Since keeping the IAD Forum in the loop on new special sets is evidently of little to no concern to Steve anymore (apart from "Missing Links", the past several were only announced on Blu-ray.com to my knowledge), and no one else is going to bother doing it either, I'll point out Steve's latest announcement, "Looney Tunes: Missing in Action":

https://forum.blu-ray.co...?p=16661353#post16661353 

More films for the 'All Censored' Blu-ray showed up here today- even better copies on a few films! We have a scan session Monday for these and another group on them after a period where the scanner wasn't available.

We're hoping to get 'All Censored', '1967', 'Toon Club' and 'Terry/LantzFamous' all sent in the next week or so along with the other titles that just got done. Now, to dub and get all these out the door! There's a bunch of things gong out the door this week still, including some long late things out of the country.

One of the collectors lent some other films with this batch not on DVD or Blu-ray, so we're doing another special set called 'Looney Tunes Missing in Action'.

This set (BD-R) will be scanned from nice 16mm prints of 13 Looney Tunes and Merry Melodies from the 30s and 40s not on DVD or Blu-ray. If not the last of the sets, it's at least pretty close to it!

The set is $15.95 plus $4 postage to the US, $8 to outside the US, and $12 to other countries. If you have any others already ordered the shipping is free. Paypal, as usual, is steves@thunderbeananimation.com. Please make sure to note 'Looney Tunes Missing in Action' in the paypal note.

Thanks to all for supporting all these projects!

I'll also point out a couple others announced less recently. No deadline for orders was given in the announcements, so it may still be possible to get orders in:

https://forum.blu-ray.co...?p=16537405#post16537405 

Rainbow Parades, volume 1 is getting really close to the finish line now. The last few films are getting scanned and cleaned up, and we're working on a fun menu design that includes new animation.

Side note: If you ordered the original set through Thunderbean's pre-order, you will get both volume 1 shipped now, and volume 2 when finished. You'll also get a sneak preview disc of Volume 2 films with the finished volume 1.

We're doing a little fundraiser 'booster' to help get Rainbow Parade, volume 1 finished a little faster and could use your help! For contributing, you get:

1) An original drawing from the animated title sequence
2) A short 16mm b/w strip of film from one of the Rainbow Parades
3) A disc of the Cinecolor Rainbow Parades in original, raw scans and pieces, including all leaders.

This fundraiser set is $14, with shipping included. Paypal, as usual, is steves@thunderbeananimation.com. Be sure to list 'Rainbow Fundraiser' in the paypal note. Thanks to all of you who make these things happen. We can use all the help we can to get the set to replication!

https://forum.blu-ray.co...?p=16604692#post16604692 

The first two days of the week went really well (although still working on some master issues). Will be checking on packing in the morning- although I hear we're almost there, finally.

There's been a bunch of emails these last few days-- so I'm going to do this one.

Offered is a 'special' disc (BDR) called:

'Late 80s live action/animated feature'. It's scanned from a very good condition original 35mm theatrical print, intact and uncut, with its original 2 track stereo theatrical Dolby mix. It's an excellent representation of the film as first released.

The set is $17.95 plus $4 postage. $8 for Canada or outside US. No postage if you've ordered any other sets. Postage is also free to anyone outside US (we've been so behind on those orders that we owe all of you).

Thanks to everyone for supporting these sets and keeping the faith!

Holy cow! Thank you so much for posting here! I would have totally missed this! 😮

Sorry for not posting that here; I do love the IAD forum! Catch up is still in progress on so many of these projects that it seemed easier to have things only in once place. I'll make sure to post here too...

So, I'm assuming teaser screenshots will be forthcoming which I'll be looking forward to.

Steve, would you consider reopening orders exclusively for IAD members on the special sets you didn't announce here that are no longer available? I'm thinking particularly of "Fleischer Follies" (set of late-'20s to mid-'30s Fleischer cartoons, including Talkartoons and Screen Songs) and "A Lot of Little Bugs" (or "1941 animated feature" - 'nuff said), perhaps also the Rainbow Parade Fundraiser* and late-'80s feature sets since those announcements were already more than a couple weeks old when I posted them here and you've since effectively pronounced them unavailable over there, and any others I'm forgetting.

It would be a nice courtesy to your old friends here, and since all of these sets are likely months away from being shipped you'd still be able to ship all orders in one swoop. I would have eagerly scooped up that Fleischer Follies set (early Fleischer sound cartoons being among my few, er, specialties) and probably also the 1941 feature had they been announced here, and I'm sure others here would've as well. I used to think of the Blu-ray.com Thunderbean thread as being worth checking in on now and then simply for the additional updates and insight that you've shared there from time to time; I didn't anticipate needing to check in there on a more consistent basis just to get in on things that once upon a time were exclusive to this forum... and again, I'm sure the same applies to others here.

