Save Looney Tunes on TV Petition!

[Thad]

http://www.goldenagecartoons.com/Petition.jpg


Jon and I have started a petition to convince Warner Bros. to revoke Cartoon Network's exclusive rights to the Looney Tunes & Merrie Melodies short subjects.

Click the link below to read the petition and to sign it. NOTE: All appropriate signatures will be submitted to Warner Bros. January 1st, 2005.

http://www.petitiononline.com/ltoffcn/petition.html

-Thad

[Emmanuel Cruz]

I signed it. Man, I really hope this works fellas, because usually online petitions are doomed to failure. I guess I have to play the optimist for now.

Bring Back the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies!!:ham:

-Emmanuel:bosko:

[Martin Juneau]

I'm not sure that bring back on Cartoon Network, but that's well try

[Pietro]

I'm not sure that bring back on Cartoon Network, but that's well try
I don't think the object of this petition, Martin, is to bring the LT&MM cartoons back on CN. It's actual purpose is to give the rights of these cartoons to someone who will actually air them...

-Pietro:daffy:

[singaowl]

There is already one HERE (http://www.PetitionOnline.com/h947f432/petition.html) \


Don't copy!

[J. B. Warner]

No, singaowl, your petition is to get Cartoon Network to air Looney Tunes again. This petition is to take the rights to the cartoons away from CN and - why am I explaining this when Pietro already did?

Signed it. I'm all for this - classic cartoons need to be in the posession of people who respect their relevance. We should do this for Popeye and the MGM Tex Averys.

[Jon Cooke]

As Thad said earlier, he and I will be editing together the comments and signatures of the petition into a big letter to mail to Warner Bros. at the beginning of next year. It is becoming obvious that CN has no interest in airing the cartoons again anytime soon, so we thought we'd go right to the source.

WB Television recently sold off the syndication rights to a batch of "Smurfs" episodes and "Scooby-Doo" airs on the WB Network , so why can't something similar be done with the Looney Tunes?

-Jon

[Philo & Gunge]

I signed it! LONG LIVE LOONEY TUNES, DOWN WITH ED, EDD N' EDDY!

[corey3rd]

But they show LT/MMs on Boomerang. And they show an hour daily and repeat it two more times a day in case you missed it. Maybe you should be calling Time-Warner cable and demanding they carry Boomerang?

Unless you are demanding Boomerang also loses its exclusive rights to show Looney Tunes.

[Jon Cooke]

But they show LT/MMs on Boomerang. And they show an hour daily and repeat it two more times a day in case you missed it. Maybe you should be calling Time-Warner cable and demanding they carry Boomerang?

Unless you are demanding Boomerang also loses its exclusive rights to show Looney Tunes.

There are more than enough cartoons in the LT & MM library for there to be more than one TV network airing them.


-Jon

[Greg Method]

There are more than enough cartoons in the LT & MM library for there to be more than one TV network airing them.Especially considering at one time we had ABC, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, TBS, and TNT all regularly airing them...that's five channels utilizing three unique packages of shorts.

So I agree, I don't think a second channel somewhere else would put Boomerang's access to the library in jeopardy.

[Kaleido]

WB Television recently sold off the syndication rights to a batch of "Smurfs" episodes and "Scooby-Doo" airs on the WB Network , so why can't something similar be done with the Looney Tunes?Because Dic can claim The Smurfs is educational and there's a boatload of Scooby Doo tie-in merchandise available at your local retailers.

Short of Warner Bros. giving Dic a Looney Tunes package consisting of Old Glory, Ralph Phillips cartoons, the cartoons in which the mouse explains basic economic principles, and the Bugs Bunny / Elmer Fudd cartoon with the hats or creating a giant line of Looney Tunes merchandise and sharing revenues with The WB network or 4Kids Entertainment, current market conditions suggest Cartoon Network is the only channel on American television (with high distribution) where Looney Tunes could air.

[corey3rd]

There are more than enough cartoons in the LT & MM library for there to be more than one TV network airing them.


-Jon
It is about having an exclusive property when you are trying to sell your cable channel. Why would you want Boomerang if you can get all those cartoons from watching other channels? There are 1,000 LT/MM and Boomerang seems to show about 30 a week - that's 1,560 a year - without counting marathons. It's a pretty good number.

If you owned a cable channel or a TV station, I'd be all for you trying to get a package of LT/MM cartoons to show. But instead you are demanding that Time-Warner give up exclusive content to one of its up and coming cable stations and you're not even putting cash on the table just a bunch of cyber signatures. You're not trying to put together a syndication package. You're declaring:

"Removal of this burden will mean that every person in this nation can once again have access to these wonderful creations. New network negotiations can be formed, such as possibly seeing the shorts again on Nickelodeon, ABC, and in syndication."

