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Looney Tunes - The Golden Collection

Looney Tunes - The Golden Collection

List Price: $64.92
Your Price: $48.69
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A great collection
Review: This is a great nostalgic DVD with some of the best cartoons of all time. My reason for buying this was to get some of the older than old Looney Tunes cartoons on DVD, such as:

Wabbit Twouble - west and wewaxation with the larger Elmer
Elmer's Candid Camera (Bugs has a different voice characterization)
Tortoise wins by a Hare - Cecil Turtle #2
The Foghorn Leghorn
Daffy Duck Hunt
Yankee Doodle Daffy

But, after watching some of this DVD, I can't help but wonder a few things...

Where is Duck Twacy ?
How about Cecil Turtle episode #1 ?
Where is the singing frog episode ?
There are also 3 other "fat" Elmer episodes that are really good.

And my pet peeve - The "Porky in Wackyland" remake, "Dough for the Do-Do". If you have ever seen "Wackyland", then watching "Dough for the Do-Do" is somewhat of a letdown; a few scenes/items were altered/replaced. However, I will take into account that when making this DVD they went with picture quality over originality.

I was very pleased to see the full length version of "Water, Water Every Hare" make it onto this DVD. For many years I believe this cartoon had been shown on TV in a chopped up best of Bugs Bunny version.

Let us hope for a volume 2 !!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Fantastic !
Review: I remember these toons way way back from the first time I could think. 48 years on this planet has not dulled my love of Bugs and the gang, and now, nearing my middle age, I love them more than ever, because I finally understand the gags.

Every one of these toons is a gem. Not a bad one in the batch.

My favorite one has to be "Long Haired Hare" where Bugs takes absolutely sadistic glee in exacting revenge on his rabbit hating neighbor, an opera singer. A true classic.

"That's the nice fat opera singer..."

There's also a scene in this toon that never gets shown on Cartoon Network, or in fact, I haven't seen in ANY print on American Tv in years. I won't spoil it, but it's a CLASSIC Bugs "Drag" scene.

:)

The extras are nothing short of grand. Especially the old Bumpers from the 1963 primetime Bugs Bunny Show.

All and all, a real treat for me or any other DVD collector.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The DVD of 2003
Review: If there is one flaw here, it's not that 2 cartoons were omitted (ono not two cartoons- whatever shall we do?) it's that the collection is mostly Bugs Bunny, but really, it's hard to bring up any flaw in this excellent collection. These cartoons truly stand the test of time, I was rolling on the floor with laughter at "Rabbit Fire!" and my all-time favorite Looney Tunes cartoon, "Duck Amuck" which never, ever gets old. Well, not to me anyway. These cartoons are truly the best of their kind, and the LOADS of extras that are included here, well they're just icing on the cake that just scratches the Looney Tunes surface. It's great too see 56 of some of the funniest cartoons ever made on DVD after all these years. The restoration job on these discs is EXCELLENT! There is still some dirt on the cels there, but that's always been there, the colors are bright, vibrant and the colors aren't washed out or murky, which is of course, what I was accustomed to on the Cartoon Network. Good to see that the cartoons are all uncut here too, which is enough of a special feature in itself. If you are an animation fan, get this now, if you are a Looney Tunes fan, get this now, if you have a sense of humor, get this now!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Whets the appetite...
Review: These cartoons are some of the best, there's no doubt. But surely there were more! Where was Knighty Knight Bugs? Hillbilly Hare? One Froggy Evening? Duck, Rabbit, Duck!? And the Grand Poo Bah of them all, What's Opera Doc? And what about the forgotten gems? The ones that you feel lucky to have caught on Cartoon Network, like Chow Hound (What? No Gravy?), Nelle's Folly (the singing giraffe), and High Note (the notes from The Blue Danube Waltz come to life, in a much more entertaining use of Strauss than in "2001").

Truth be told, I'd've passed on this collection if it hadn't included "Feed the Kitty" (bulldog Marc Anthony befriends an adorable kitten), for purely sentimental reasons. We used to have a cat named Boots who looked just like Pussyfoot, and as a kitten he used to ride on my shoulder, as if I were the big ol' bulldog. He died young, of hemophilia, and when he went I felt the same agony as Marc Anthony when he thought that his kitten had died. Not what you'd expect from someone who looks more like a Harley rider than a cat conveyer.

Oh, well. I'm glad that I invested in this DVD collection. Its omissions notwithstanding, there are some great ones in here. Some have complained that Chuck Jones is over-represented, but looking back on my childhood favorites (as well as seeing things through the lens of adulthood), it becomes clear that his team was far and away the A-List of the post-war W.B. animation department. He could get more laughs from a few Bugs Bunny whisker twitches and eyebrow lifts than McKimson could get from an entire cartoon. Jones and his writer, Michael Maltese, are the most under-rated comedy duo of the 20th Century.

