Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Volume 5
DVD Review by Jon Cooke
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looneytunes.com |
First of all, I am pleased to report that it appears Warner Home Video have got all the bugs worked out for this release (no pun intended). I have found no examples or heard any reports of any DVNR, interlacing, artifacting or audio issues. You can tell a lot of time, effort and care was put into this release. The only gripe I still have, and its pretty minor with all things considered, is the awkward use of generic clipart images on the disc menus featuring characters totally unrelated to the content of the disc (for example, why does a disc devoted to Bob Clampett have a huge image of the Tasmanian Devil on its main menu?).
I know it's easy to nitpick the contents and ask where certain cartoons/characters are... but I can't help myself. I understand the folks who compile these sets have to try to make the contents appeal to two audiences. First, there are the loyal fans who fondly remember watching Bugs and pals on television and want to revisit those shorts or introduce them to their own children. Then there are the diehard fans who want as many unedited rarities from the vaults as possible. Myself, I am torn on this issue. The collector in me loves seeing the obscurities pop up. The other half of me wonders where the heck Foghorn Leghorn, Pepe Le Pew, and the remaining Road Runner and Tweety cartoons are (not to mention all those fantastic shorts with such great minor players as the Goofy Gophers, Hubie & Bertie, Ralph Phillips, Charlie Dog, Hippety Hopper, and the Three Bears). With no outlet for Looney Tunes on TV in the United States currently, it's not like I can flip on the tube and see those cartoons. DVD is our only source for these classics... and they only come out once a year!
Volume 5 will definitely appeal to the collectors... possibly to the point where it may turn off a sizable chunk of potential buyers who wanted to see some Foghorn or Wile E. Coyote action. As someone who loves the entire Looney library, I still appreciate what we get every year and the collector in me embraced the set with open arms. Still, I am not sure how the other half of me will react next year if Volume 6 gives us more chunks of obscure black-and-white or one-shot Hollywood caricature shorts ... when dozens of cartoons with all my childhood cartoon heroes are still sitting on the shelf. I don't want to have my future kids enrolling in college before I get a chance to own "The Leghorn Blows at Midnight" or "Hopalong Casualty" on DVD.
Anyway, I really don't want to come off as a sourpuss. I really did enjoy a whole lot of this year's heaping helping of looniness and highly recommend it to any classic cartoon buff. Now let's take a disc-by-disc look at Volume 5 and see what we did get.
This year Bugs shares billing on his annual disc with Daffy Duck. This was my favorite disc of this year's collection. Showcasing the misadventures of wabbit and duck both solo and as co-stars, every short on this disc is a winner. The remarkably strong selection kicks off with a hilarious Bugs/Yosemite Sam outing set in the Klondike ("14 Carrot Rabbit"). This short, along with the pirate-themed "Buccaneer Bunny", will leaving you wanting to see more of Freleng's Sam/Bugs feuds. Daffy stars in some of his funniest shorts --- as bellboy ("A Pest in the House"), private detective ("The Snooper Snooper"), babysitter ("The Up-Standing Sitter"), superhero ("Stupor Duck"), door-to-door salesman ("The Stupor Salesman") and a starstruck autograph hound ("Hollywood Daffy"). Meanwhile, Bugs tangles with a short-tempered oil tycoon deep in the heart of Texas ("Oily Hare"), a vampire named Count Bloodcount ("Transylvania 6-5000"), and, of course, Elmer Fudd (Chuck Jones' delightfully bizarre "Bugs' Bonnets"). Bugs and Daffy team up in some of their most fondly remembered and hilarious cartoons. The duo find themselves in the cave of Ali Baba's treasures in "Ali Baba Bunny" ("HASSAN CHOP!"), in the Himalayas where they meet a yeti who just >wants a bunny-rabbit to love, hug and call 'George' in "The Abominable Snow Rabbit" and as feuding Hollywood stars in "A Star is Bored". Even after finishing watching this disc I had to go back and rewatch some old favorites again. This disc reminds you just how fresh and funny the Warner cartoons can be... even 50+ years after their original release.
Bonus features include the annual reconstructed episode of The Bugs Bunny Show. As an added treat, Jerry Beck has dug up a bunch of original commercials featuring Bugs and the gang promoting show sponsors such as Tang and Post cereals. I love miscellaneous odds and ends like these and was thrilled to discover I had never seen many of these ads before! The PBS documentary, "Chuck Jones: Extremes and In-Betweens" is here (split up between Discs 1 and 2) as are many music-only and commentary tracks.
