Many animation fans are incensed — more than I suspect they need to be — over the news that HBO Max has removed over 250 Warner Brothers cartoons from that streaming service. Gone are pretty much every cartoon WB made from 1950 onward. Some of the responses I've seen on the 'net make it sound like Warner Bros. Discovery — that's what the parent corporation is called this week — has decided to burn all existing prints and never let those wonderful cartoons be seen anywhere ever again.
That's not what's happening here. It's a programming decision and whether it turns out to be a good one remains to be seen. It probably depends solely on where and when they make those cartoons available again. They will. Those films are among the company's most valuable assets. They attract an audience every time they're shown anywhere and they don't really cost the corporation anything to run. Oh, sometimes one division of WBD has to pay something to another division of WBD but the money doesn't go outside the firm. No residuals are paid to Mel Blanc's estate or Chuck Jones's estate or anyone.
They're also the bedrock of an extremely lucrative merchandising program that rakes in zillions. Taking away the Tweety and Yosemite Sam cartoons jeopardizes the sales of Tweety t-shirts and Yosemite Sam whatever-they-can-sell-with-his-image-on-it-this-month.
All the news items about this move say that no decision about the future of those cartoons has been made. That may be so or it may be more correct to say that no plans have been announced. Either way, they'll turn up somewhere. It would be Corporate Malpractice for the current management to not monetize them in some way.
And the current management is just that: The current management. It's been quite a while since I talked to anyone who works for any arm or tentacle of WBD who didn't seem unsure whether they'll have a position there next month…or if so, to whom they'll be reporting.
If anything, this episode may teach us a lesson about not relying on streaming services to stream what we want to see when and where we want to see it. My friend George shares with me a love for the 1951 movie Ace in the Hole starring Kirk Douglas. Almost every time I talk to George, he complains that nobody ever runs it these days.
Well, I do…or can. I bought the Criterion DVD — great print and extras aplenty — and it's still available on Amazon for $22. What George (who has a lot more money than I do) is complaining about is that no one's running it for free, like on TCM. But it's available. If you don't want to spend the $22, it's watchable 24/7 with a premium subscription on Amazon Prime, for $3.99 on Vudu or Apple TV, for $2.99 on Google Play or YouTube…
…and even if all those services drop it next week, George can come over to my house and watch it if he'll stop at Vito's Pizza on La Cienega and pick up a pie with mushrooms and meatballs. In a world of infinite streaming services and channels, nothing good is ever going to be unavailable for very long. You just have to look a little and, in some cases, spend three damned dollars.
Getting back to Bugs Bunny and his pals: Someone on a comment thread I read wrote, "It's criminal that children today will never be able to watch classics like What's Opera, Doc? and Duck Amuck." I think "never" is too strong a word here, especially since a lot of the cartoons in question are quite viewable on Boomerang if someone is willing to spring for $5.99 a month.
And for less than a hundred bucks, it is still possible to purchase the Looney Tunes Golden Collection — a 24 DVD set of 40 hours of Warner Brothers cartoons that no one can ever take away from you or charge you more to view. That's not all of them but by the time you get tired of watching those over and over, it's likely the ones you can't see on HBO Max right now will be available somewhere else. That somewhere else might even be a better showcase for them.
Don't despair. Bugs, Daffy, Porky and all the rest will outlive all of us, including the current management at Warner Bros. Discovery and the next management at Warner Bros. Discovery and the one after that and the one after that and the one after that…