Dubbed?

[Sketcher]

What does 'dubbed cartoon' mean? Does it mean a cartoon who's soundtrack was remastered and re-recorded?

[rodney]

It means that a new restored print was made of the cartoon in question. Turner had new prints made of all pre-1948 WB cartoons (and I think the MGM cartoons too, though those don't say anything special on them).

They also removed the AAP openings and placed mismatched closings (usually from late-30's Merrie Melodies) on them. Many collectors prefer the AAP prints. Some of them are actually superior to the new prints in terms of picture quality.

If a TTTP FAQ page was made, this belongs at the top.

[Jack]

In the mid 90s, Turner "remastered" the Warner Bros. cartoons it owned (all the color pre 1948 cartoons as well as the Harman-Ising Merrie Melodies). They fiddled with the colors on computer in an effort to make thier old prints seem less worn because Turner didn't have access to the original negatives to the cartoons.

They then cheaply replaced the end titles to all the cartoons with a generic card that has all the new "dubbed version" copyright information. That is why you have mid 40s cartoons ending with 1930s-style titles.

The soundtracks weren't meddled with.


Jack :D

[TServo2049]

I think the "dubbed version" refers to the then-newly-recorded foreign-language soundtracks...

[Sketcher]

I just hope the cartoons Warners eventually releases onto DVD will be original 100%.

[J. J. Hunsecker]

Originally posted by Jack
The soundtracks weren't meddled with.


Jack :D

Are you sure about this? Some of the pre-48 dubbed cartoons seem to have parts of the soundtrack noticable out of sync with the animation in the cartoons.

[Daffyfan2002]

I have to agree with that. The music that's played when they show the "That's All Folks" card for "Acrobatty Bunny" didn't sound right at all. That probably originally had a Bugs drum ending or something.

[Jack]

Sorry, what I meant that the voices and music weren't re-recorded/replaced. I wouldn't doubt that some are out of sync, a few of the dubbed versions were really shoddy.

BTW, I think a few dubbed versions actually had some additional editing done to them in an effort to clean up some of the sloppier edits done by WB to certain cartoons before they were originally released. I think they did this to "Baby Bottleneck" so that the aligator-pig scene didn't end so abruptly, and to "The Heckling Hare" to make the ending seem a slittle more natural.


Jack :bosko:

[TServo2049]

No, Acrobatty Bunny really did sound odd in the original version...they used the music from the color-era drum ending (which had hardly any instrumentation over the area where "Th-th-th-that's all folks!" or "And that's the end!" went) for the ending of that cartoon, because it was the first Looney Tune to have the concentric circles/"That's All Folks!" ending, and the new version of the end theme hadn't been done yet. (In case I'm wrong, can anyone get out their Bugs Bunny Classics or GAOLT laserdisc and verify?)

[Daffyfan2002]

I see. So you're saying I can't really blame Cartoon Network's 'dubbed version' print for that one, right?

[J Lee]

Actually, the musical ending for "Acrobatty Bunny" is unique to that cartoon, and was never used with the Porky or Bugs drum endings (though Stalling's score dips down in volume as though either he thought there would be a drum ending, or more likely, he hadn't thought through what the new closing title music would be yet). The "standard" opening and closing Looney Tunes theme music for 1946-55 debuted with Bob Clampett's "The Great Piggy Bank Robbery"

[Boy Wonder]

Originally posted by J. J. Hunsecker
Are you sure about this? Some of the pre-48 dubbed cartoons seem to have parts of the soundtrack noticable out of sync with the animation in the cartoons.

All I know is that Wacky Wabbit had a thing in it, because it had a bad ending as well as Bugs Bunny Gets the Boid.

[Daffyfan2002]

I guess the reason I was wondering was because I remember a few months ago CN played an original non-dubbed version of "The Upstanding Sitter" and it had a Bugs drum ending. I thought that was used for all pre-1948 Looney Tunes originally and the 'dubbed versions' changed that.