The old Warner Bros. cartoon tradition of spoofing well-known fables and fairy tales is on display on Disc 2. Bugs meets Witch Hazel who is attempting to cook Hansel and Gretel in "Bewitched Bunny", Porky stars in Robert McKimson's crazy take on the Pied Piper tale in "Paying the Piper" and Sylvester stars in putty-tat-and-mouse versions of Red Riding Hood and Goldilocks. A couple of fine Tweety and Sylvester shorts are here including the laugh-out-loud funny "Red Riding Hoodwinked" with its forgetful Big Bad Wolf ("Come in, come in....uh... what's that kid's name again??") and the memorable "Tweety and the Beanstalk" (a nice clean print which finally replaces that rather dark and dreary version that was previously in circulation). Two of Tex Avery's early fairy tale spoofs are included as well in spectacular new prints. "Little Red Walking Hood" has some amazingly unique storybook-style backgrounds and some funny cartoony animation courtesy of Irv Spence. "The Bear's Tale" may be Avery's funniest cartoon done during his stay at Termite Terrace with its jolly Papa Bear who isn't concerned about how his cartoon turns out since he just read the same story last week in Reader's Digest. The rest of the shorts are kind of a mixed bag, mostly one-shot shorts with no recurring characters and of varying quality. "Foney Fables" is a rather forgettable "spot-gag" cartoon, adding wartime twists on familiar fairy tales. While Chuck Jones' early "Tom Thumb in Trouble" is interesting for being the most Disney-esque Warner short ever made, it is doubtful you'll be rewatching it often. "The Trial of Mr. Wolf" is the old "Big Bad Wolf tells his side of the story" plot that I think every cartoon studio dusted off at one point, I actually found McKimson's take on the same plot in "The Turn-Tale Wolf" to be the funnier of the two ("Swat the fly! Swat the fly!"). The disc ends on a flat note with the final cartoon produced by the original Warner cartoon studio called "Senorella and the Glass Hurache," a pretty unfunny Mexican retelling of the Cinderella story.
Bonus features include two new "Behind the Tunes" documentary featurettes one devoted to the various Looney Tune fairy tale spoofs through the years and the other a tribute to director Robert McKimson (that I wished was longer).
Ok, now is where we really start heading into collector's territory. Since most of Clampett's finest have already been issued on previous sets ("The Great Piggy Bank Robbery", "Porky in Wackyland") what we have here is a grab bag of Clampett-directed shorts ranging from brilliant ("The Old Grey Hare", "Wagon Heels", "The Daffy Doc", "The Bashful Buzzard") to dud ("Farm Frolics"... which despite being a pretty lame short at least looks amazing here with some really nice backgrounds). Surprisingly, such unreleased Clampett gems as "Birdy and the Beast" and "Horton Hatches the Egg" didn't make the cut here. Even though many cartoon fans rank it among their least favorites, I will admit I am in the minority who really enjoys "Buckaroo Bugs", a fast-paced and frantic short where an obnoxious prankster Bugs is up against a dopey do-gooder known as the Red Hot Ryder. Some of the more obscure Clampett cartoons included are "Crazy Cruise" a Tex Avery travelogue spoof that Clampett finished after Avery left the studio. It is rather unmemorable except for its funny final gag featuring a cameo by a certain well-known wabbit. "Patient Porky" is a semi-remake of the superior "Daffy Doc" with a crazed cat in the Daffy role. In the end, I have to say that a little Clampett zaniness goes a long way and this disc is probably best enjoyed in the small doses I mentioned at the beginning of this review.
This disc boasts some of this year's best bonus features. "Behind the Tunes" covers the history of the WWII Private Snafu shorts and the "Wacky Warner One-Shots" (many of which we haven't seen on DVD yet, like "Chow Hound", "Wild Wife" and "Now Hear This"). The original title music cue to "The Bashful Buzzard" was unearthed and presented here as is that same cartoon's storyboard reel. Also included is an alternate "director's cut" version of "Hare Ribbin" (with its infamous ending gag). We get a sample of the Army's Snafu shorts and the ultra-rare Hook shorts made for the United States Navy (including one of Robert McKimson's first cartoons and one of Bob Clampett's last). Finally, included is audio of composer Milt Franklin recording alternate versions of the Merrie Melodies theme for a proposed revamped opening (its fun to imagine what this abandoned opening may have looked like). Amazing stuff!
The final disc takes us back to the early days of the Warner cartoon studio with a showcase of black-and-white cartoons. Picking up just as Porky Pig was becoming a breakout star in cartoons like "Gold Diggers of '49" (oddly, Warners' first star, Bosko, is absent). Now, a few years ago I would have NEVER dreamed a disc like this would ever exist. Period. How many of us LT collectors spent years trying to find people who had blurry copies of copies of copies of recordings somebody made of these B&W shorts from when they aired on Nickelodeon in the late-1980s or copies sourced from old, spilcey 16mm television prints? Now I am here in the year 2007 holding a disc of fifteen of the very best and all looking crystal clear and better than I have ever seen them. Many of these early shorts are just plain FUN. The catchy soundtracks by Carl Stalling, the rubbery, bouncy animation and the silly situations and even sillier gags always make me smile ("Polar Pals" and "What Price Porky?" are great examples). Some must-see cartoons on this disc include Bob Clampett's "Eatin' On the Cuff" a manic, musical love story of a honeybee and moth, Porky's hilarious attempt at creating his own animated cartoon in Tex Avery's "Porky's Preview", and Frank Tashlin's wartime epic "Scrap Happy Daffy" where Daffy defends his scrap pile from a Nazi goat sent by Hitler himself! The only short to avoid is a terrible little thing called "I've Got to Sing a Torch Song". While I applaud them for restoring some long-lost footage, but, geez, it's an awful cartoon (and legend has it that the higher-ups at the time thought so, too!).
Bonus features include a nice tribute to some "Unsung Directors" like Harman and Ising, Jack King, Norm McCabe, and Art Davis. Plus, we also get three of the Looney Tunes TV specials from the 1970s which was a nice touch.
Despite many fan favorites still missing-in-action (I say, where's Foggy, son??), I still came away from Volume 5 a satisfied customer. It may not have the replay value of some previous sets but with every cartoon brilliantly remastered and restored, this set is a feast for the eyes and for the funnybone that left me hungry for more. Next year's collection can't come soon enough!
