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Post by wileyk209 on Jan 6, 2023 18:26:09 GMT -5
On New Year's Eve morning, I woke up to some horribly shocking news. HBO Max had suddenly removed all the 1951-2004 "Looney Tunes" cartoon shorts from their service without any warning! (Ironically, I was watching "Looney Tunes" on MeTV at the time.) A lot of us were shocked and a little upset about this, and immediately blamed David Zaslav, CEO of Warner Bros.- Discovery, as it's not the first time he's made such a lousy decision. But in this case, the reason for removal is that HBO Max's license to stream the cartoons expired, and they simply chose not to renew it, especially with the losses the company suffered during the past year.
The 1950s was when some of the best "Looney Tunes" shorts of all time were all made! The "Duck/Rabbit Season" trilogy, "Duck Amuck," "One Froggy Evening," "What's Opera, Doc?"... that 1951-2004 era also made up for nearly all of Wile E. Coyote's shorts, along with most of Pepe Le Pew and Marvin the Martian's appearances, all of the Tasmanian Devil and Ralph Wolf/Sam Sheepdog cartoons, the best Sylvester cartoons, and more. The problem also was, while several of those shorts are indeed on the Boomerang streaming service that hadn't been update for almost two years now, some of them were still older low-quality TV prints, compared to HBO Max getting sparkling new high-definition restorations. Additionally, many of those newly-restored cartoons debuting on HBO Max have not been released on DVD or Blu-Ray yet (i.e. the ones in my blog post link). But at least they do air on MeTV.
We were also reminded of how last summer, HBO Max went and removed virtually all the pre-2008 "Sesame Street" episodes, and that included episodes and content that haven't been seen in years! And they also removed some Cartoon Network originals, a few of them without warning like "Clarence". And just this morning it was announced that Seasons 4-6 of "The Flintstones" have also similarly disappeared from HBO Max, along with "The Scooby-Doo Show!"
Of course, I did a couple vlogs about this, featuring my new toon fox detective fursona, Sam Valentino...
So 2023 is not off to a good start for the Looney Tunes or some of the other WB cartoon properties, and let's hope things will get better.
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Post by Ark on Feb 5, 2023 8:29:30 GMT -5
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Post by Ark on Feb 5, 2023 8:37:45 GMT -5
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Post by Ark on Feb 5, 2023 8:51:44 GMT -5
I've mentioned it before, but Ted Turner basically lost everything he built by merging WB with AOL right before the DotCom bust. It's been two decades since and it wouldn't shock me if history repeated itself. We're switching over to 5G and while it's not as big of a jump as dialup to DSL, a large percent of the population spend more time on TikTok and Instagram now than the television anymore. Things are changing and it was a really bad time for WB to do a merger, pulling down Discovery with it. 50 billion in debt and the combined companies aren't even worth that in market cap.
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Post by Ark on Feb 5, 2023 9:14:59 GMT -5
Paid streaming is already dying as fast as it grew. The big question is: so what are former television and streaming viewers spending their entertainment time on now? Certainly along with the advent of mobile 5G people are creating their own entertainment with video social media as well as streaming WB content legally free at places like TubiTV. Most people I know spend more time on social media than classic media like actual shows, games, and movies. www.theringer.com/year-in-review/2022/12/22/23521289/streaming-bubble-burst-year-in-review-netflix-hbo-max |
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Post by scoobnick on Feb 5, 2023 10:39:24 GMT -5
that merger has turned out to be a very bad thing, much like the aol merger 22 years ago. makes me wonder if all the canceling projects was geared towards saving enough money to avoid bankruptcy. It sounds dumb to me. You'd never see Disney shutting down its top end properties, like Frozen or the Lion king, they make far too much money.
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Post by Ark on Feb 5, 2023 11:09:06 GMT -5
that merger has turned out to be a very bad thing, much like the aol merger 22 years ago. makes me wonder if all the canceling projects was geared towards saving enough money to avoid bankruptcy. It sounds dumb to me. You'd never see Disney shutting down its top end properties, like Frozen or the Lion king, they make far too much money. I guess I didn't even realize that AT&T in 2016 did a merger with WB too. As a general rule, Scooby content is better when a merger hasn't happened for a while. |
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Post by jonathanmuddlemore on Feb 5, 2023 12:24:40 GMT -5
Come on man, there’s literally no source here besides a website called “Disney Dining” |
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Post by Ark on Feb 6, 2023 15:12:49 GMT -5
Other properties they've considered selling recently, but thankfully the Harry Potter thing wasn't true at all. Zaslav actually plans to do more with it, not to mention the new game that just released. It's hard to decipher real from fake when the company is doing so poorly that they've made a mountain of strange moves recently.
