Tex Avery Screwball Classics Blu-ray and DVD Volume 3 due October 5th

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by indy mike, Sep 7, 2021.

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  1. indy mike

    indy mike Forum Pest Thread Starter

    Great news for Tex Avery fans - Volume 3 of the Avery Screwball Classics will roll out October 5th. Details are available at Cartoon Research:

    Some Advance Notes on “Tex Avery Screwball Classics” Volume 3 |

    Some of the shorts have looked pretty rough over the years (Blitz Wolf in particular) - Jerry Beck goes into detail about that particular short (source elements available were extremely limited - they did their best with what was available), but as a nice added bonus a Warner Bros short Tex directed (The Crackpot Quail) has its original soundtrack restored - take the link to JBeck's site for the full story above. :cool:
     
    Last edited: Sep 7, 2021
  2. Kevin In Choconut Center

    Kevin In Choconut Center Offensive Coordinator

    The Tex Avery cartoons of the 1940s and 1950s are indeed, classics. I just bought a copy of Volume 1 from Amazon. And if it's as good as I think it is, I'll just have to have Volumes 2 and 3, as well.
     
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  3. Matheus Bezerra de Lima

    Matheus Bezerra de Lima Forum Resident

    Location:
    Brazil, Pará
    Be aware, though, that many cartoons in Vol. 2 suffer from DVNR because COVID meant that WAC's staff responsible for Vol. 1 and 3 restorations couldn't work in most cartoons in Vol. 2. So, quicker and cheaper HBO Max restorations were used.
     
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  4. indy mike

    indy mike Forum Pest Thread Starter

    Compared to the television prints that have been the source for Avery's MGM output that's been reissued for home video, Volume 2 looks far better than earlier reissues. If you're watching frame by frame the DVNR is annoying, if you're just hitting play and sitting back to laugh out loud you'll survive the transfers. It's doubtful that Warner is going to let George Feltenstein's team go back and redo that set - it's a wonder that they're putting those Avery shorts out in the first place, let alone that almost all of his MGM cartoons have gotten a blu-ray release (my guess is Uncle Tom's Cabana and Half-Pint Pygmy won't be making an appearance because of the racial content). Perhaps a 4th Avery set can be released that scoops up the handful of remaining MGM shorts that would be combined with some of Avery's Warner Bros cartoons to round out the set (take the link above to Jerry Beck's Cartoon Research site to get a better understanding of the Avery situation). Hopefully, these are selling enough to justify more MGM and Warner Bros cartoon blu-rays being put out (there's also the remaining Technicolor Popeye Famous Studios shorts, and I'd like for them to redo the Fleischer and Famous Superman cartoons on blu-ray while we're at it).
     
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  5. Matheus Bezerra de Lima

    Matheus Bezerra de Lima Forum Resident

    Location:
    Brazil, Pará
    You're right that the cartoons in Vol. 2 still look crisp and great, and surely far better than they ever looked. I think the Vol. 2 cartoons will receive new restorations by WAC someday (maybe as part of a full blu-ray set of all Avery's MGM cartoons), but not before WAC can do a lot of projects first. The remaining Popeye cartoons, the Fleischer's Superman cartoons, they may even tackle the Happy Harmonies, Tom & Jerry and Looney Tunes someday, who knows? It's better to get all of that first. Agree.
     
  6. dwm67

    dwm67 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Alberta, Canada
    Fantastic news … I have the first 2 volumes and enjoyed them thoroughly … pre-ordered Vol 3 :)
     
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  7. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    The usual deal with the major studios is that they retain 3 file copies of everything being restored: 1) the original "original" films can, warts and all; 2) the color-corrected / dirt-busted version but without NR; and the color-corrected / dirt-busted / noise-reduced version. People yell about "DVNR" all the time, but the truth is that Digital Vision went out of business in 2008 and their system hasn't been widely used in a long time. There's 10 other processes out there that are used, and everything has a knob that goes from "0" to "11." The key is to use good taste and have experienced people applying the NR.

    My tactic is never to take all the grain & noise out, but maybe experiment with about 50% or so. With a negative/IN/CRI source, most of the noise is in the highlights, so we amp up the noise reduction there but leave most of everything else alone. With a print/IP source, most of the noise is in the mids and shadows, and we try to confine it just there. We also can adjust the NR to affect only specific colors, or just the color channel and not the luminance (B&W) channel. We try to avoid doing too much to luma because that will make the picture softer. All of this has to be done on a scene-by-scene and sometimes a shot-by-shot basis, and it takes some experimentation and tests to find a setting that works well. There is no "one size fits all" adjustment that works for all scenes, particularly something with as much complex motion as animation.

    But if you saw the shorts without any grain reduction at all, you'd probably rip your eyes out of your head and throw the disc out the window (assuming you could still find the disc). Some of this old stuff is grainy and noisy and ugly beyond belief. And that would get even more complaints.

