"Temper! Don't be a sorehead, Doc. I'll show you a trick. I used to be in a magician's act." - Bugs Bunny in "Easter Yeggs"
Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume Three DVD Review
By Jonathan Boudreaux
In its previous two Looney Tunes Golden Collections, Warner Bros. set the high standard for DVD sets, collecting a lavish number of Looney Tunes shorts along with copious extras. Can Warner Bros. do the same a third time? It's a possibility.
As with Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume One and Volume Two, disc one of Volume Three centers on Warner Bros.'s biggest animated star, Bugs Bunny. "Bugs Bunny Classics" features fifteen shorts starring the wascally wabbit. A few of these we've seen a million times (although they remain funny) while others are a bit more obscure. In "A Hare Grows in Manhattan," Bugs relates the story of his childhood to a magazine gossip columnist, a sad tale of how he would get beaten up by neighborhood bullies for tap dancing down the mean streets of New York. The funniest bit: a play on the short's title. For pure hilarity, "Easter Yeggs" can't be beat. The schemer gets schemed when a sad sack Easter Bunny tricks Bugs into delivering his eggs for him. Bugs thinks it might be fun, but soon realizes that he has made a mistake. At the very first house, he encounters a red-haired little monster sucking on a pistol rather than a pacifier and insisting "I wanna Easter Egg! I wanna Easter Egg!" As if that isn't bad enough, his next stop is at the home of Elmer Fudd, who eagerly awaits his arrival so that he can have "Easter Rabbit Stew." Bugs battles a New York thug ("Bowery Bugs"), tries to regain his home when it is commandeered by an overbearing construction foreman ("Homeless Hare"), heads off to Washington, DC to argue that the bounty on rabbits should be higher than two cents ("Rebel Rabbit"), and becomes a potential next meal for a pair of imaginative castaways ("Wackiki Wabbit").
Hollywood and entertainment is the focus of "Hollywood Caricatures and Parodies." Unfortunately, this disc is too similar to disc four in Volume Two. Surely other characters could have been given dedicated discs (Yosemite Sam?) before another caricature disc was produced. There are some funny things to be found here - as there always is with Looney Tunes - but one wants more.
The disc does contain a couple of oddball classics. The Jackie Gleason sitcom The Honeymooners is parodied (barely) in "The Honey-Mousers." Ralph, Norton, and Alice are here recast as mice struggling to get food after a new cat moves into the kitchen. Changing the characters to mice is about the only change made - the same catchphrases are even used. "The Mouse That Jack Built" features Jack Benny, Mary Livingston, Rochester, and Don Wilson as the characters that they play on Benny's groundbreaking sitcom. Again, here they are mice. Both shorts feel more like stunts than fully formed ideas, but are unusual enough to warrant a look.
Expect a penful of "Porky and the Pigs" for disc three. Almost half of these shorts, like "Porky's Romance" (Porky meets and falls in love with Petunia), date back to the '30s and are in black and white. This disc contains several legendary shorts, several of which team up Porky and Daffy. In "Robin Hood Daffy," Daffy, as Robin Hood, desperately tries to convince a bemused Porky, as Friar Tuck, that he is the legendary do-gooder. Needless to say, he doesn't quite succeed. "Rocket Squad" is an intergalactic Dragnet parody in which Daffy plays Joe Monday and Porky plays his partner, Schmoe Tuesday. In "Daffy Duck Slept Here," a desperate Porky is forced to share a room with Daffy when a convention fills all of the other hotel rooms in town.
Other memorable shorts on this disc include the Oscar-nominated "Pigs in a Polka" (a take on the three little pigs in which one of the pigs builds his house out of matchsticks), "An Egg Scramble" (farmer Porky encourages hen Prissy to lay an egg), "The Windblown Hare" (the three little pigs again, but this time with Bugs helping out the wolf), and "Claws for Alarm" (Porky and Sylvester stay in a haunted hotel).
Almost the entire gang shows up on disc four for an "All-Star Cartoon Party," including Daffy ("Daffy Duck and the Dinosaur," "Daffy Duck and Egghead," "Draftee Daffy"), Bugs ("Super-Rabbit," "Falling Hare," "Rabbit Punch"), Sylvester and/or Tweety ("A Gruesome Twosome," "Birds Anonymous," "No Barking"), Sam Sheep Dog & Ralph Wolf ("Steal Wool"), Elmer Fudd ("An Itch in Time"), Pepe Le Pew ("Odor-able Kitty"), Foghorn Leghorn & Henery Hawk ("Walky Talky Hawky"), Speedy Gonzales ("Gonzales' Tamales"), and the Coyote and Road Runner ("To Beep or Not to Beep"). None of these are essential, but the mix does call to mind watching The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Show on a lazy Saturday morning.
