Finished viewing and had a great time. Stuff I'd only seen in Me-TV rips especially popped. Whole program was a total blast. Honestly, if I hadn't known about the botched titles, I'm not 100% sure I would have noticed/cared. Plus, I have a hard time getting hung up about blue ribbon titles. "I refuse to have an HD copy of A TALE OF TWO MICE in my collection because they slightly altered its precious BLUE RIBBON title!" Like, what? Gtfo.

My copy arrived yesterday and tonight I watched the first half of the program. So far, I'm totally satisfied. Indeed, I had a hard time spotting any digital trickery regarding the title sequences on the HBOMax remasters (the fact that the trickery is there is still a bit disappointing, but Warner Archive did go the extra mile to disguise it, so I can accept it). The only point where maybe, maybe I caught some monkey business was on 'Greedy For Tweety' where there was a jump from the director's credit slate to the first shot of the short itself instead of a smooth dissolve or fade in/out. Then again, it's been a long time since I've seen that short so I really can't say for certain.

Otherwise, I had a grand time revisiting beloved shorts that I had not seen in a decade or more. Shorts like 'Little Orphan Airedale' or 'Beanstalk Bunny' for instance, the latter always being one of my favorites on the old 'Daffy Duck: The Nuttiness Continues' VHS we would rent from Blockbuster. 'Catch as Cats Can' though, that was the real revelation. I got it on an old tape trade many, many years ago and it was the typical slightly murky broadcast quality. Now though? It just leapt off the screen!

Another observation: with the two Road Runner shorts in the playlist, I think this the first instance of two shorts from the same release season (in this case 1958/59) being included next to each other in the same set. It was neat to see the complimentary bullseyes of the LT and MM series in the same colors, one after the other. That and the fact that this collection is so well-balanced between reoccuring characters, one-shots and directors really makes me wish for a revisit of the idea of chronological sets. Pick any release season from 1945 to at least 1960 to start off with and you'd still surely get a decent mix.

I continue to ponder the reactions to this disc and the Superman collection and why the reaction to the latter was so much more visceral. I feel like that with the WB shorts we got much better preparation for what was coming from Jerry Beck and Thad Komorowski. I honestly want to question if there was actually any 'misinformation' regarding this or if we simply extrapolated from a reference to 'all new masters' that it was for all the shorts as opposed to only BB and CACC? Regardless, it just illustrates what I've always believed that sustained open and honest communication about what a set has and what it doesn't have goes a long way to defusing potential hard feelings. The fact that this isn't common operating procedure when dealing with corporations does not speak well of the state of the world.

In contrast, the Superman set was practically a 'black box' situation with the only hopeful sign being reference to notes from Mr. Feltenstein. I always felt it was a long shot whether those notes would have been followed given all that's happened over the past 3-4 years, but I held out hope until the last possible moment. I still would not have purchased Superman once it was confirmed the soundtracks were still all fouled up, but again, better communication would have taken a lot of the sting out the decision I ultimately made.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to waching the rest of the shorts and sharing this with friends and family!

I continue to ponder the reactions to this disc and the Superman collection and why the reaction to the latter was so much more visceral. I feel like that with the WB shorts we got much better preparation for what was coming from Jerry Beck and Thad Komorowski. I honestly want to question if there was actually any 'misinformation' regarding this or if we simply extrapolated from a reference to 'all new masters' that it was for all the shorts as opposed to only BB and CACC?

I own both these discs (regrettably in Superman's case) and I can tell you the reason that the Superman reaction was much more visceral was because it looks nothing like classic animation. It has been cleaned to hell and back and watching it in motion is even weirder than looking at the screenshots. Looney Tunes looks amazing in comparison, and I honestly have zero complaints about Looney Tunes. These two discs look nothing like each other.

The misinformation indeed happened. Jerry and George were both on The Extras podcast and straight up said that all the restorations on the disc were new and not the same as HBO Max. The podcast is easily accessible to listen to. Like most people, I don't care that they used the HBO Max restorations - they still look amazing and it would be a waste to keep them exclusive to HBO Max. I just think it's ridiculous that they flat out said they wouldn't use those restorations when they could have just not said it.