LOONEY TUNES
SUPER STARS

Running from 2010 to 2013, the series was marred with several controversies that led to its demise, despite releasing nine "volumes."

Background

As the Golden Collection came to a conclusion in 2008, Warner Bros. looked for new ways to cater to the family market. Blu-ray was on the rise despite being a rather new technology at the time, but production for such a format was quite expensive early on to attract the general market. Unlike the Golden Collection, where the restoration team had free rein to choose the shorts, Warner Home Video was primarily responsible for selecting the shorts.

Also on the growing craze at the time was widescreen. New works were being created for the ongoing rise of HDTV, and Warner Bros. attempted to make this no exception for the Looney Tunes shorts. There's a problem though - none of the Golden Age shorts were actually in widescreen, unlike the CinemaScope MGM shorts at the end of that studio's lifespan.

Warner Home Video did some deeper research and found out that theaters tended to screen the shorts much differently than what was often perceived. What was seen on TV was how they were produced, but apparently theaters had a choice on whether to show the shorts in fullscreen or widescreen. This particularly came about as a result of producer Eddie Selzer purchasing new equipment for the directors in 1954 to make cartoons in fullscreen resolution that would also be suitable for widescreen resolution. This only became standard after the shorts were produced following the studio's shutdown in 1953; in particular, only shorts that began production after the studio's shutdown were formatted with this resolution in mind. For reference, the first short that was produced for widescreen in mind was 1954's "By Word of Mouse", while the last short that was produced for fullscreen resolution only was 1955's "Lumber Jerks". Several pre-shutdown shorts (often those released from 1954-55 that used Carl Stalling's opening themes) were not intended for widescreen.

Fans initially rejoiced at the release of these newly remastered shorts, but things went awry the instant the series started in 2010 and released the first two volumes, Hare Extraordinaire and Frustrated Fowl - Warner Home Video took the "all post-1953 shorts were presented in theaters as widescreen only" a bit too literally and made widescreen the only option to view the shorts released after that year. Fans and even newcomers weren't pleased; the shorts were always viewed in fullscreen when aired on television, and jumping to widescreen without notice came across as weird at best and insulting at worst. This wasn't Warner Home Video's first rodeo with this widescreen debacle; Tom and Jerry fans had their turn when the Chuck Jones Collection came out in 2009, which polarized cartoon fans accustomed to how they were aired on television.

Viewers criticized the new presentation as cramped, throwing out art that was produced for Academy ratio in the first place, and even being historically inaccurate, as this affected a handful of shorts that were produced before the 1953 studio shutdown and weren't suited for the widescreen format. Many also questioned why a fullscreen option wasn't provided in the first place for the best of both worlds.

The first two titles quickly suffered from poor sales and heavy backlash from audiences. For most of the later releases, Warner Home Video attempted to resolve this issue by providing fullscreen shorts alongside the widescreen versions; most viewers settled for fullscreen anyway. By the last two volumes, the shorts are presented only in fullscreen, as it became increasingly clear that no one liked the widescreen versions at the time.

Even in spite of that, a few viewers pointed out the restoration quality of a few shorts in the first few volumes, primarily since a good portion of them used interpositives instead of the original negatives, resulting in slightly lesser quality than those in the Golden Collection. Nevertheless, the restoration effort is considered good enough for most modern viewers. There were also two sets that were just double dips of the Golden Collection shorts (some in actually worse quality) in an attempt to remedy the costs of restoration that sold about as poorly as imagined - Feline Fwenzy and the PAL region-only Wascally Wabbit.

In recent years, this series has been primarily overlooked as a result, although it notably has come to light for completing the filmographies of three minor characters: Pepé Le Pew, Sylvester Junior, and Hippety Hopper. The widescreen debacle slowly came to an end many years later as most of the shorts began to be released in their original aspect ratio for later collections such as the Platinum Collection. The set notably also received two compilation reissues that often sell for cheaper than their standalone counterparts, making it a decent budget addition for new collectors.

It is highly recommended to examine each set for its collector's recommendation score, as not all volumes are worth obtaining. It is also worth noting that any Golden Collection shorts that had bonus audio tracks are not carried over to this release. Lastly, note that some streaming or television prints of these shorts may be cropped in widescreen due to often providing the incorrect print, such as the Amazon Prime Video release of Barnyard Bigmouth (labeled as "Foghorn Leghorn and Friends", which has five of its fifteen shorts cropped to widescreen), so be aware if you do try to purchase digital versions of the shorts. Widescreen cropped versions of the shorts are deemed as unofficial restored releases.

Releases

• Bugs Bunny: Hare Extraordinaire
• Daffy Duck: Frustrated Fowl
• Foghorn Leghorn: Barnyard Bigmouth
• Tweety & Sylvester: Feline Fwenzy
• Bugs Bunny: Wascally Wabbit (PAL)
• Road Runner & Wile E. Coyote: Supergenius Hijinks
• Pepé Le Pew: Zee Best of Zee Best
• Porky & Friends: Hilarious Ham
• Sylvester & Hippety Hopper: Marsupial Mayhem

Reissues

• Looney Tunes Super Stars Family Multi-Feature (aka Looney Tunes Super Stars 3-Pack in early printings)
• Looney Tunes Super Stars Family Multi-Feature Vol. 2