Warner Bros. is doing some awesome stuff lately. They have a great back catalogue of awesome titles that they’ve acquired by buying out Hanna-Barbera. There’s popular stuff like Scooby-Doo, but also all the lesser known cartoons like Josie and the Pussycats. 🙂 These smaller titles probably wouldn’t do so well on a retail landscape, so Warner is doing something totally different — making copies of the series available to customers on demand!
The idea is just awesome. Instead of packaging and producing a large set and distributing it nationally to all kinds of chains, they cater directly to the long tail collectors and give them the stuff they want, and still at reasonable prices.
I daresay that this wouldn’t have been pulled off so well at the same time, if Warner Bros. wasn’t doing such a great job of engaging its fan base with social media. Their older catalogue is being produced and sold on-demand through the Warner Archive lineup, and the brand has it’s own Twitter account that I’ve been following. Near as I can tell, in the relatively short time I’ve found them, is that they are doing what those who succeed in social media do well — they actually *talk* with their fanbase. Shout Factory does the same thing as well. It’s pretty awesome, really, to find companies that can put a human face back on the front lines. 🙂
Anyway, business methodology aside, what I’m really excited about is the content that I get to have access to again!
I was looking through their pre-orders the other day, and I found two that I remember, very vaguely, watching growing up … and absolutely loving them! I think it’s awesome that the complete series are available now to purchase, for what I’d consider a good price point, too.
I totally remember this show … once I saw it again. This is one of those that I remember being really funny, but since it was probably aired so little (and there were so few episodes comparatively), it quickly got forgotten.
I do remember that the ghost is hilarious. I don’t recall much more about the show other than that. If I had to guess, without checking Wikipedia, I’d say that the format is similar to Scooby-Doo … a group of kids that goes on adventures with their silly sidekicks and solves mysteries and gets into trouble.
It might seem a little cliched in retrospect, but Scooby Doo was awesome then, and it’s awesome now, and having a different spin on it just means you get some variety. I’m cool with that. 🙂
I also, very vaguely, again, totally remember this other one I saw available for pre-order (goes on sale next Tuesday): Goober and the Ghost Chasers.
I do remember seeing that weird dog before … but that’s about it. That’s not gonna stop me from getting the collection, though. 🙂 I’m an absolute fan of Hanna-Barbera’s animation style, and I’ll pretty much get anything that was produced by them during that time period. So many good memories. 🙂
There’s actually a couple of series that I didn’t know about, or totally forgot about completely too, though. I had no idea there was even a series of Josie and the Pussycats until not too long ago, and my little sister bought me the complete series for my birthday this year. I absolutely *love* watching that show, it is hilarious! I think it’s funnier than Scooby-Doo in some places. 🙂 I recommend it.
Because of that one, I’m excited to see Warner Archive coming out with *another* Josie and the Pussycats cartoon, again, this one I had no idea even existed before:
I’m especially excited because, none of the old cartoons get me as excited as any of the ones that deal with outer space (Super Friends, Space Ghost, etc.). The animation and art style is just incredible, I think. It still gets me really excited seeing them today.
Speaking of which, I highly recommend checking out Walt Disney’s Treasures: Tomorrow Land if you’re also a space junkie and you like old school animation. Wow, that thing just puts me in heaven.
There’s one more available right now that I’ve never heard of before, Pirates of Dark Water.
It’s getting great reviews everywhere, and lots of people are excited about it, from what I can tell (based on research in areas of the Internet that most people don’t go into. Trust me on this one). I don’t know the first thing about it, though. Of course, that probably won’t keep me from buying it eventually anyway. It rarely does. 🙂
The last one I wanted to write about was Thundarr the Barbarian.
Now I *do* remember this one, mainly the characters, and it being a really fascinating setting … but that’s it. The memories of this one have been lost to time. I’m curious to check it out again, but I honestly have no idea what to expect.
Again, same thing as Dark Water … a lot of people are excited about it, and glad to see it out. I guess I’m one of the few in the Josie and the Pussycats fan-camp. I imagine it probably had something with me collecting and reading hundreds and hundreds of Archie digests growing up.
So, pretty cool stuff. What’s really more awesome than the individual titles is the business concept. I can’t think of titles off the top of my head right now, but I know there’s a ton of old Hanna-Barbera stuff out there that’s never been released, and now there’s a chance we’ll get to see more in the future — in a complete series set as well! That’s just super exciting. I tell you what. 🙂
One other thing I wanted to mention is that, I just recently decided to suspend my Netflix account. I haven’t been watching any of the stuff they’ve been sending me lately, and I don’t really like surfing through their online library (feels too much like channel surfing to me sometimes, randomly looking for something interesting). Money has been tight for me recently due to some health issues and paying for school, and so I decided that if I’m gonna allot some money towards movie entertainment every month, that I’d rather just build up my collection instead. Buying season and complete series sets makes sense to me. I watch those all the time, and for a small amount, I can get a lot of content that I’ll watch over again. I love Netflix, but I’ve gotten a little tired of trying to dig out hits. If money is scarce, I’d rather just spend it on something I know I’d much rather have.