For a complete listing of all the shorts included in Volume Three, visit our individual disc details page.
As with the previous Golden Collections, the four discs that make up this set are housed in a foldout digipak which in turn slides into a cardboard sleeve. This time around, however, the outer sleeve is black and grey, with a picture of Bugs making time with a va-va-voom girl on the front. The packaging is consistent with other Warner Bros. releases, but perhaps such an important part of WB history deserves something better than what was thrown together for Friends season sets.
The DVD menus in Volume Three are probably the best seen in a Golden Collection. Full motion and classy, these are terrific. From the main menu, viewers can choose to play all of the shorts, access the individual shorts, go to the languages menu, or view the extras menu. If the shorts have a related extra - a commentary, a music-only track, or a "Behind-the-Tunes" featurette - then the extra is accessible from the individual shorts menu. These same extras - and all others - are also found in the extras menu.
Video and Audio
These shorts look and sound as good as they ever have. Owing to the age of the materials and the economics of animation, there are still some flaws evident, but the shorts otherwise look incredible.
Subtitles and audio tracks are available in English, French and Spanish. The shorts are also closed captioned.
Extras
All four discs include an "Introduction by Whoopi Goldberg" (2:32) in which the caustic comedian and Looney Tunes fan talks about how many of the Looney Tunes shorts - including some in Volume 3 - are politically incorrect and potentially offensive. She also points out that it is important to remember when these were made.and to continue watching them. This intro can be accessed from the "Special Features" menu, but it also automatically starts up upon placing the DVD in your player. Luckily, it can also be skipped by pressing the "Menu" button.
Thirty-one shorts included here are accompanied by commentary tracks: historian Jerry Beck and ink-and-paint girl Martha Sigal on "The Wabbit Who Came to Supper" and "Hollywood Capers;" historian Michael Barrier on "Bowery Bugs," "Hillbilly Hare," "The CooCoo Nut Grove," "Odor-Able Kitty," and "Walky Talky Hawky;" filmmaker Greg Ford on "Case of the Missing Hare," "She Was an Acrobat's Daughter," "Thugs with Dirty Mugs," "The Mouse that Jack Built," "No Barking," and "To Beep or Not to Beep;" animators Eddie Fitzgerald and John Kricfalusi (Ren & Stimpy) on "Wackiki Wabbit," "Porky's Party," "Claws for Alarm," and "Draftee Daffy;" animator Eric Goldberg on "Duck! Rabbit, Duck!" and "Robin Hood Daffy;" historian Daniel Goldmark on "Swooner Crooner" and "Pigs in a Polka;" Beck and voice artist June Foray on "The Honey-Mousers;" animator Mark Kausler on "Porky's Romance;" director Joe Dante on "Porky Pig's Feat;" animator Paul Dini on "Rocket Squad" and "Super-Rabbit;" Kricfalusi on "A Gruesome Twosome;" animator Milton Gray on "A Gruesome Twosome;" Kricfalusi and animator Bill Melendez on "Falling Hare" and "An Itch in Time;" and Beck and animator Art Leonardi on "Birds Anonymous" and "Gonzales' Tamales."
Several of the shorts have special audio tracks that allow viewers to isolate the musical score or the score and the sound effects. For a complete listing of these shorts (and all of the other extras), please check our disc breakdown page.
As with the previous sets, each disc contains "Behind-the-Tunes" featurettes that take us behind-the-scenes of the Looney Tunes shorts through the use of interviews with historians, animators, and other Looney Tunes insiders, archival photos and film clips, and clips from classic shorts. The first disc features "A Hunting We Will Go: Chuck Jones' Wabbit Season Twilogy" (9:29) which examines the change in attitude that occurred in the characters when Bugs and Daffy first got together with Elmer. Disc two includes two featurettes. "Bosko, Buddy, and the Best of Black and White" (9:26) looks at the earliest Looney Tunes cartoons from the 1930s. These shorts didn't have strong characters - they mostly existed to sell songs from the Warner Bros. music catalog. Take a peek at how the shorts included in this collection came to look so spectacular with "Fine Tooning: Restoring the Warner Bros. Cartoons" (10:21). The side-by-side comparison between the restored and unrestored footage is truly astounding. This featurette is a must-see. Disc three features one featurette: "Tish Tash: The Animated World of Frank Tashlin" (17:12) which takes a look at the Looney Tunes director who went on to helm several Bob Hope, Jerry Lewis, and Doris Day films. Disc four collects three "Behind-the-Tunes" featurettes. First up is "Looney Tunes Go To War!" (10:15) which examines Bug's and the gang's reaction to WWII. "Strictly For the Birds: Tweety & Sylvester's Award-Winning Team Up" (7:13) takes a look at the "Birds Anonymous" short. "The Charm of Stink: On the Scent of Pepe le Pew" (7:23) sniff out the story of everyone's favorite skunk.
