Warner Bros

Warner Bros. Discovery Shoot Themselves in the Foot and Act Like Everything’s Fine

Analysis /

It boggles the mind! At a time when every streaming service is racing to cram as much content as they can afford into their services, one decides to go in the opposite direction.

You’ve not doubt seen the stories; dozens of animated shows disappearing from Warner Bros. Discovery’s streaming services, almost-complete films scrapped, artistic endeavours cast off as mere implements of a tax-avoidance strategy, creators finding out their own shows were yanked via social media. All in all, it’s a series of bad news eminating from the company no matter who you are. And before you ask, no, the company’s stockholders didn’t fare any better either.

The most obvious question (why?) is a bit odious. Numbers were crunched, the costs of merging two companies have to be met, and the results say as much. Except the response is near-universal and the only people that are apparently pleased are those at the very top. The less obvious questions concern the decisions that revolve around the strategy. The company cans a load of content to save a buck; then what?

Well, on the one hand, the company thinks that by slimming down their offerings, they can create growth from a smaller core audience. On the other hand, that’s 20th Century cable network thinking in a 21st Century streaming age. Perhaps it’s no surprise given that HBO pioneered the premium approach in the first place by charging more, but offering the kind of entertainment you couldn’t find anywhere else. That’s a business model that’s over the hill though. Streaming is a winner-take-all game that Hollywood only realised too late when Netflix lapped up streaming rights for basically nothing and locked studios out of their own content for those crucial first years.

You see, with streaming, you either offer everything to everyone, or watch consumers use your competitors. Now everyone is playing catch-up and only Disney, with its exceptionally deep pockets, can lay claim to gaining ground. They did not buy 20th Century FOX just for kicks, they needed that company’s library, production capabilities, and brand to expand Disney+’s offerings to truly cater to everyone.

Where does animation fit into all this? Animation tends to appeal to a wide variety of audiences and tends to remain perennially popular. That makes animation good for a service’s library. Old shows can sit there, waiting to be discovered (or rediscovred). I cannot fathom that the marginal cost of storing and streaming content (compared to producing it) is enough to justify removing it altogether. How easy could it have been for WBD to simply stop producing new shows instead of obliterating them like they did?

The other aspect is that kids like animation. They like it a lot. Kids don’t have control over which streaming services they use, but their parents do. It’s not as emphasised now as much as it used to be, but a key focus of Netlfix’s marketing approach is families and Disney have followed suit. How many parents are re-evaluating their subscription to TWD’s services now? Throw in a cost of living crisis and it’s not hard to see where the trimmings might come from. Fast forward 5-10 years and you have a company that’s broken just about all of the Twenty Two Immutable Laws of Marketing.

So is animation a root cause or merely collatoral damage? I’d say it’s a mixture of both seeing as animation is expensive to produce but also tends to deliver greater long-term value; emphasis on the tends to. One could argue that both Warner Bros. and Discovery have failed to devote enough time, energy, and resources to their animated offerings, saw the writing on the wall, and simply decided to give up.

 

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RIP Velma Dinkley 1969-2022

Opinion /

You can mourn the death of a fictional character but can you mourn the ‘death’ of a fictional character? Mindy Kaling’s ‘reimagining’ of Scooby Doo’s Velma sure seems like the death of the character we all know and love.

Why? I mean, Kaling is not short on talent but she couldn’t have created something original instead? She’s already remaking the character, how much additional effort would be needed to make one truly her own? Not much! one wonders whether Kaling pitched an original show that got shot down for [insert your own reasons here] but got a reprieve when some executive realised they could leverage existing IP by making it about Velma.

And why does it have to be for adults? We’ve seen time and again that ‘adult’ shows are a niche product while shows with broader appeal can be just as ‘adult’ without toeing the line between PG and Rule 34.

The Simpsons is a prime example. You don’t get much more ‘adult’ than showcasing the effects of divorce on the kids, or even better, political campaigns. I suppose that’s all a bit too boring these days though.

The risk of officially-santioned Rule 34 material is also very real. Ren & Stimpy in its original series was a Nicktoon and while it was infamous for getting crap past the radar, when John K. was given free reign to indulge himself, the results are deeply buried for very good reasons; sullying the reputation of the original (amongst other reasons). The ‘nudge nudge, wink wink’ tone of a series mkaes for a good in-joke but once the secret was out, well, where’s the fun in that?