Everyone does have the chance to see them - they can buy a sat dish. Do you really think Nick or ABC wants them? What Nick owned property do you see getting bounced for LT/MMs? What Disney owned property do you predict will get bumped for Bugs on ABC? It doesn't make corporate sense. They want shows that they can exploit all over Target like Spongebob and Fairly Odd Parents.

And local TV stations don't care to book kids programming because it just doesn't pay like adult programming (especially since you have to deal with that educational content junk). I spent a week in Boston and when I was a kid, it had some of the greatest TV programming - that's where I saw everything from Top Cat to Banana Splits to McHale's Navy and even the Three Stooges. Afternoon TV was a paradise for a kid. The week I just spent up in Boston was a vast TV wasteland. There was almost nothing for kids to watch outside of that lame 2 hours of Sell-aime on Fox. Everything else was court shows, talk shows, soaps and News shows. The market wants nothing older than a rerun of "The Simpsons."

And why blame the low box office on Back In Action on the lack of Looney Tunes on CN. The film failed because it wasn't worth $10 and the effort to get to the theater. It was barely up to Made-For-TV standards.

Warners seems quite content putting out the boxsets and airing the shorts on Boomerang. And I did write Time-Warner cable asking them to put on Boomerang after TechTV & G4 merged - and it starts on Dec. 1. And I've bought both boxsets so the beancounters in Burbank know that they have an audience for Vol. 3.

It'll be interesting to see Warners response although I'm going to guess that it'll include "we appreciate your concern" and "we'll look into this." And that'll be that.:shame:

[Kyle G.]

I know you guys mean well but what corey3rd is stating is pretty much dead on, which is the main reason why I could not sign your petition. It isn't 1991 anymore, things have changed not for the better but unfortunately it's the way it is.
Be happy with 4 hours (sometimes more with Saturdays) a week on Boomerang and Cartoon Alley on TCM.

Right now is the time to support Boomerang and show that there is interest in it or soon those 4 hours of classic Looney Tunes will be replaced by Baby Looney Tunes, classic Hanna-Barbera characters like The Flintstones and Yogi will be replaced by Krypto The Superdog and new Gerald Mc Boing Boing. Don't get me wrong Boomerang has some major faults and could use alot more variety all around that includes the chooses for the Looney Tunes airings, but it could be worse when's the last time you seen a classic Terry Toon on a Nickelodeon network and where's the classic Walt Disney shorts on their networks?

[Jon Cooke]

It is about having an exclusive property when you are trying to sell your cable channel. Why would you want Boomerang if you can get all those cartoons from watching other channels?

Does Boomerang even promote the fact that they are the exclusive TV home of the Looney Tunes? If they do, I sure haven't seen it. Usually when I see Boomerang promotion material its focusing on the Hanna-Barbera cast of characters (Yogi, Top Cat, etc).


And why blame the low box office on Back In Action on the lack of Looney Tunes on CN. The film failed because it wasn't worth $10 and the effort to get to the theater. It was barely up to Made-For-TV standards.

"Space Jam" wasn't exactly a great film either, but it did pretty well at the box office. That movie came out a time when the shorts and characters were all over TV.

It'll be interesting to see Warners response although I'm going to guess that it'll include "we appreciate your concern" and "we'll look into this." And that'll be that.:shame:

Even if nothing comes of it, at least there will be folks at WB who know people still care about the Looney Tunes characters. Is that a bad thing?


-Jon

[Thad]

Be happy with 4 hours (sometimes more with Saturdays) a week on Boomerang and Cartoon Alley on TCM.
Attitudes like that are going to make things even worse in the long run...

when's the last time you seen a classic Terry Toon on a Nickelodeon network
What people don't get is that Terrytoons never COULD have aired on Nickelodeon. Viacom gave the USA network a ten year contract, and they played them for a year before pulling them off the air. Viacom only had themselves to blame and watched their properties die. That contract has expired a few years ago, but you can't expect Nickelodeon to jump up and air cartoons only 1 out of 100 people have heard of or remember...


-Thad

[AngryBeavers]

I signed it. I'm number 36.

[corey3rd]

"Space Jam" wasn't exactly a great film either, but it did pretty well at the box office. That movie came out a time when the shorts and characters were all over TV.

-Jon
Two words: Michael Jordan. When Space Jam came out - he ruled the universe. And while the film made $90 million in the theaters (deduct half of that as money that stayed with the theater chains) - it cost $80 million to make - factor in the cost of making prints and marketing (probably $30 million) and you have a film that isn't close to making a profit. And do people really care about Space Jam?

