It seems like the lawyers who browse Youtube.com to purge the site of copyrighted material have gone on vacation recently. In their absence, a multitude of classic cartoons have sprung up...and from a multitude of different users. The displaying of copyrighted material on the internet has always been a touchy subject, ever since the music industry got fired up about downloading songs back in the 90's, a battle that continues to this day.
But unlike modern rock bands, nearly all of the people who created the Warner Bros. classic cartoons have passed away. Their characters and films live on, but in the past few years, Warner Bros. itself has done little to promote them. Aside from the wonderful "Golden Collection" DVD series, the 5th volume of which is due this fall, merchandising has dwindled, TV airings have literally stopped, and the future of Warner Bros. classic animation is literally in the hands of fans who want to keep it alive.
Through websites like Youtube, Dailymotion, and Myspace, hundreds of users have dusted off their old tapes of Looney Tunes from TV, digitized them, and shared them with the world. Full-length movies, even full TV shows, are a pain to upload and a chore to watch online...but 7-minute shorts are ideal entertainment for the internet. In response to the phenomenon, it seems Warner Bros. has decided to team up with sister company AOL to create "in2tv.com", where one can watch hundreds of Looney Tunes and several modern cartoon series including "Taz Mania", "Pinky and the Brain", and "Batman: The Animated Series." It costs neither the company nor the viewer anything, and only serves to promote the plethora of DVD releases. Given the choice between a low-resolution video of one episode in a 4-inch box and a DVD set of pristine copies of lots of episodes for 40 bucks or less, I'd definitely buy the DVD. Yet another interesting fact...In2TV actually links to cartoons posted by random users on Youtube!
So before they change their minds, browse Youtube. Search "Merrie Melodies", and you'll find a treasure trove of classic cartoons. I'll leave you with these:
"tree For Two"
http://youtube.com/watch?v=6yaXDYTRNSo
"Gopher Goofy"
http://youtube.com/watch?v=RUPmaSrDfRI
"Go Fly A Kit"
http://youtube.com/watch?v=fc06C-qg7Gk
4 comments:
Where I come from, In2TV doesn't work, the DVDs are HMV exclusive so if they don't have stock - too bad, so my only other option is to watch the limited selection on Boomerang (about two 30s, a few 40s, 50s bar a few [e.g. Rabbit Rampage, Lumberjack Rabbit aren't shown], a couple of the 60s shorts, a couple of the Daffy/Speedys, nearly all the 60s Road Runners). I must have seen Ali Baba Bunny about 20 times.
So no black and white/the missing shorts/the WW2 shorts/Daffy and Speedy/Cool Cat (bar 1)/the TV specials (apart from Spaced-Out Bunny which like Cool Cat is every 5 years or so)/the 90s/2000s revival shorts. Plus the quality is scratchy for some of them.
If only the DVDs were slightly cheaper and more avaliable (I can understand the restoration costs, but nearly everything is about twice/three times more expensive than the US [£40 about US$80 for Golden Collection 2]), I would buy them in a heartbeat, but I don't resort to piracy unless it is the only option which I don't even consider for something like Looney Tunes or Merrie Melodies.
- Yawackhary
There's a slew of toons companies like Warner Bros. don't give two flips about anymore due to they are whoring series like Scooby-Doo to death like Crusader Rabbit, Cattanooga Cats, The Raccoons, All of the Terrytoons, Hoppity Hooper and amoung others. I believe people have the right to see these properties that these corporate morons refuse to show us
Because i live in Canada, i try to watch cartoons on In2TV.com but it didn't work. I can't understand why it's just Americans peoples who could watch them. It's the same problem on CN and Disny Channel tough. I can't undersrtand!!
You tube is a perfect to watch your top TV series or movie trailers. When I was a kid I used to watch looney tunes.
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