And they look great! I was born long after they closed Termite Terrace, but my 27 inch flatscreen makes them look better than I have ever seen before. And the sound! I never appreciated how wonderful it was to have a full 80-piece orchestra supply the music for a mere cartoon, but now that I can appreciate such things, I can see how vital Carl Stalling was to the longevity of Warners' cartoons. I learned as much about classical music from Bugs Bunny (Welcome to my shop, let me cut your mop, let me shave your crop!) as I did from 9 years of concert band, from 6th grade through my sophmore year of college.

And what a treat it is to finally see the cartoons played in their entirety (dang those do-gooder bleeding hearts for snipping the funniest moments!). And more importantly, we get to see them played at their ORIGINAL speed, not "time compressed" as we so often see on TV these days. If I want something played at a different speed, I'll get a Chipmunks album.

Overall, this is a good start. Warners can release "Golden Collection Volume 2" next Christmas, hopefully with the above mentioned omissions, as well as other gems. There are plenty of pre-war gems in the Warners Vault that never made the Saturday Morning Cartoon cut. (There was one that I happened to catch on Cartoon Network once, and the opening 10 seconds put any Disney animation entirely to shame.) And I hope that they won't be afraid to keep over-loading on the C.M. Jones masterpieces.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Excellent start, but not enough of some classic characters
Review: Looney Tunes Golden Collection is a great introduction and crash course in hilarity. Many of the funniest shorts are included in this 4 disc set. Disc 1 is devoted to Bugs Bunny and is simply hilarious. Disc 2 is strictly Daffy Duck and is sidesplitting as well. Disc 3 is The Looney Tunes All-Stars disc but not nearly enough screen time is given to such classic characters as Wile E. Coyote, Roadrunner, Marvin the Martian and Taz. Disc 4 is fantastic and chock full of Tweety and Sylvester, 1 Taz short, 1 Foghorn Leghorn, a Pepe LePew and some other various shorts. Since I've bought this set and gave it to my 3 year old, it has not left the DVD player. You just can't match the classic lunacy that these characters and shorts stir up. The Golden Collection is a must-own for any serious toon collector. Hopefully, WB will release more collections. Highly Recommended.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: 56 Restored Animated Masterpieces & That's NOT All Folks!!!!
Review: My vote for the best DVD of 2003, maybe the best DVD of all-time goes to this sterling collection of magnificent motion pictures. Yes, motion pictures. With intelligence, wit, and cunning skill these films are just as much a valued piece of artistic American culture as any of the greatest filmed works of the 20th Century....not to mention they are hysterical, irreverant, & truly timeless!

Warner Home Video has done an amazing job restoring these cartoons and selecting the contents for this first in what will be an ongoing series of LOONEY TUNES boxed set releases. You truly get the very best of Bugs, Daffy, Porky, Elmer and their many compadres, and it's amazing to see shorts like ELMER'S CANDID CAMERA (from 1940) look like they're brand-new.

The extras are plentiful and fascinating. It will take you days to go through all the documentary material, music-only tracks and commentaries. Every moment you spend with this set is to be treasured, not just by adults but by the whole family.

The rave reviews this set has received are truly justified (and the few complaints made by ignorant naysayers should be totally ignored). There's truly gold in them thar discs. Grab this release, and be prepared to laugh for years to come!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Run, don't walk -- but remember this is just the beginning
Review: Okay, some gems are missing, like ONE FROGGY EVENING, WHAT'S OPERA, DOC, RABBIT OF SEVILLE -- but would it really be so sublime an experience to catch these yet one more time only cleaned up a bit? They're on video, they're endlessly run on CARTOON NETWORK, and because they were rather late in the game, they were looking pretty good on Saturday mornings back in the seventies.

The point of this set is the clean-ups of older cartoons. For decades now, forties gems like THE TORTOISE WINS BY A HARE have looked like mud, all browns and grays and brick-reds. Here we can see them looking as vibrant as they did eons ago, clean as a whistle. This is a miracle -- how grateful we must be that Warner Brothers has finally gone to the trouble to restore these icons of popular American art.

And then the extras are just dazzling, almost too much. Listen to selected cartoons with only the music tracks and understand why Carl Stalling is so heralded as a genius. Watch pencil tests and see how brilliant these guys were at creating the Illusion of Life on pads (remember, Bugs Bunny DOESN'T EXIST!). Listen to Mel Blanc laying voice tracks -- a little guy croaking into a mike making us believe these creatures are real.

The commentaries are a little repetitious and mundane, except that Mike Barrier gives us generous clips of interviews he did thirty years ago with the creators. They're all dead now -- this is precious stuff, and this is the only way to hear Jones, Freleng, and others actually discussing what they did. We even get a bit of Carl Stalling himself!

There were about a thousand Warner Brothers cartoons depending on how you count, and if they had put all the major faves in this set then there wouldn't be any highlights left for the next ones -- which properly should comprise about twenty more, after all.

I do find some real problems, though. I hate to quibble, but have all of these really been as thoroughly restored as possible? Too often there is obvious grit left, most visible on all-black fields or as the camera tracks across a static background. Clearly this is remnants of years of film scraping through projectors as reprints were being made, but presumably this could be digitally eliminated. This is never a SERIOUS problem, but it cannot be said that the cartoons have always really been made to look as new as modern technology could have it.