It's good to let the beancounters at Warners know that you and others care about seeing Looney Tunes.

[Mike]

Especially considering at one time we had ABC, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, TBS, and TNT all regularly airing them...that's five channels utilizing three unique packages of shorts.
And there was Fox (and then Kids WB) airing them at the same time, too. As CN told us over and over again a few years ago, there are 1,000 LT cartoons out there. No one channel needs to have access to them all.

Mike

[Mike]

But instead you are demanding that Time-Warner give up exclusive content to one of its up and coming cable stations and you're not even putting cash on the table just a bunch of cyber signatures.
If Time Warner really cared as much about Boomerang as all that, they'd make sure it programmed for more than 8 hours a day. No cable systems are going to rush out to put that cable channel on their lineup, and what's more important, nobody's going to rush out and demand a cable channel that programs for only 8 hours a day. I consider myself more of a cartoon buff than the average person, but even I didn't think enough of Boomerang to subscribe to digital cable so I could get it, and the 8 hour programming day is a large reason why. I think Boomerang's failings thus far are due primarily to their short programming day and their overall lack of variety. Not being able to bill themselves as the "exclusive home for Looney Tunes" (and like Jon said, they don't bill themselves as that anyway) wouldn't hurt them anymore than they're already hurting themselves.

Everyone does have the chance to see them - they can buy a sat dish.
And they could buy the DVDs too. Not everyone has a ton of money to spend. By letting the cartoons air on a network or on a basic cable channel, you don't have to own a satellite dish or pay extra for digital cable to watch them. There's a whole generation of kids out there growing up without these cartoons, because they simply don't have exposure to them.

Do you really think Nick or ABC wants them? What Nick owned property do you see getting bounced for LT/MMs?
Not so sure about ABC, but I wouldn't be surprised if Nick took a shot on them. Yes, I know it's not the 1990s anymore, and your points about networks only wanting to air cartoons they can directly profit off of are valid, but it was only about a year ago that Nick was airing an hour of Tiny Toons every afternoon, in a pretty prime slot. And Nick doesn't see one thin dime of Tiny Toons revenue.

And local TV stations don't care to book kids programming because it just doesn't pay like adult programming (especially since you have to deal with that educational content junk).
This is sadly true. We'll never see TV the way it was as recently as the 1980s and early 90s. But, OTOH, a lot of the classic kids programming that have been proven ratings winners over the years, like LT, T&J, Flintstones, Jetsons and Scooby-Doo, aren't available to these local stations anymore. Would these stations pass up the cartoons they once embraced? It's a possibility. But they should at least have the option of doing so.

[QUOTE]And why blame the low box office on Back In Action on the lack of Looney Tunes on CN. The film failed because it wasn't worth $10 and the effort to get to the theater. It was barely up to Made-For-TV standards./QUOTE]

Actually, most of the critics who saw BIA liked it. I saw it in the theater, and I'd say it was well worth the price of admission. Time Warner put barely any money behind the film's promotion. CN barely even showed the very cartoons that inspired the film. By being the only outlet for LT on television, and then by not airing them, CN is helping to breed a generation of kids not familiar with LT, and the proof is the poor BO of BIA.

Like Jon said later on, look at Space Jam. And don't tell me the success of that movie was due to Michael Jordan. Michael Jordan, even in his prime, doesn't sell $90 million worth of movie tickets all by himself. Time Warner actually promoted Space Jam, and, since the cartoons were still all over TV in 1996, kids knew what LT was all about.

Mike

[Jon Cooke]

Two words: Michael Jordan. When Space Jam came out - he ruled the universe. And while the film made $90 million in the theaters (deduct half of that as money that stayed with the theater chains) - it cost $80 million to make - factor in the cost of making prints and marketing (probably $30 million) and you have a film that isn't close to making a profit. And do people really care about Space Jam?
I am sure that after they figured in the overseas box office, the pay-per-view rights, the TV broadcast rights, the VHS and DVD sales, and the merchandise sales that "Space Jam" turned a profit for WB. It was successful enough for WB to look into various sequels, even though none got off the ground until BIA (I recall there was talk of a "Spy Jam" movie with Jackie Chan and a Wacky Races-type movie with the LT characters).


-Jon

[Kyle G.]

[

What people don't get is that Terrytoons never COULD have aired on Nickelodeon. Viacom gave the USA network a ten year contract, and they played them for a year before pulling them off the air. Viacom only had themselves to blame and watched their properties die. That contract has expired a few years ago, but you can't expect Nickelodeon to jump up and air cartoons only 1 out of 100 people have heard of or remember...
-ThadI was aware of this.