* Though I got in on the original Rainbow Parade preorder, I missed out on this. I for one don't need the original animation drawing or film strip, but would love to still get in on the disk of raw scans.

Sigh. With everything that's been going on on my end I've been pretty distracted from keeping up with reporting special set announcements/re-offerings here. Anyway, for anyone not already aware, "Looney Tunes: Missing in Action"  as well as "Famous Studio's 'Little Lulu' cartoons"  and "All Censored, Volume 2"  were recently made available again, and still are, on the Thunderbean Shop.

"Cartoon Grab Bag"  and "Halloween Spook-O-Rama"  were also announced in the recent past and were mentioned in contemporary Thunderbean Thursday columns on Cartoon Research, but I'm mentioning them here too in case anyone overlooked them. These along with "Missing in Action" and a couple others apparently will begin shipping in the coming days, but currently remain available.

Thanks for keeping us in the loop, Zachary.

Personally, though, I must admit I'm sick and tired of Steve taking several MONTHS after you'd reasonably expect to send out discs, whether you pre-order them to support the production or buy them on the Thunderbean Shop site. It's some of the reasons I find myself buying Thunderbean's products less often these days, sadly.

I've been buying Thunderbean stuff ever since Steve originally offered that 35mm scan of Gulliver's Travels as a special set nearly nine years ago, and have dealt with my fair share of poor customer service over the years regarding defective or never-received discs—the weird hit-or-miss nature of getting an email/P.M. response at all from Steve, and sometimes replacements not actually being shipped even when he responded they would (those being the days when tracking numbers weren't provided)—so I can sympathize with the frustration, and have even had my own interest tested at times. And I had the advantage of being a domestic customer, with packages typically taking a few days to arrive after being shipped; how much more time-consuming and frustrating it must have been for foreign customers given the greater transit time for international packages!

That said, things are quite a bit better now since Steve's associate David Grauman set up the Thunderbean Shop site and took on handling the order fulfillment and customer support duties. There are tracking numbers at last (at least for orders placed through the Shop, and replacement shipments in response to support tickets), and David is good at responding to support tickets and following through with things. If everyone except you seems to be receiving their copies of something, or you have any other issue with an order (including old direct-via-PayPal pre-orders), the proper way to get it resolved is to open a ticket on the Shop. Going forward, the historically bad support is no longer reason to hesitate to buy from Thunderbean.

A legitimate point could still be raised that the anticipated times Steve provides for when things will be done and shipped are often, shall we say, overly optimistic and need to be taken with a grain of salt at minimum—the holiday-themed (Halloween, Christmas) discs being more-or-less exceptions since he does go out of his way to get those done in time for the associated holiday. But one thing is consistent, which is that these sets do eventually get finished and shipped even if it takes much longer than estimated.

At the end of the day, I've continued to purchase these special sets over the years first and foremost because the benefit to me is too great to pass up, not just to support Thunderbean. Steve and these discs are the best connection we have now to the world of film collecting and the rarities and high-quality elements found therein, and between the studios' general disinterest in putting out official releases of their cartoons and the deficiencies that sometimes mar them when they do, these discs provide some of the best—or only—copies of various things that we'll have for the foreseeable future.

Hi Zach/ all,

I really do appreciate everyone who's helped make these things possible; for a long time I was clearly overwhelmed and enable to keep up with things.

That has gotten a lot better with Thunderbean expanding and being able to afford to have help getting the orders organized and out-- it's made a huge difference in both doing the sets and having way, way frustrated customers. Dave especially has organized things, but Becky is just as valuable and does the majority of the Amazon orders, and Becca is busy cleaning up films and going on dubbing sprees when needed.

The growing pains have been easing....We're in a period right now where getting things scanned has become easier again and I'm able to keep up with making sets. We've had more titles go out this year than any (mostly special ones) and and working on getting three more 'Official' titles out the door still this year, and even more of the special ones.

Still, I work full time at the college and am pretty exhausted from doing these things. I'll work on visiting here more often and keeping the updates happening.

I'm sorry for the issues that have existed at times and hope we've managed to remedy those as a little company. I'll keep working on improve things and be more timely. It's still super tiny but I always see the potential to be able to do even more as it get just a little bigger. Flip is finally almost done and that's a huge step!

Thanks all for everything,
Steve