Encore Cartoons

[The Spectre]

Originally Posted by Martianinvader

It is from another episode. The pan ends at Shirley levitating her soup spoon into her mouth, and from there, Plucky came in wanting the essence of Einstein....

The soup-levitation is the real giveaway where this scene comes from... when you realise it's reused animation, that is. Otherwise it can pass itself off as a normal bit of Loon behaviour.

[TServo2049]

Originally Posted by The Spectre

Doesn't explain why Hutten was credited on the (Kennedy animated) Hare Today though...

Bill Hutten and Tony Love worked in L.A., freelancing for Hanna-Barbera, etc.

On the Chucklewood stuff, Encore Enterprises was first listed as being based in Studio City, then Valencia. I don't know anything about them having an animation studio in Las Vegas. The animation almost looks like it was done by first-year students or something.

I do know that the Chucklewood specials were first animated in-house (in L.A.), and then later outsourced to Wang. Ed Love usually did the animation layouts. They never came anywhere close to the truly atrocious animation quality of those TTA episodes. Needless to say, I don't think Ed Love had anything to do with the animation for those episodes...

If Mr. Ruegger could give any more insight into this whole Encore thing, that'd be great.

And also, maybe Ruegger might know something about this: Why is it that when "Looniversity Daze" is rerun now, and on the DVD release, some of Jonny Mack's animation is "replaced" by different, inferior animation? Like on the part where Buster says "That's my name, don't wear it out." Were the scenes we see now actually the original animation; that is, was it actually McClenahan's scenes that were replacements for stuff done by Encore? Were they edited in for later airings? (Martianinvader says his copy with Jon's scenes comes from a Fox rerun...I have no idea what the episode originally looked like in syndication.)

[Speedy Boris]

I rewatched "Looniversity Days" tonight after reading that it reused animation from a TMS episode. I had forgotten that. It only amounted to a couple seconds of screentime, though (and to be honest, it was a pretty nondescript pan animation so you could be forgiven for not realizing it was from TMS), so I imagine it was put in there to fill time.

Anyway, I've said this before, but I'll say it again: "Looniversity Days" was Encore's best episode. Granted, that's not saying much, and yes, this is the episode with the infamous purple and sleeved Pluckys, but there are actually flashes of enjoyable/competent animation in there (and no, not just Jon McClenahan's fill-in work), though those instances are from acts 1 and 3. The Sweetie segment generally looks bad, for the most part.

[Tom Ruegger]

It was my understanding that Encore was incorporated in Nevada and I was told that their office and operation was in Las Vegas. I never verified this. As you know, Tiny Toons and all the cartoon series we made at Warner Bros. from 1989 to 2001 --during my tenure -- were union shows, and all the artists and writers were members of Local 839 Animation Union, now known as TAG. But when companies worked outside of LA County -- like Encore -- they were able to duck the union membership. Startoons, in Homewood, Illinois, was also non-union, I believe. But Startoons' work was exemplary, while Encore's work was the opposite.

As for the use of the wrong footage on the dvds...well, that's just sad. The retakes exist -- they were cut into shows that aired.

I suspect someone at WB Home Entertainment just grabbed a tape off the shelf of an episode that was labeled "FINAL, READY FOR AIR," or some such labelling, and put that copy of the episode onto the dvd, but never checked to see if there were UPDATED FINAL VERSIONS of the episode with the new retakes.

There's no one there at Warner Bros. who cares about this particular product any more. So quality control is simply not going to happen. (Of course, Warner Bros. will deny this, and say how much they care, but their actions speak louder than their denials.)

[wiley207]

Originally Posted by Tom Ruegger

I suspect someone at WB Home Entertainment just grabbed a tape off the shelf of an episode that was labeled "FINAL, READY FOR AIR," or some such labelling, and put that copy of the episode onto the dvd, but never checked to see if there were UPDATED FINAL VERSIONS of the episode with the new retakes.

There's no one there at Warner Bros. who cares about this particular product any more. So quality control is simply not going to happen. (Of course, Warner Bros. will deny this, and say how much they care, but their actions speak louder than their denials.)

But look on the BRIGHT side! We got the uncut version of "The Looney Beginning." I suppose they simply just grabbed the original 1990 tape masters to use for the DVD to ensure everything would be uncut, otherwise the DVDs would not perform as well had they been the edited rerun prints.