    BTW, one interesting ploy by the Warner MPI guys is they'll take the original color-corrected version and a noise-reduced version and then do a blend between them. Sometimes what you see is a little of this, and a little of that. It's much, much more complicated than you might think.
     
  8. g.z.

    g.z. Senior Member

    :) https://www.amazon.com/Tex-Avery-Screwball-Vol-blu-ray/dp/B09FCP4WN4

    1 - Blitz Wolf
    2 - The Early Bird Dood It
    3 - One Ham’s Family
    4 - Happy Go Nutty
    5 - Jerky Turkey
    6 - The Shooting Of Dan McGoo
    7 - Swing Shift Cinderella
    8 - Wild And Wolfy
    9 - Northwest Hounded Police
    10 - Slap Happy Lion
    11 - King Size Canary
    12 - What Price Fleadom
    13 - Little Tinker
    14 - Señor Droopy
    15 - Cock-A-Doodle Dog
    16 - Rock-A-Bye Bear
    17 - Little Johnny Jet
    18 - Billy Boy
    19 - Deputy Droopy
    20 - Cellbound

    + Warner Bros. The Crackpot Quail (with its original 1941 soundtrack).
     
  9. Matheus Bezerra de Lima

    Matheus Bezerra de Lima Forum Resident

    Location:
    Brazil, Pará
    This might be the best line-up of cartoons in all 3 volumes! But Volume 2 still gives it a good fight.
     
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  10. g.z.

    g.z. Senior Member

    :agree: I agree.
     
  11. t-man 54

    t-man 54 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Michigan
    I really don't think there will be any more volumes after this. What is left is Henpecked Hoboes, Uncle Tom's cabana, half pint pygmy, lucky ducky and droopy's good deed. All those are the ones with the racial content. I just don't see those being released on a future blu ray dvd to the masses. Then we have Cat's meow from 1956 which is a cinemascope retread of wags to riches and millionaire droopy from 1957 which is a cinemascope remake of ventriloquist cat. What is left from the Tex Avery vaults besides those are the 1935 to 1942 warner brothers era cartoons, the three 1941 paramount speaking of animals shorts and the 4 cartoons from the 1954-1955 walter lantz/universal era (I'm cold, crazy mixed up pup, the legend of rockabye point and sh-h-h-h-h.) As a big Tex Avery fan, i hope they do release those in the future, but i am having my doubts.
     
    Last edited: Sep 29, 2021
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  12. Matheus Bezerra de Lima

    Matheus Bezerra de Lima Forum Resident

    Location:
    Brazil, Pará
    Jerry Beck seems optimistic about a Vol. 4. Besides, Lucky Ducky isn't more racist than Garden Gopher or Magical Maestro and many other cartoons already released.
     
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  13. Volume 2 is greatly hit or miss. The filtering unfortunately was aggressive to erase occasional lines in the cel animation. It's not unwatchable but sharp viewers should pick up on it.
     
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  14. I’m hoping they don’t do the same with volume 3. It was annoying.
     
  15. Matheus Bezerra de Lima

    Matheus Bezerra de Lima Forum Resident

    Location:
    Brazil, Pará
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  17. Matheus Bezerra de Lima

    Matheus Bezerra de Lima Forum Resident

    Location:
    Brazil, Pará
    I don't think you read the article. I meant to say that the problems of Vol. 2 probably won't be repeated in Vol. 3. It's the same team that restored Vol. 1
     
  18. I read the article. It didn’t say much about the transfers beyond the fact that the Warner Archive guy came back after it had been completed(although it had been started before he was fired) . I assumed that was bad news. Glad to hear he’s back after the major bloodletting they had.
     
  19. Matheus Bezerra de Lima

    Matheus Bezerra de Lima Forum Resident

    Location:
    Brazil, Pará
    Let's wait and see.
     
  20. Yeah it depends on how much of the work and on who supervised it.
     
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  21. Matheus Bezerra de Lima

    Matheus Bezerra de Lima Forum Resident

    Location:
    Brazil, Pará
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  22. indy mike

    indy mike Forum Pest Thread Starter

    Looks like my copy has shipped and should be here tomorrow - I'm looking forward to the latest piece of the Tex Avery story.
     
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  23. g.z.

    g.z. Senior Member

    :thumbsup: Same here.
    It will be fun. I haven't seen some of these shorts for quite some time. :wiggle:
     
  24. Matheus Bezerra de Lima

    Matheus Bezerra de Lima Forum Resident

    Location:
    Brazil, Pará
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  25. g.z.

    g.z. Senior Member

    :thumbsup::thumbsup: This is great! I didn't move until I viewed the whole Blu-ray through. That was fun.

    I agree with everything in Strumm's posting.
    People, get this!
     
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