WB Archive Collection: Discs On Demand!

[Ben]

Good to know about the Cats Don't Dance disc, Droo! I must have just guessed that since the original disc was cropped, the Archive reprint was too. I should have maybe picked that up, but I’m going to hold out hope for a Blu, as with Rover Dangerfield (though I do have that one oi a Archive DVD).

Since the "Shop" was closing, I did go a little nuts on picking up almost all of my final wants, out of a list that still has about as many curios and lesser priority titles on it. And I held off on The Thin Mans and Mickey 'n' Judy titles, as I’m hoping they’ll go the route they have on some other collections and do a three or four movie set once they’re all out.

That said, boy did I splurge. And I was lucky that the original 20% code was working when I placed my orders (yes, plural...I went back and picked up a few new titles and a couple that were out of stock during the sale itself). I don't usually share my pickups, for whatever reasons, but since others here have, and because I just got confirmation that everything has now shipped, I thought I’d maybe pop some eyeballs.

Yeah, I been a baaaaaaaaaaaad boy...! My Archive haul, in no particular order:

DAMN YANKEES
PAT AND MIKE
MILLION DOLLAR MERMAID
MY DREAM IS YOURS
SAN FRANCISCO
SHOW BOAT
SIX BY SONDHEIM
CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF
WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?
FATHER OF THE BRIDE
FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD
S.O.B.
FRANKENSTEIN 1970
FOOTLIGHT PARADE
DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES
TWO ON A GUILLOTINE
SWEET BIRD OF YOUTH
PRIDE AND PREJUDICE
SEVEN DAYS IN MAY
THE PIRATE
LIBELED LADY
THE HARVEY GIRLS
CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN
YOUNG MAN WITH A HORN
THE PAJAMA GAME
THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES
A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE
KISS ME KATE
MEET ME IN ST LOUIS

And a big shout out to James for taking them in for me! I guess when they arrive here I really should get aground to watching some of these...some day!

[Dacey]

and because I just got confirmation that everything has now shipped, I thought I’d maybe pop some eyeballs.

That enough poppin' for ya?

[Randall]

That makes my 17 title pick-up look sane by comparison. (Though I already had about half of those non-new titles already, from prior splurges.) Ben also picked up a few new titles that I passed on since they weren't on sale. However, I did get the recently released My Dream is Yours, as well as Damn Yankees.

I, BTW, have not yet seen my titles ship.

[Ben]

That enough poppin' for ya?

Just call me Mary!

[droosan]

In addition to my comparatively-meager purchase of 10 titles during the sale .. I went back for Clue Club, Shazzan and The Roman Holidays the following week.

I received both shipments last week .. but then, I live just a few miles north of the WB studio lot.

------------------------

I watched the entirety of Shazzan just yesterday. I'd only seen snippets of the show on Boomerang, over the years (because the channel was 'commercial free', individual story segments from Shazzan and other 'Super Adventure' cartoons were often used as 'padding' between half-hour blocks).

However -- as I'd long suspected -- Chuck and Nancy never actually find the Wizard of the Seventh Mountain .. and thus, never return home.

It's actually a pretty common trope for (american) cartoons & TV shows of the time .. but part of me still wonders, when I see these things: why bother to set-up a story arc with a definite goal, which you never even intend to ever resolve..?

The show features fantastic designs & layouts by Alex Toth, at least.

[Randall]

You watched all of Shazzan in one go? I love H-B cartoons, but I only ever do 1 or 2 at a time. And to this day, I still have most of my Shazzan set to get through!

And yet, I viewed all of Where's Huddles? fairly quickly. Go figure. Of course, that was only a single disc, too.

[droosan]

You watched all of Shazzan in one go?

Well .. not in 'rapt attention', admittedly.

I'm currently working on retopologizing a complex CAD model for a freelance gig, which can be 'mind numbing' work .. so -- often, while I'm doing something like that -- I'll put up a TV series on a nearby monitor to have something to listen to, and occasionally glance at, while I work.

Shazzan was actually perfect for that. A lot of Gerry Anderson's 'Supermarionation' shows work well, too.

[Ben]

why bother to set-up a story arc with a definite goal, which you never even intend to ever resolve..?

I’m guessing it’s because they were intending to continue into more seasons, which *may* have perhaps concluded things — as is still so often the case thesedays — or because, of course, they know these things, at the time, went into syndication and episodes could then just be played in any and all kinds of sequence so that the story is never resolved but "makes sense" each time.

That’s also why main titles for some of these kinds of shows have the "potted pilot" approach of bundling in the whole setup in a minute on the front, since there also weren’t any "previously on"s back then, and they wouldn’t make sense anyway of the shows were played out of order.

Usually these shows were just used as filler between the commercials anyway!

[Daniel]

WBShop is currently down while they renovate the site. Here's their new Amazon storefront.

[Randall]

Nope, the WB Shop is done. Over. Finis. Closed for good.
https://thedigitalbits.com/columns/my-t ... 40121-1500

Warner Archive will still be available through Amazon, as you noted, and perhaps other outlets.

[Daniel]

Well, you'll forgive me if I take that with a grain of salt.

[Randall]

It's been known for weeks that WB Shop was winding down. The company running it was dismissed. Close-out sales were happening. I suppose it's possible that something will replace it, but for now I'm not holding my breath.

[Ben]

The WB Shop website did go "down" right away the day after, and Amazon is providing a storefront for now, but WB did send out this email...

Some of our valued customers have inquired about WBShop.com today. Thank you for your loyalty and patience while our site undergoes renovation. We’re striving to bring you an improved experience online and will announce more details in the near future!

So...whatever all that means, but it appears things are not quite as final as Billy Bits says. Maybe.

[Randall]

Hmmmm....! I did not get that email. Well, that's interesting. Given that they are at the least changing the company running the store, one wonders how big a renovation we are looking at, and how far along it is. It also makes the term "close-out sale" seem disingenuous if they are already preparing to come back.

[Daniel]

WBShop is back up again. More of a list site now that gives redirect options of where to stream or buy. Meh.