THE WKBD PROJECT

2007-06-03T10:15:00.000-07:00

Well, it is finally finished!

What is the WKBD Project? As some of you know, I'm a regular poster on Golden Age Cartoons, as well as other websites devoted to vintage films and TV shows. Last summer we discussed WKBD, a television station in Detroit, and the various classic shows they aired in the 70s and 80s. I recorded dozens of hours of WKBD broadcasts as a kid in the 1980s (which I have saved for 20 years) and I began putting clips on Youtube to share with others. I began thinking about the possibility of preserving these shows on DVD but I realized the amount of work involved would be huge. Starting in January, I spent countless hours searching through videotapes, logging and capturing all of the footage in, carefully restoring the picture quality as best I could, and reconstructing missing elements from some shows to make them complete again. Much time and care was spent capturing high-quality AVIs and mastering the DVDs from them. Except for a couple of mastering errors which I have duly noted, the discs have played well in the players I've tested them on.

The result of all this work is 14 DVDs, each containing 90 minutes of original shows - 21 hrs in total!, Complete with bumpers, commercials, telecine mistakes and WKBD's ever-popular habit of cutting their films for commercial time! We can now relive memories of watching these classic cartoons and comedies the way we saw them 20 years ago- in all of their flawed splendor! As a bonus, there are 2 DVDs of broadcasts from WXON 20 and WDIV 4 in Detroit.

If you are interested in these DVDs, please email me at absolutpaul@hotmail.com
I will send you more information about them and shipping information too.

PORKY PIG and FRIENDS - 2 DVDs containing 6 half hour shows. WKBD used the colorized prints with the replaced title cards that became available in the early 1980s. Lots of toy ads, station promos and bumpers. Click the link below to see a clip from this show. (The sound on the clip is a bit loud - not so on the DVD)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkrtcruRsOY

These are compressed clips for the internet. The DVD quality is much better.

DAFFY DUCK and FRIENDS - 1 DVD with 3 shows. In the late 80s, WKBD compiled cartoons from their Bugs Bunny and Porky packages to create their own Daffy show. This show featured redrawn Daffy cartoons as well as cartoons from the AAP and WB packages. Daffy Duck aired until 1990, the last year WKBD showed 16mm cartoons. Here are 2 clips from this show..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANOl4ud07cU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VO9W9quMFB0

BUGS BUNNY and FRIENDS - 3 DVDs containing 9 shows. These were the most difficult to restore, as source material was scattered on many tapes. Some of the commercials were missing, so I borrowed some from concurrent 3 Stooges shows to fill in the space. They play exactly like the original broadcasts nevertheless. At this point in 1988, WKBD re-arranged their cartoons. The non-Bugs WB shorts were used to make the Daffy show, and the BB show now featured Popeye, Tom and Jerry and Harveytoons, in addition to Bugs shorts. Black and white Popeye cartoons were shown, and Casper cartoons aired often as well. Click below to see a clip from this show.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76LEk5pywdE

COMEDY CLASSICS - 5 DVDS containing various incarnations of this popular WKBD show, from 1987 - 1990. 5 Half-hour shows (which contained a cartoon as well) and 5 full one-hour shows are all here, with bumpers, movie promos, great late-night locally-produced ads, and
The Three Stooges at their best!

Here are two clips for you...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thnwmTCZ6aw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFiNvw8Bf4s

BUGS/DAFFY/COMEDY CLASSICS - one DVD featuring a classic Bugs show from 1987 (featuring all WB cartoons), a Daffy Duck show from 1990 and a half-hour 1987 Comedy Classics, which featured a Stooges short and a Popeye cartoon. Lots of fun!

Here's a clip - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1w5ZxsFrjqU

THE LITTLE RASCALS on WDIV - while WKBD also had the Rascals in the early 80s, these are broadcasts from WDIV channel 4, which ran on weeknights (after Johnny Carson!) or Saturday and Sunday mornings. A one-hour version and a half-hour version are here, containing 6 16mm King World shorts, plus some of the animated Rascals PSAs that WDIV also included in their shows.

Here's a clip - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqukIUtkO6Q

POPEYE and PALS - the KFS Popeye cartoons were a long-time staple of WXON channel 20. This DVD features 3 half-hour shows, with lots of WXON ads, PSAs and station sign-ons (Popeye was the first show they aired on weekdays). Click below to see a clip.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3y4BQJsuPdg

If you would like any DVDs from this collection, or to obtain the entire set,
please email me at absolutpaul@hotmail.com

These DVDs were created by me for preservation purposes,
and to share with fellow fans of classic television.
They are not represented as any kind of official release.

absolutpaul's absolutblog!

THE WKBD PROJECT