Looney Tunes (TV series 1930-2014)

Jay: This particular entry appears to be fairly new. Its MovieMeter rankings only go back to July 2022. 

In September 2021, when we had the discussion about the fake "Betty Boop" (1930) TV series, I checked all the pre-1939 TV series to look for series of film shorts like that. "Looney Tunes" was not among them; I would have noticed if it were there.

However, this is not the first time a fake "Looney Tunes" TV series from 1930 was entered into the database. There were at least two others entered in 2018. See https://community-imdb.sprinklr.com/conversations/data-issues-policy-discussions/tv-series-looney-tunes-1930ongoing/5f4a79e08815453dba8dece9 and https://community-imdb.sprinklr.com/conversations/data-issues-policy-discussions/tv-series-looney-tunes-1930ongoing-part-2/5f4a7a018815453dba9513c5 for the discussions about them.

I wonder how many more times we will have to go through this nonsense before the IMDb staff finds a way to block these fake TV series from being entered into the database.

I decided to check on whether there were other fake TV series from this era listed in the database. And, unfortunately, there are. I may have to use "supposed" a lot in listing these shows.

"The Woody Woodpecker Show" (1940): There was indeed a TV series by this name, but it didn't debut in 1940. It debuted in 1957, seventeen years after the claimed date. (See https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=HMMwAAAAIBAJ&sjid=zWoDAAAAIBAJ&pg=4101%2C573183 which mentions the series' debut, and https://web.archive.org/web/20120603160148/http://www.toontracker.com/woody/woody.htm as well.) Note that the Company Credits for this series on IMDb (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0184175/companycredits/) correctly list no distributor for this series before 1957. As explained in Wikipedia, the 1957 show was a half-hour show where each episode consisted of three theatrical cartoons (with additional segments accompanying them), but IMDb apparently thinks that every seven-minute cartoon constituted a separate episode of this series.

"Tom and Jerry" (1940): We've been through this one more than once before. See https://community-imdb.sprinklr.com/conversations/data-issues-policy-discussions/tv-series-looney-tunes-1930ongoing/5f4a79e08815453dba8dece9 and https://community-imdb.sprinklr.com/conversations/data-issues-policy-discussions/the-tom-and-jerry-shorts-have-now-been-converted-to-episodes-of-a-tv-series/5f4a7a028815453dba9547db. Col Needham himself got involved in the latter discussion, correctly recognizing that the MGM cat and mouse cartoons started in theatrical films in 1940, not television. Yet somehow this invalid title got accepted again. (Yes, there have been, and still are, TV series by this name featuring these characters, but there wasn't one in 1940.)

"Gabby" (1940): Another series of theatrical short cartoons, but I don't think this character was ever popular enough to headline a TV series in any year, much less in 1940.

"Disney Animation Short Films Collection" (1921): Many of the episodes of this supposed series appear to be short films that Walt Disney made in the early 1920s. But I don't know what the person who submitted, or accepted, this title as a TV series was thinking. The first television station in the world didn't go on the air until 1926. The supposed production company and distributor of this supposed series is alleged to be Walt Disney World, which supposedly distributed the show worldwide in 1921. Note that Walt Disney World is the name of the Disney theme park in Florida, not a production company or distributor, and it didn't open until 1971, fifty years after this supposed TV series supposedly debuted. 

"WWJ News Radio 950" (1920): The description for this supposed TV series says, "WWJ is a commercial AM radio station licensed to serve Detroit, Michigan, featuring an all-news format known as 'Newsradio 950 WWJ.'" In other words, this is a radio station -- not an eligible title for IMDb.

"WFDF 910AM Radio" (1922): "WFDF is known as 910 AM Superstation. It is a talk radio-formatted radio station licensed to Farmington Hills, Michigan, serving Metro Detroit." See above under "WWJ News Radio 950".

Hi @jay_spirit & @gromit82 -

Thanks for reporting these latest examples of invalid series/compilation titles.  I understand the frustration, especially given the ongoing efforts you've made over the years vocalizing the issue and reporting these invalid titles again and again. 

I can confirm that we are working on implementing changes that will help prevent these title listings, unfortunately, the work to fix is not yet completed but is planned for prioritization in the very near future. 

In the meantime, I have filed a ticket concerning a clean-up of the titles reported within this thread. 

Hi @jay_spirit & All -

Thanks again for reporting, I wanted to provide an update on the issue. We are so sorry it has taken this amount of time to resolve, due to our backlog we can't provide an exact timeframe as to when the data cleanup will be prioritized, for this reason we are closing this thread. But know that we are still tracking this issue and it will be picked up.   Again, I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause, and we will make sure to revisit it as soon as possible. 

**Update - These titles have now been removed!