Merrie Melodies (1943-1969 Blue Ribbon Reissues)

Beginning in late 1943, Warner Bros., in a cost-conserving effort, began to reissue its backlog of color cartoons under a new program that they called Merrie Melodies "Blue Ribbon" classics. For the reissue, the original front-and-end title sequences were altered. The revised main title card began with the "zooming" WB logo, followed by the title logo set against a background featuring a "blue ribbon" (hence the re-release program's title) and a Grand Shorts Award trophy, followed by the name of the cartoon. This revised title sequence eliminated the opening technical credits. The end title card was also revised (except for the 1943 - 44 season and half of the 1944 - 45 season of reissues, such as A Wild Hare and I Love to Singa when Schlesinger was still producing the cartoons), replacing the original versions.

The revised title sequences were edited right into the original negative, thus the original title sequences were cut away and possibly scrapped. Some of these same revised "blue ribbon" reissues can still be seen on television today. For example, the "Blue Ribbon" version of the Bugs Bunny short A Wild Hare was retitled The Wild Hare for reissue, along with some slight subtle edits (the original unaltered version has been released on LaserDisc, DVD and Blu-ray Disc).

Cartoons with original technical credits restored on DVD
Many of the above cartoons have been restored for DVD release as part of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Looney Tunes Platinum Collection, Looney Tunes Super Stars and Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Academy Awards Animation Collection DVD releases. However, only a handful of cartoons that were reissued prior to the 1956-57 season have their original technical credits restored. These are:

In addition to the cartoons listed above, the following cartoons reissued after 1956-57 have had their original rings restored:

In 1995, Turner Entertainment restored the original openings for Hop, Look and Listen and Hiawatha's Rabbit Hunt.

The titles for Bone, Sweet, Bone are restored for TV, but has not been released on DVD.

The original titles for Sunday Go to Meetin' Time, The Merry Old Soul, September in the Rain, Tweetie Pie, The Isle of Pingo Pongo, A Tale of Two Mice, House Hunting Mice, Doggone Cats, I Taw a Putty Tat, Daffy Dilly, Daffy Duck Hunt, For Scent-imental Reasons and The Scarlet Pumpernickel all exist.

The titles for A Day at the Zoo, Of Fox and Hounds, The Isle of Pingo Pongo, Don't Look Now, Wacky Wild Life, Johnny Smith and Poker-Huntas, Thugs with Dirty Mugs, A Feud There Was, The Early Worm Gets the Bird, Circus Today, The Mice Will Play, Fresh Fish, Cross Country Detours, and I Only Have Eyes for You were found on eBay in 2007, but never released on DVD.

Sketches and photos of the original titles for Katnip Kollege, Sioux Me, The Fifth-Column Mouse, Pigs in a Polka, and The Cagey Canary have surfaced, but their real titles have not been found.

Other external links

 * The Big Cartoon DataBase entry for Merrie Melodies Cartoons and for Looney Tunes Cartoons
 * The Ultimate Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies Website by Jon Cooke
 * "Warner Brothers Cartoon Companion", a wealth of trivia about the Warner cartoons
 * Official site