Will the same happen to Velma and Scooby Doo? What happens when Velma is taken beyond her natural environment of a kids show and relocated to a trope-laden college setting? Will the series be a critical take on female characters like Velma or is it destined to be a run-of-the-mill adult show with no real substance of any kind? Given the raft of such shows lately, my guess is a firm yes.

I like Velma, but can I like Kaling’s version of Velma? It’s too early to tell but I’m not optimistic.

What are you thoughts?

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Why is Mickey Mouse More Popular Than Bugs Bunny?

18 Comments / Questions /

Baiting title aside, Mickey Mouse really is more popular than Bugs Bunny. He sells a lot more merchandise, appears in far more places around the world and is lauded as a mascot for the company that operates ‘The Happiest Place on Earth.’ Bugs never even got such opportunities and yet as a character, he is far superior to Mickey. Why is that?

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DreamWorks MUST Remain Independent: The 7 Reasons Why

2 Comments / Animation /

 Via: Wikipedia

Although DreamWorks Animation is already independent, it does distribute it’s films through Paramount, who in return, collect a fee from the gross receipts. Such an arrangement has worked well until now, just one short year away from the end of the current agreement.

There has been a lot of talk about DreamWorks being either acquired or selling itself to a larger corporation as a way to ensure its survival. Of all the big guns, only Warner Bros. seemed likely as they don’t already have a theatrical animation division but the noises from inside that company suggest they are not interested. The question is: Why would DreamWorks feel the need to be part of one of the larger studios anyway? The answer is money, but instead of analysing that reason, I offer you X reasons why the studio must remain independent.

  1. Katzenberg is not a quitter. He built DW up from nothing and I doubt he would like to sacrifice his independence to be under the boot of a board of directors again. He’s taken the company this far, there are few reasons why he can’t take it further.
  2. When you’re number 2, you try harder: Yes, it’s an old Avis slogan, but it rings true. If you’re number 2 in the market, you will try harder than the leader when it comes to your products. DreamWorks isn’t quite there yet, but last year’s How To Train Your Dragon was infinitely superior to Toy Story 3.
  3. It’s been done before: Back in the late 40s, a relatively small animation studio lost their distribution deal with RKO. They managed to haul a distribution team together and form Buena Vista. A distributor I think you all should be familiar with.
  4. An independent keeps everyone on their toes: As an independent, you have to do your best every time.That means others must compete on at least the same level of quality. If one player ups their game, everyone must. Corporations have a habit of getting comfortable in their shows which can lead to a stagnation of quality.
  5. The money is in the long tail: Walt Disney himself knew it was better to create a good film that would be popular for a long than one that would be a flash in the pan. Good films make money for decades after they’ve been paid for. DreamWorks can rely on this for income provided their films are up to scratch (see point 4)
  6. It’s a tougher road , but the ultimate rewards are better: No-one likes to take the hard road, it’s more work for what appears to be less reward. However, that burden of responsibility will ultimately result in a stronger company as everyone shares in the responsibility for success.
  7. It affords more freedom to experiment: Right now, on the cusp of the digital revolution, DreamWorks has the freedom to go in directions that were never possible before. As an independent, it has the freedom to try and experiment with new distribution and sales models to see if they work. DW can has the chance to become the industry leader in the digital age, an opportunity that should not be passed up.

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Negative Disney Publicity Circa. 1989

Animation, Disney, TV /

There’s a fantastic post over on Cartoon Brew today that details the pitch material sent out by Disney in 1989 or thereabouts to various TV stations around the country who they hoped would air their afternoon block of shows in syndication.

The pages posted are great to read some 20 years after the fact. The present perhaps the worst aspect of some marketing departments: pointing out all the bad aspects of your competitors in the hope that no-one don’t notice your own.

The papers are full of non-comparisons and desriptions so vague, they barely even make sense. Here’s a sample quote:

Warner Brothers has the dubious task of competing with Disney’s superior aniamtion.

Boasting that your shows are better is nothing new, in fact it goes all the way back to the beginnings of entertainment, when you had to convince the public that your show was better than that of the guy next door. The difference here is that there is hardly, nay, anything in the material posted that says exactly, why, Disney’s shows are better.

OK, maybe they do get better ratings because they’re on in the afternoons, but they are also new shows, not re-runs of classics. Perhaps they’re more expensive to broadcast. That’s my best guess. “Disney crushes Alvin”, that’s comparing apples to oranges. You can’t expect to get parity among the results between individual shows and entire blocks.

