Not even the slippery Bugs Bunny might evade the inevitable crawl of company consolidation and cost-cutting. On Dec. 31, 2022, HBO Max eliminated hundreds Looney Tunes shorts and Flintstones episodes from its streaming library. The cuts, which quantity to roughly half the Looney Tunes library, are half of a bigger culling of content material on the streaming service that has largely targeted on animation and household programming.
HBO Max not options seasons 16-31 of the unique Looney Tunes shorts, Polygon independently confirmed, although seasons 1-15 are nonetheless out there. The deletions culled a number of basic Looney Tunes shorts reminiscent of “What’s Opera, Doc?,” “Feed the Kitty,” “Rabbit of Seville,” “Duck Amuck,” and “One Froggy Evening,” Vulture famous. Additionally, HBO Max reduce seasons 4 via six of the basic Flintstones.
The reduce content material was licensed to HBO Max below an intra-company deal that expired on the finish of 2022, in accordance with Variety. One initial report suggested that the episodes could be returning the service, however an HBO consultant confirmed to The A.V. Club that the content material wouldn’t come again to HBO Max any time “soon.”
The sequence are two of a number of animated sequence to be impacted by cost-cutting measures at Warner Bros. Discovery. In mid August, HBO Max culled 36 reveals and flicks from its platform, together with Cartoon Network’s beloved Infinity Train and different cartoons like OK Ok.O.! Let’s Be Heroes and the teenager drama Generation. Other household programming, just like the Sesame Street spinoff The Not-Too-Late Show With Elmo, has been reduce as nicely.
The firm began reducing prices when Warner Bros. merged with Discovery and CEO David Zaslav took over. Some reveals, just like the sci-fi drama Westworld, are slated to return on a distinct streaming service after leaving HBO Max.
Discussion about this post