Oh, and Tom, what do you know about that Elmyra sequence at the beginning of "Strange Tales of Weird Science?" I am absolutely sure it was NOT originally from that episode, but probably cut from another episode. The scene was animated by Kennedy Cartoons (and it appeared that Wang did the ink-and-paint, so it must've been later in the production run). I suspect it was supposed to be part of another Kennedy episode, but was edited into "Strange Tales of Weird Science" for timing, hence the out-of-place animation and situation with that sequence.

And on the subject of miscredited studios, what happened with "The ACME Home Shopping Show?" That's an AKOM episode, but Kennedy was credited for some strange reason. Was there a mishap during the shipping or something?

[TServo2049]

Originally Posted by Tom Ruegger

As for the use of the wrong footage on the dvds...well, that's just sad. The retakes exist -- they were cut into shows that aired.

I suspect someone at WB Home Entertainment just grabbed a tape off the shelf of an episode that was labeled "FINAL, READY FOR AIR," or some such labelling, and put that copy of the episode onto the dvd, but never checked to see if there were UPDATED FINAL VERSIONS of the episode with the new retakes.

Well, I know that the pre-retake version of "Looniversity Daze" also aired on TV somewhere in Europe (someone has a screencap of it in another thread) a while prior to the DVD release.. (I'm not sure which version Nickelodeon used here in the States...)

There is also "Son of Wacko World of Sports" missing its title cards (but retaining Bicycle Bob actually eating the bucket of scorpions, which has been cut out ever since the Fox reruns).

[jackie0109]

I have this weird taste in cartoons but I want to see encore of Yogi Bear and Scooby Doo.

[Speedy Boris]

Originally Posted by TServo2049

Well, I know that the pre-retake version of "Looniversity Daze" also aired on TV somewhere in Europe (someone has a screencap of it in another thread) a while prior to the DVD release.. (I'm not sure which version Nickelodeon used here in the States...)

I remember taping the non-McClenahan version of that scene off Nick. Heck, until Martianinvader supplied me with screenshots, I was skeptical when he said "That's my name, don't wear it out" was redone, because I didn't remember that version at all from the many times I watched it.

[Tom Ruegger]

Oh, and Tom, what do you know about that Elmyra sequence at the beginning of "Strange Tales of Weird Science?" I am absolutely sure it was NOT originally from that episode, but probably cut from another episode. The scene was animated by Kennedy Cartoons (and it appeared that Wang did the ink-and-paint, so it must've been later in the production run). I suspect it was supposed to be part of another Kennedy episode, but was edited into "Strange Tales of Weird Science" for timing, hence the out-of-place animation and situation with that sequence.

Absolutely. You are 100% correct!

That opening beat with Elmyra hijacking the rabbits and dressing them as babies and force-feeding them is NOT from "Weird Science."

Just watched it. At first, I thought it was just a huge mistake. Another DVD error. But no. That's what's in the episode.

I suspect "Weird Science" arrived in sad shape and we were under the gun to put a new episode on the air and could not wait for the necessary retakes. So we must've edited the daylights out of "Weird Science," didn't get some of the retakes back in time, and we came up short. So we searched around for some filler footage. By then, I had been assembling a reel of outtakes, and had some fairly chunky ones available for use.

(You'll also notice there's plenty of ADR in "Weird Science," like Babs saying, cynically, to the audience, "You came back??" after a commercial break. That's code for, "We know this episode is pretty wonky.")

But here's the big news about the Elmyra scene at the top of "Weird Science."

It's from "The Looney Beginning" -- the series pilot!

This Elmyra and rabbit scene was in the pilot script and in the first cut of the pilot. The animation was less than what we wanted, and the entire sequence was scheduled for re-animation.

"The Looney Beginning" ultimately came in long, and this Elmyra sequence, which still looked less than stellar, was cut before we aired the pilot in prime time on CBS.