Frankly, the entire thing has a whiff of dishonesty about it, as if Disney has something to hide about its shows. Content speaks for itself and if your shows really are as good as you say they are, then you should point out how much better they are than all these other, great, shows. Of course, this would prove to be the case with Tiny Toons, wich Disney calls “a pale comparison to the Disney Afternoon”. Hindsight is always 20/20, and the quality of Tiny Toons was all that Warner Bros. needed to prove that they were actually ahead of the game.

It would be really intersting to see the pitch booklets from the subsequent years. Did they contain similar language or was Disney left stuck for words? Either way, we know how things turned out in the end of the afternoon cartoon battles of the 1990s.

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Looney Tunes: Why Are They Falling in Popularity and What Can Be Done to Stop It?

Animation, Cartoon Network, Opinion, TV /

Word come through from Cartoon Brew about a feature in the New York Times about the new, upcoming Looney Tunes TV to be broadcast on Cartoon Network leter this year. There was plenty of consternation a while back after the upfront where the show was unveiled. The comments on the Brew then as well as now were pretty much about as big a backlash as you could expect from the animation community regarding classic characters such as Bugs and Daffy. (By the way, I know I’ve touched on this topic before, but this is more of a commentary/opinion post and not nearly as sarcastic as the last one).

The NYT piece made light of the fact that kids these days don’t seem to know much if anything about the Looney Tunes. Quote from the article:

Ask a first grader to identify Bugs Bunny and the response more likely than not will be a blank stare. Dora, sure. Mickey, alive and kicking. But Porky who?

Anyone over the age of 15 will give you a wry smile as all the memories come flooding back. the same can’t be said for youger folks, they may even look at you as if you had two head, or began speaking Japanese!

The distinction was made between the Looney Tunes and Winnie the Pooh in that the latter still pulls in close to $5 billion in contrast to the $1 billion for Bugs & Co. Such a comparison isn’t really fair though. Winnie the Pooh isn’t exactly aimed at the same market, skewing much younger. Additionally, Winnie the Pooh has been longer established and has a seperate set of books to his name, all of which continue to bring in merchandise dollars.

Another aspect that is important to mention, Disney continually markets Winnie the Pooh. In contrast, Warner Bros. (or Time-Warner for that matter) has done little over the last 10 years. Let’s examine it together. Long ago, the Looney Tunes/Merrie Medodie shorts reigned supreme. Not only were the extremely popular, they were broadcast almost continuously, either as shorts themselves or as part of a TV show, e.g. The Bugs Bunny Show.

That time seems like the land of milk and honey compared to now. Would you be able to tell me where I could see a Looney Tunes short on TV today, or even this month? There’s no very many places is there? Sure we’ve had the odd marathon on Cartoon Network, usually on holidays when most people are distracted by turkey or what Santa Claus brought them.

Which brings us back to the age-old problem of “if it’s not readily available, no-one’s going to watch”. A fate which has befallen many fine cartoons and TV shows. Only a fool would try to convince you that an entertainment product can maintain its popoularity without advertising. Now when I say advertising, I don’t mean actual commercials, I mean the shows themselves! If a Looney Tunes short is on TV, that acts like a seven minute commercial that can entice people to watch another short.

The usual plan is to create a “new” TV show, or “update” the characters to the contemporary era, which in itself is a waste of time because within 5 years, the show is outdated. Remeber Lunatics Unleashed? Yeah, yeah I know, it still sucked when it was dubbed into Irish. Well, do you see any shows out there being “anime-fied”, doesn’t that seem so early-2000s? Well that’s basically what happens when you “update” classic cartoon characters, they go stale and end up getting locked in the Warner Vault.

So hear me out. Why not broadcast some of the classic shorts? Instead of, say, starting a TV show on the hour, why not show a short first? Your audience is already there, why not give them something new, or rather not really seen before? They’re still going to stick around for the show they got comfy for, right? The proof is in the pudding, Looney Tunes receipts are higher abroad then in the US. I know myself that RTÉ 2 in Ireland still broadcasts shorts during prime-time children’s programming. Guess how many Irish kids a re growing up with Bugs Bunny in their lives?

In addition, according to the NYT piece, there may be some new theatrical shorts on the way, not unlike “How to Hook Up Your Home Theater”, released in 2007. Well, that’s one thing, but why not plant the seed with some old favourites? Once you’ve guilt up a wee bit of an audience, you can then start throwing on some fertilizer in the form of new stuff. People are likely to be much more receptive to something fresh if they are more familiar with the old classics. Look at Tiny Toons, there was a TV show that gained a following all of it’s own. The classic crowd were mixed with newcomers, who eventually became popular in their own right, giving you a whole new property to exploit.

