They may have had 511 shorts available to watch on HBO Max, but that is only about half of the total 1,002 “Looney Tunes” and “Merry Melodies” theatrical shorts created by Warner Bros. from the original run of the two series. As for which ones ended up on HBO Max, there seemed to be no rhyme or reason for which ones did. The service does not separate shorts from the two series, as they both feature all the classic characters, so it’s not a case of them just having “Looney Tunes” and not “Merry Melodies” or vice versa.
That means today, after this latest HBO Max purge, we only have about a quarter of the shorts to watch. I wonder if we would be at this point had WB not absolutely fumbled how they have utilized these characters in the last 20 years, by which I mean they haven’t even really tried. For instance, did you know that they have been producing a show called “Looney Tunes Cartoons,” which are essentially new entries into the “Looney Tunes” and “Merry Melodies” series? And that the fifth and final season of this show is ongoing? Of course you didn’t. WB wants to make this stuff to keep the brand alive, but doesn’t seem all that interested in actually showing it to people.
Guess what? The new shorts are pretty good! If Warner Bros. Discovery was interested in actually making these characters popular again, it would back “Looney Tunes” and make sure it stays on the platform. But as the last year of business decisions from the company has shown us, the execs aren’t entirely sure what they’re doing over there.