film. It’s a very time consuming, very expensive process,” Feltenstein said.
Warner Bros. plans to release one set of the classic cartoons a year for the foreseeable future, he said, adding that he is already working on the second set.
The four DVDs include two based on the classic cartoons with Bugs, Porky Pig, Sylvester, Tweety, Yosemite Sam and characters voiced by the legendary Mel Blanc, who died in 1989. The “Looney Tunes Golden Collection” is a four-disc set and the “Looney Tunes Premiere Collection” is a two-disc package.
Classic Looney Tunes cartoons were made from 1930 to 1969 and set themselves apart from Walt Disney Co. cartoons by their wild lunacy and slapstick humor.
The library includes some 1,100 cartoons in all, and Feltenstein said he tried to pick a cross section of the animated shows with different characters. He added that the Looney Tunes brand of comedy is enjoyed by kids who like the wacky humor and adults who enjoy the often smart jokes.
“They were made for adults, but perfectly appropriate for children,” he said. “Fifty years from now, they will still be as relevant, as funny and as wonderful as they are now.”
The two other DVDs are “Looney Tunes Reality Check” with 21 new cartoons and “Looney Tunes Stranger than Fiction” with 19 fresh “toons” featuring the original characters whose voices come from a variety of actors used for television.
“It varies from character to character and actor to actor, but it is always amazing to me how every one of them has mastered their (character’s) voice,” Feltenstein said.
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