Personally, I think shorts should be filmed before every major feature film, not only does it increase my theatrical experience, I feel like I’m getting better value for money. That’s never a bad thing, eh?

While a new show is undoubtedly necessary to bring Bugs and Daffy in from the cold, a more comprehensive strategy is needed. Disney is the gold standard in this regard, Mickey Mouse is still as popular and well known as he has ever been, having said that, he as never exactly been out of the public’s attention either. Warner Bros. needs to do the same, starting with creeping the gang back onto screens slowly building their way up to the big stuff, i.e. films.

C’mon guys, Warner Brothers Animation is so much more than Detective Comics direct to DVD movies you still have plenty of fans out here.

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Steven Spielberg And Animation

2 Comments / Animation, TV /
Freakazoid! Via Jim Hill Media

Word comes through AWN that Stevcn Spielberg is returning to animation by way of the Discovery Channel and Dreamworks. While things will be different this time, it is surely worth taking a look back at his previous adventures in animationland.

Although Steven was the same well known and respected filmmaker in the early 90s as he is now (well, maybe he shone a bit brighter; War of the Worlds tarnished his reputation a wee bit, at least in my book), his decision to begin producing animation was seen as a bit of a departure for him.

And what a departure! Despite being only the producer and partnering with Warner Bros. he was directly involved with three breakout shows: Tiny Toons, Animaniacs and my personal favourite, Freakazoid!

What made these shows so great to begin with? Well, for one, Tiny Toons drew on Warner Bros. directly for inspiration. Hence the occasional appearance of the numerous Looney Tunes members such as Bugs and Daffy. While this may have been deliberate for the sake of attracting the audience, by mixing classic characters with new ones, a whole new generation of kids came to know about the Looney Tunes and all the great shorts from their parent’s time.In addition, they Tiny Toons themselves became successes in their own right. Indeed, right before I moved to the States (Sept. 2007), Tiny Toons was still being broadcast regularly on RTÉ.

Animaniacs was a different beast. Here were three original characters, supposedly the “Warner Brothers” themselves (and their sister, Dot). Besides being even more off the wall than Tiny Toons, the creators did well to bring to life a vast and varied range of characters that the Warners could, and did, constantly provoke, enrage, degrade and drive insane, all to the delight of the audience.

Lastly, we come to Freakazoid! Again, what a show, besides a genuinely insane protagonist (I can hear Paul Ruggs voice in my head as I write this), the plots were just downright bonkers, as were the supporting characters (Arms Akimbo anyone?). Such a shame it wasn’t to last as long as the others, I’m going to blame the network for that one, no offense to anyone. What was so great about Freakazoid! was that when you watch it, you can’t help but feel that the people working on the show were having fun the entire time. They probably weren’t, we all know how animation works, but at least it appears that way!

Two things stand out about all these shows, first, they were all high-quality shows in every way. The animation, writers (the animaniacs show bible supposedly cost $100,000 alone), and the characters themselves. How do we know all this worked in the show’s favour? You’re reading about them now! Well over a decade later, that’s how. You don’t see me talking about the Real Adventures of Johnny Quest do you? That’s because I’ll talk about it later (with my most grievous apologies to Fred for even mentioning it)

Secondly, another aspect of these shows was that the respective teams were generally left alone to do their own thing by Warner Bros. management. It seems a bit incredulous in this day and age, heck it was incredulous even then as John K. often cites that one of the reasons he was removed from Ren & Stimpy was interference from Niekelodeon executives.

It is generally acknowledged that the teams were left alone for the simple reason that with a reliable guy like Spielberg involved, things would be unlikely to get out of hand. Personally, I think this is probably an accurate enough. The resulting shows are proof that a hands-off approach can bring out the best in everyone involved.

We haven’t seen cartoons like these since, well, the 90s. What a shame. Sure the animation landscape has changed, animation on broadcast TV is as dead a horse as you can find that is still being flogged (albeit because of government mandates). The cable networks, while putting out plenty of fantastic shows, are unlikely to ever repeat shows of the same caliber as those I’ve discussed.

Could we see Steven doing something similar again today? On the Discovery Channel it’s unlikely, but with strong DVD sales of his older shows, there’s always hope. Hey, it worked for Futurama!

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