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Post by wileyk209 on Feb 13, 2023 10:17:52 GMT -5
And now thanks to David Zaslav, they've cancelled the upcoming direct-to-video movie "Scooby-Doo and the Haunted High Rise." And that was to feature the Hex Girls!
Not a corner of WB Animation is save while David Zaslav is at large. There's no evil scheme he wouldn't concoct; no depravity he wouldn't commit! (David Zaslav is to my toon fox detective fursona Sam Valentino the way Professor Moriarty is to Sherlock Holmes.)
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Post by ScoobyAddict on Feb 18, 2023 7:46:20 GMT -5
And now thanks to David Zaslav, they've cancelled the upcoming direct-to-video movie "Scooby-Doo and the Haunted High Rise." And that was to feature the Hex Girls! Not a corner of WB Animation is save while David Zaslav is at large. There's no evil scheme he wouldn't concoct; no depravity he wouldn't commit! (David Zaslav is to my toon fox detective fursona Sam Valentino the way Professor Moriarty is to Sherlock Holmes.) David Zaslav is like a Scooby villain! Hopefully, some day he’ll be unmasked for good. It is strange that no one has reigned him in yet. There has to be someone that can stop him from ruining everything at WB. |
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Post by wileyk209 on Feb 18, 2023 13:13:23 GMT -5
Now I got word that according to Prime, at the end of this month HBO Max will be removing most of its' pre-1990s animated content! This will probably include "Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!" and the 1979-83 "Scooby and Scrappy-Doo" stuff already on there. Sadly, a lot of the latter hasn't been released on DVD or Blu-Ray yet! (Same with the 1977 episodes of "The Scooby-Doo Show", a series that was purged from HBO Max at the end of December.)
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Post by scoobnick on Feb 19, 2023 0:05:34 GMT -5
And now thanks to David Zaslav, they've cancelled the upcoming direct-to-video movie "Scooby-Doo and the Haunted High Rise." And that was to feature the Hex Girls! Not a corner of WB Animation is save while David Zaslav is at large. There's no evil scheme he wouldn't concoct; no depravity he wouldn't commit! (David Zaslav is to my toon fox detective fursona Sam Valentino the way Professor Moriarty is to Sherlock Holmes.) that was actually a line from the great Mouse Detective, where basil describes his archfoe Ratigan - played by the incomparable Vincent Price, who famously was in !3 Ghosts.of Scooby Doo. |
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Post by elemage on Feb 20, 2023 19:38:28 GMT -5
Now I got word that according to Prime, at the end of this month HBO Max will be removing most of its' pre-1990s animated content! This will probably include "Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!" and the 1979-83 "Scooby and Scrappy-Doo" stuff already on there. Sadly, a lot of the latter hasn't been released on DVD or Blu-Ray yet! (Same with the 1977 episodes of "The Scooby-Doo Show", a series that was purged from HBO Max at the end of December.) I mean... At least we still have the Boomerang catalogue? Even though they haven't updated The New Scooby-Doo Movies, Scooby-Doo and Guess Who?, and they're still missing like half of the movies. So not only are they scrapping TWO movies that the fandom would've actually enjoyed, they're removing already established series from their primary platform? This is RIDICULOUS. |
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Post by wileyk209 on Feb 24, 2023 23:27:39 GMT -5
I mean... At least we still have the Boomerang catalogue? Even though they haven't updated The New Scooby-Doo Movies, Scooby-Doo and Guess Who?, and they're still missing like half of the movies. Yeah, but sadly the Boomerang streaming service has not been updated for TWO YEARS now. The last time something was added was on February 25th, 2021 - as of tomorrow it'll be exactly two years - when the "Scooby-Doo and Guess Who?" episode "Dark Diner of Route 66!" was added. Warner Bros.- Discovery seems to have forgotten it exists. They dumped the rest of the show on HBO Max for "Scoobtober" 2021. Plus, while some shows and movies do use the stunning new high-definition restorations (like "Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!" and certain "Looney Tunes" and MGM cartoon shorts), others still use old standard-def TV prints (like the 80s Scooby and Scrappy-Doo stuff and the other Looney Tunes and numerous other Hanna-Barbera shows), compared to HBO Max having virtually all of them remastered in HD. |
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