The following is derived from reading animation discussion here and on places like the Blu-Ray.com forums (where I am not a member but visit regularly):
I’ve been following classic films and animation in particular for more than 20 years. I’ve usually watched from the sidelines (with occasional attempts to contribute) as debate goes back and forth about what gets released by who and what restoration gets done (or not). It seems to come in cycles and while I by no means think I have the ability as a layperson to settle anything, I’d like to consolidate my thoughts on the matter and see whether anyone agrees with me.
I feel I should state up front that the following is not a ‘demand’ for anyone to do anything, and I’ll come back to that later.
I don’t think I’m alone when I say I have long harbored the desire for complete, chronological collections of animated shorts from the Hollywood studios. Some of it stems from my personality as a collector who takes it as a fun challenge to see all of a given series. Another part comes from my interest in history, as someone who enjoys discovering heretofore unknown material or seeing familiar material given new life through careful restoration.
The ability to watch the development of an animation legacy from its beginnings to endings holds immense appeal to me, and in an era where there’s a mad scramble to preserve and digitize as much material as possible (a process that I acknowledge is still time-consuming and under-resourced despite technological advances) that desire has only grown as we reach and grope through situations such as the controversies that sadly marred the ‘Porky Pig 101’ and ‘Tex Avery Screwball Classics Vol. 2’ releases.
I think to myself that full chronological sets are really the only thing that really have not been tried. Disney came the closest with the Treasures collections, but those were still sorted by starring characters, and at one point suffered from neglect in the restoration department (see the Disney Rarities and Chronological Donald Vol. 2 sets with their outdated video-era presentations). I’ve since learned that Warners, at one point, considered adopting a chronological approach to their animation releases before going with the Golden Collection template, which has continued to be the standard to this day. The fact that it was even considered was relevatory to me and suggests that maybe, with the right efforts in the right places, such an idea could be revisited.
I think about how fascinating it would be to simply have all the shorts in one place, where you could binge a certain year and not get burned out from seeing 5-6 Tweety or Road Runner cartoons in a row. I also realize that the Looney Tunes library is best situated for a chronological approach as even their one-shots and less prolific characters have lingering cultural cache and appeal. Compare that to the MGM cartoons. Without the presence of Tom & Jerry or the Tex Avery characters, how could we reasonably expect much interest in the Happy Harmonies and Barney Bear shorts? Couldn’t a chronological approach boost the whole library?
Yet time and time again I have seen this idea rejected as not financially feasible. To that I ask, has anyone ever really tried to calculate what it would take to make it financially feasible? More importantly, if anyone has crunched the numbers, what prevents them from sharing that information with our community? This is simply speculation on my part, but what if it were a limited edition release (akin to the 1960s Batman Complete Series blu-ray set), perhaps only to be made if a certain pre-order threshold was met?
To those who would say the presence of shorts like the Censored 11 precludes such action, that’s where products like the Platinum and upcoming Choice collections could really save the day. Give those sets the heavy marketing pushes to make the revenue. Keep word about limited-release chronological sets to the bare minimum so the chance of someone with a political ax to grind deciding to stir up trouble in the mass media is reduced. Honestly, it sounds like the one time where being a small, usually unacknowledged segment of the market could work in our favor.
I’d truly love it if we could reach a point where such a collection, and the likes of the Golden/Spotlight/Platinum/Choice Collections and Super Star discs could coexist. Once you have the library squared away for the former, they are all set for the latter and you’ve satisfied one of the most vocal segments of your customer base without alienating others. I wish we could do more to fight the ‘They Don’t Care’ corporate attitude so that sets like this are not at risk of being simply a one-time success that gets a handful of volumes and then peters out. We’ve seen that before with the Golden and Platinum collections, which were terrific but inevitably ran out of steam as the shorts became more obscure. Then the series ends and we end up starting all over again a few years down the line, because they have to get shorts like ‘What’s Opera, Doc?’ and ‘One Froggy Evening’ out first for the general public.
I hope that by writing all this I’ve been respectful as possible. I don’t ‘demand’ chronological sets to the exclusion of all else. Indeed, I’ve just placed my pre-order for the Choice Collection, so no one can accuse me of being so petty as to not support an important release just because it isn’t exactly what I want.
I just want to get away from this merry-go-round of recrimination and resignation and find something that could point the way to a sustainable program of restorations and better and better releases.