And then this set does have too much of a bias towards the late forties and afterward. The cartoons that really need sprucing up are pre-1948, and we only get a few of these. When it happens it's a miracle -- I grew up watching a syndicated YANKEE DOODLE DAFFY so faded it might as well not have been in color, and here it looks as bright and colorful as a TINY TOONS episode -- bravo! But how about more of this on the next set? Surely A WILD HARE had more colors than just brown and maroon -- restore that one and let us buy it!

And then there are the black-and-whites. There is a "Careful what you wish for" issue here -- much of the black-and-white Warner's output only holds up in small doses today. The "Looney Tune" as we cherish it only emerged gradually in the late thirties, and before that, Bosko, with the repetitious, primitive gags, only holds up two or three shorts at a time, and early Porky Pigs of the late thirties tend to be similarly distant to us at this remove (sorry, Bob Clampett fanatics!). But still, there are hidden gems even in this era, and they can be quite beautiful (PORKY PIG'S FEAT?).

Hopefully the next set will focus less on celebrating Chuck Jones and Friz Freleng's "middle period" salad days (I suspect this may have been a courtesy) and lean more towards giving a richer sampling of the whole thirty-three years of glory, including the raucous early forties. But this is a GREAT beginning. After all, who would have thought we could ever take such a treasure trove home instead of waiting for what was given us every Saturday morning in pajamas?

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: All that glitters isn't golden
Review: A good collection but hardly Golden. The transfer is ok (compared with normal tv broadcast) but not great. The collection has some stars but also some duds. The omission of "What's opera doc" probably the most famous Bugs cartoon makes a joke out of calling the Disc the "Best Of". Obviously Warner intends to soak us for all they can by issuing mediocre toons in with the best. If I had paid more attention to the title lists instead of the hype I would not have bought it without the deal I got.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great Collection, missing a few classics though
Review: This is a must own for any Looney tunes fan! Don't listen to anyone complain about the restoration. They look great; they look like I remember them!

My only complaint are the missing CLASSIC episodes:
-The Kill the Wabbit one ('What's Opera Doc', I think?)
-The singing Frog one (Construction worker finds the frog)
-The Count Dracula one (Buggs sings "Abra-ca-pocus")

I bet these will be on the next set. The 'Kill the Wabbit' one is so great! But if you like Looney Tunes, Buy this Collection!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Hopefully that's not all folks
Review: Warner did a great job of strip mining their own collection of classic cartoons over the years. The original classics were repackaged ad nauseum to an unsuspecting public. In many cases, some of these were edited into feature film formats or edited for television. The result was a travesty to say the least.

With the advent of DVD and the success of Disney releases, Warner has finally done justice to many of the greatest Looney Tunes produced during their golden period. While light on Bob Clampett(although Clampett is represented by a couple of classic shorts)and Avery, The Golden Collection has most of the cream of the crop well represented.

Although I have to question the way these shorts are grouped, there's no doubt that Duck Dodgers, Rabbit Seasoning, Long-Haired Hare, Rabbit of Seville, Duck Amuck, Dirp-Along Daffy, The Scarlet Pumpernickel, Rabbit Fire, Deduce You Say, Scaredy Cat, Bugs Bunney Gets The Boid and many of the other shorts here deserve to be included. What's surprising is that there are only 14 shorts on seat disc (it could easily have been stretched to 20).

The extras are certainly entertaining and interesting. For example, there's a discussion of Bob Clampett's lasting contribution to the Looney Tunes but one of his best cartoons Porky in Wackyland is nowhere to be found on this collection. While it isn't from the same time frame as many of these shorts (then again neither is Boid), it certainly deserves inclusion. It's one of the most surreal, bizarre and funny cartoons ever developed.

Avery's importance to the development of the various characters isn't overlooked either but, again, some of his best Warner shorts (and, admittedly, he wasn't at the studio as long as the other directors)are also sadly missing from this collection. Personally, I would have organized this based on chronology vs. characters. That's a minor quibble at best though.

The DVD format is pretty unforgiving and some of these classics demonstrate a large amount of analog flaws. The two where this is most noticeable are classic Jones shorts; Scaredy Cat looks awful at times. There's noticeable dust and other blemishes that are a bit distracting. As to whether these might have been fixable digitally, well, perhaps. Still others like Duck Amuck look marvelous (although every short here suffers from some analog blemish--it's the nature of the age of the originals and the condition of the prints used). While laserdisc wasn't quite as highend in terms of the resolution, some of these classic shorts actually looked better in that format.

The extras are great; there's commentary by historian Michael Barrier along with audio clips of Jones and others commenting on their classics. The inclusion of the outtakes short as an extras is truly inspired and a lot of fun. There's still much missing from this classic collection but what's here is undeniably great, there's still a motherlode of other great shorts not included on this collection. Hopefully those shorts (including Clampett's Wackyland classic) will be included on the next collection.

This is a great start from Warner and I'm hoping that Warner doesn't continue to treat these classics like so much product like they did in previous decades.


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