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Goes to War

Goes to War

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The Ultimate SNAFU
Review: This is the most complete collection of the SNAFU toons I've yet seen, and all on one disk no less--it even includes the rare "A Few Quick Facts" shorts featuring SNAFU. Other companies only issue the toons that are in the best condition (in which case we may never have seen "Three Brothers" again) or censor them for language/partial nudity/racial stereotyping. Yes, there is objectionable content here, but these toons are a portrait of their era and audience. Several of them are quite simply lost gems from the golden age of Looney Tunes--toons such as "Booby Traps," "Outpost" and "Hot Spot." The carping in previous reviews about the Bosko logo seems rather beside the point--yes, I would have preferred it not be there, particularly the "solid" version of the logo, but it's not large, doesn't stay on the screen long, and appears to have been carefully timed so that its appearance doesn't conflict with significant scenery or action (which means in some toons it only appears towards the middle or end). The editing on this volume is distinctly superior to other releases--unlike some companies, Bosko didn't clip off the end of the cartoons, and even left the original Army-Navy Screen Magazine "tag" on some. If you're genuinely interested in these fascinating (and funny!) relics, this is definitely the volume for you.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: A Good Idea Ruined By Several Bad Ones
Review: This video is almost a complete waste of time. The cartoon selections are good, but that's about all that's good. The problems are numerous. Firstly, the opening and end titles are cut from every cartoon, a completely pointless thing to do. It would be one thing if they were trying to save space, but they could have fit several times as many cartoons on the DVD, titles and all. Secondly, they've "remixed" the soundtrack into AC3 Dolby Digital Surround Sound. This is just about the silliest thing I can imagine. Don't be fooled. The original cartoons, being from the 30s and 40s, exist ONLY in mono. There is no way of making a mono soundtrack into stereo. They have simply added NEW sound effects and mixed them into stereo "around" the original mono soundtrack. The sounds are intermittent and distracting and do not go well with the mono soundtrack at all. They would have been far better off with a simple uncompressed mono soundtrack with no embellishments. Thirdly, the menu system is extremely awkward and does not allow you to skip through the cartoons with the track buttons. The player simply returns to the main menu after each cartoon. Lastly, the quality leaves much to be desired on most of the films. On "Scrap Happy Daffy," the quality is so bad, it's barely watchable. I understand that the film might of simply been in bad shape, but a little digital restoration would have been far more welcome than the silly "surround" sound effects.

Why couldn't they simply focus their efforts into a digital video and audio restoration on these old films and present them in their original unedited and uncensored state? Instead they've wasted their time with silly sound effects and cut up the cartoons as well.

Basically, this video's a bomb! Don't waste your time, just wait for MGM to release their Golden Age of Looney Tunes series on DVD. Their LD versions were far better than anything offered here.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Ruined!
Review: What a disappointment. Historic footage but I wish I'd known first that each cartoon would be disfigured by that wretched logo. Forget it. Don't encourage this sort of vandalism.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Great 'toons, shoddy transfer
Review: Yes, the Bosko logo is distracting and unnecessary. Worse is the terrible matte job, especially in part 1, the upper and right portion of the image is cut off, yet there is room on screen for the grey border in the lower and left sides. THAT is annoying! However, the content more than makes up for those problems IMHO.


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