The "From the Vault" menus contain shorts and footage that help supplement Volume 3's extras. On disc two, "Sinkin' in the Bathtub" (7:53) is the Bosco cartoon mentioned in "Bosko, Buddy, and the Best of Black and White." It is actually the first Looney Tunes short ever produced. Watching this short will dispel any notions that Looney Tunes started out as anything but advertisements for music. Disney's influence on Looney Tunes is obvious in "It's Got Me Again!" (7:08), a vintage short featuring a houseful of Mickey Mouse-esque rodents. Disc three's "Porky's Party Storyboard Reel" (13:07) combines finished footage from the "Porky's Party" short with storyboard images, including images from scenes that were not in the final short. This is not to be missed. "Point Rationing of Foods" (6:13) explains why Americans must make food sacrifices in order to win WWII. Directed by Chuck Jones and based on the book by Frank Tashlin, "The Bear That Wasn't" (10:20) is an eye-catching, imaginative short in which a bear wakes up from hibernating only to discover that a factory has sprung up around him. The final "From the Vault" features are on disc four. As with disc three's "Porky's Party Storyboard Reel," the "Falling Hare Storyboard Reel" (8:50) combines finished footage from the original short with storyboard images. Private Snafu appears in three WWII instructional shorts: "Spies" (3:34), "Rumors" (4:19), and "Snafuperman" (4:34). Amusing and historically important, these shorts will be of great interest to animation fans and history buffs alike.
The name of animator Chuck Jones is synonymous with Looney Tunes. He was responsible for directing many of the series' greatest shorts, and he helped to develop the personalities of the various characters. The 1989 documentary "Chuck Amuck" (51:06) takes a look at his life and his animation methodology. Informative and entertaining, this documentary should not be missed by animation fans. And how can you pass up the opportunity to see Bugs Bunny spring forth from Jones' pencil?
Divided onto discs two and three, "What's Up Doc? A Salute to Bugs Bunny" was produced for TNT in the early '90s. Much of the footage here will be familiar to fans who have seen other Bugs Bunny documentaries, but this is still a worthy extra.
From 1960-62, The Bugs Bunny Show ran in primetime on ABC. Disc one provides a pair of extras from this series. New animated "behind-the-scenes" sequences were produced to run in between showings of classic Looney Tunes shorts. "The Honeymousers Bridging Sequences" (5:35) presentation of the interstitials for the "Honeymousers" episode. ABC broadcast the show in black and white, so much of the footage lacks color. Color was added to some shots, however, for subsequent broadcasts. The "Bull Point Pens Audio Recording Session" (4:46) presents raw audio of Mel Blanc recording dialogue for bridging sequences for the "Bull Point Pens" episode. The audio is accompanied by stills from the shorts, character sketches, and pictures of Blanc. This fascinating extra provides a behind-the-scenes look at how dialogue was recorded.
Disc four presents the "Philbert TV Pilot" (26:16) with optional commentary by historian Jerry Beck, Art Leonardi, and voice artist Trust Howard. This live action/animated combo centers on the volatile relationship between a comic strip artist and his back-talking creation who springs to life from the panels of the strip. Although somewhat fun as a curiosity, this is mostly a snooze. The pilot with commentary is actually more interesting than the pilot by itself.
Also included is a "Collectible Litho Cel" of the Looney Tunes gang. It's not very exciting, nor does it seem very collectible.
For a complete listing of all the extras found in this set, visit the Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume Three individual disc details page.
Summary
Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume Three may not have as many vital shorts as the previous collections, but even second-tier Looney Tunes are better than most other forms of entertainment. Toss in a few neat extras, and animation fans are in for hours of fun.
12/23/05