If you look closely, you'll notice there is a WANG retake of Elmyra toward the end of the sequence. This was reanimated after Kennedy Cartoons quit the pilot. Just a couple of weeks before air. So, since WANG went to the trouble of re-animating Elmyra, it's pretty clear we intended to use this in the broadcast version of the pilot. But then, as the new footage came in from WANG only days before air, the climactic and crucial scenes with Montana Max proved to be much longer than initially planned, and we realized we would be long again, so we had to cut this Elmyra bit from the pilot. As you know, Elmyra's presence in the pilot is virtually non-existent.

When we re-purposed this unused footage from the pilot and placed it into "Weird Science," we did a bunch of ADR on the footage. Thus the reference to "hurry up...we're late...Steven's going to kill us." This dialog from the rabbits would make no sense in the pilot. It barely makes sense here, but we were padding the show out, a process which often brought out our snarky and flip comments.

I recall that, in the pilot, at the start of this sequence, there was another shot of Elmyra introducing herself...much like the stuff from "Hare Today, Gone Tomorrow."

Also, I think we tried to jam this footage into "Hare Today, Gone Tomorrow" at one point, but it wouldn't jam.

Thus ends our Tiny Toons anthropology lesson of the day.

[Martianinvader]

AHA! I KNEW IT!
*caption that says "NO HE DIDN'T" appears below him*

Where was this in "Looney Beginning"? Elmyra still introduces herself in the episode; she comes out of the villain box and chases after Dizzy. Presumably, this is from the audition sequence (because the backgrounds wouldn't fit anywhere else). Why would Elmyra introduce herself twice?

[egfelixdcg]

Great! Finally the mystery revealed! Lots of interesting stuff. I didn't notice the Wang part of Elmyra before (I have to check it out yet). Thanks for all this info

[Tom Ruegger]

She wouldn't.

The Elmyra dialog in the pilot is adr'ed. She originally intro'd herself in the earlier audition footage. But since her audition footage was cut from the pilot, we had to adr the footage of Elmyra emerging from the box so that she would introduce herself then.

When in doubt, on all of these shows, remember: the footage could be from anywhere, from any studio, from any source, and any given line may be adr'ed.

[wiley207]

That's cool, how "The Looney Beginning" was the true source of that Elmyra sequence! My guess was that Elmyra introduced herself during the audition, but instantly was attracted to the rabbits and began to chase them. THEN she dressed them as babies, only for Babs and Buster to do that "woodpecker" thing, then escape to get back to the auditions. And I THOUGHT I saw a bit of Wang animation in it, too. (I DO know Wang did the ink-and-paint, so I figured this was from later in the production run when Kennedy was starting to have more problems backstage with WB.)

But then again, Elmyra also introduced herself in "Hare Today, Gone Tomorrow." But then again, as that was the first episode written and produced, it obviously seemed that it was written with the viewers getting to know the characters in mind, hence Elmyra's introduction, Hamton and Plucky making cameo appearances, and the way they keep mentioning each other's names (but then again, they tend to do the latter in many episodes.)

I also recall you mentioning on Martianinvader's website that "Hare Today Gone Tomorrow" also suffered that "Retake syndrome," Tom. I can understand that; the animation was pretty lumpy in that one! Heck, I'd even rather watch Glen Kennedy's animation on "A Pup Named Scooby-Doo" over "Hare Today Gone Tomorrow" any day of the week!

[jrh31584]

Originally Posted by Tom Ruegger

She wouldn't.

The Elmyra dialog in the pilot is adr'ed. She originally intro'd herself in the earlier audition footage. But since her audition footage was cut from the pilot, we had to adr the footage of Elmyra emerging from the box so that she would introduce herself then.

When in doubt, on all of these shows, remember: the footage could be from anywhere, from any studio, from any source, and any given line may be adr'ed.

(You'll also notice there's plenty of ADR in "Weird Science," like Babs saying, cynically, to the audience, "You came back??" after a commercial break. That's code for, "We know this episode is pretty wonky.")

Sorry if it's been defined earlier or if it's the sort of thing that should be common knowledge around here, but what is "ADR?"

[Speedy Boris]

Automated dialog replacement. Basically it's when the voice actors re-record lines to something different (Simpsons does this quite often), or flat out add dialog that wasn't there before. In the case of Buster and Babs running away from Elmyra, as Tom said, they added the line of worrying about being late to add context as to why Buster and Babs were running away from Elmyra, because this footage had previously meant to be used in a different episode entirely.