I have to say that I understand what you guys are doing and would realy like to see it myself, but I just don't see it happening. I do wish you guys luck though.


Also anybody who's familair with my posts here and the past on the old board (As Zumbidometal) would know that I've been very open about my opinion on how CN and Boomerang are ran and the decisions they've made. I do feel that the promotion for Boomerang has been very poor.

:bugs2:

[Vdubdavid]

Just as a quick sidebar about Nickelodeon, they DO still show Tiny Toons and Animaniacs on their Digital Cable Nicktoons channel in prime time, and they're the only shows that aren't original Nick product.

[Greg Method]

Just as a quick sidebar about Nickelodeon, they DO still show Tiny Toons and Animaniacs on their Digital Cable Nicktoons channel in prime time, and they're the only shows that aren't original Nick product.Very true. In fact, the Nicktoons network just aired a four-hour "Tiny Toons" marathon over the weekend, right in the middle of their Nicktoons-themed Thanksgiving programming "Planksgiving."

[singaowl]

Maybe if they took away the EXCLUSIVE RIGHTS away, They could still show them but other channels could to. :tweety: :tweety: :tweety: :tweety: :tweety: :tweety: :tweety: :tweety: :tweety: :tweety: :tweety: :tweety: :tweety: :tweety:

[Philo & Gunge]

Maybe if they took away the EXCLUSIVE RIGHTS away, They could still show them but other channels could to. :tweety: :tweety: :tweety: :tweety: :tweety: :tweety: :tweety: :tweety: :tweety: :tweety: :tweety: :tweety: :tweety: :tweety:Dude, CN treats these cartoons like there moldy cheese :rolleyes: . Relieze CN would never bring these cartoons, back no matter how hard you tried.

[cabe624]

I signed it. As I pointed out in the petition, WB would probably gain a lot of revenue not only from the DVD's, but also from the products in stores that market the Looney Tunes characters. The marketing aspect of this problem is certainly not the reason I want these cartoons back on other stations, but its definitely something that would appeal to the bean counters at Warners.

Even if the cartoons are edited, I'll just be pleased with the fact that they're on TV. At the very least, it would be something to hold me over until the next LTGC DVD set is released. Plus, Looney Tunes could be exposed to new generations of children if shown in the morning as they had been for years; before CN gained control of the collection. I just hope this petition works.

[AngryBeavers]

You know, I've been trying to get other people from other boards interested in signing this petition, but I keep getting the same response, "What's the point of having Looney Tunes on TV, if they're just going to be cut due to polilitical incorrectness?" Plus, the people at the MST3K Review Board commented that "If you want to see Looney Tunes, they're on Cartoon Alley on TCM." But, what they don't realize is not everyone has TCM!:(

[travis t]

when is Cartoon Alley shown on TCM?

[UncleJunior]

"when is Cartoon Alley shown on TCM?"

Today at 11:30 A.M.

[Greg Method]

Plus, the people at the MST3K Review Board commented that "If you want to see Looney Tunes, they're on Cartoon Alley on TCM." But, what they don't realize is not everyone has TCM!:(And, as much as I am glad that TCM is finally offering a cartoon series, three cartoons a month is hardly any kind of substitute.

I am very surprised to hear MSTies brush something like this off, considering how many years they had to deal with Comedy Central and Sci-Fi playing around with the show on their schedules. I seem to recall a half-hour on Comedy Central in which fans called in to gripe to the network president live on the air.

[Pietro]

Keep those signatures coming, folks!

We're already up to 56!

-Pietro:daffy:

[Geezil]

Keep those signatures coming, folks!

We're already up to 56!

-Pietro:daffy:Oh, more than that! (I'm somewhere in there too.) But slowly. Too slowly. (Where'd I put those chewable coffee-and-sugar tablets, and who'd like one right now? That's right, pass 'em along!) :D

[Jeff]

Although I have to unfortunately agree with corey3rd's earlier comments, I signed the petition to let WB know that there are people out here who still care about the cartoons. Of course they also have my $90 for the two LT:GC sets and my $10 for LT:BIA admission...

I'm signature #59. I agree we need more people to sign, where else are you guys pushing this petition? Animation History forum?

I can't understand how WB was all gung ho with these characters, scheduling new theatrical shorts, planning a feature film, releasing the shorts on DVD, etc and now we're where we are.

One thing I thought about: Maybe WB feels the characters "need a break" based on the lackluster performance of LT:BIA so they are putting them on network hiatus for a little bit...having them on continuous rotation has caused the mass public to kind of take them for granted and a break will allow them to bring them back with a stronger marketing strategy.

I'd prefer to believe this rather than think that someone at WB feels the characters have no more life left in them outside of the nostalgia market.