The Looney Tunes Golden Collection > 자유게시판

The Internet being what is it, it didn't take long for the complaints to begin roiling across the bandwidth the long-awaited Looney Tunes DVDs from Warner Home Video have been too skimpy. They had been lacking many of the "best" cartoons. The set's weighted too heavily in favor of Chuck Jones.

Oh, blah blah freakin' blah.

An enormous variety of technophiles are also, it would seem, cartoon junkies. For years their semi-fixed refrain has gone one thing like this: MGM supplied a 5 multi-platter Laserdisc units of over 300 traditional Looney Tunes/Merry Melodies shorts, and Warner Bros. managed to launch about a hundred and fifty of 'em as a twelve-LD series so the place the hell are the DVDs? Well, now the DVDs have began to arrive. And, naturally, it is just not adequate. Mutter, bitch, whine, complain.

So let's handle the complaints right out of the gate. Yes, there are "only" 56 shorts on this assortment. And sure, they are predominantly 'toons directed by Chuck Jones, with only a few of the selections predating his golden interval of the late '40s-early '50s. And there are some large favorites which can be noticeably lacking, while a number of the featured shorts are less than the very best from the huge WB catalog of cartoons.

Get over it.

If you buy, borrow, or steal The Looney Tunes Golden Collection, what you will have is a gorgeous starter set of beautifully restored cartoons on DVD. The colors are intensely vivid and, though they actually aren't presented without any specks or scratches (let's face it, some of these cartoons are over 60 years previous and weren't saved below optimum circumstances) they're wonderfully clean and framed better all in their unique 1.37:1 aspect ratio than the variations on either the LD sets or on broadcast television, and you are getting them unedited. The monaural Dolby audio has been cleaned as much as crystal readability, with no notable pops or hisses, and with the exceptional music tracks sounding better than ever. And they're on DVD, so you get to own them ceaselessly and watch them every time you like. And Warner guarantees there shall be more units in the future.

So shut up and enjoy the cartoons, already.

Disc One The Best of Bugs Bunny provides 14 shorts starring Warner Bros. main lepus, directed by Jones, Robert McKimson, Friz Freleng, and Bob Clampett. Among one of the best are "Long-Haired Hare" (1949), in which Bugs takes his revenge on a blustering opera singer; "What's Up Doc?" (1950), with Bugs telling a reporter his life story; and "High Diving Hare" (1949), one in all Freleng's finest, with Bugs squaring off towards Yosemite Sam when he takes the place of a circus high-dive act. The 2 highlights are "Rabbit Seasoning" (1952), the traditional pairing of Bugs and Daffy Duck, who battle over whether or not it's rabbit season or duck season ("Aha pronoun bother!"), and "Rabbit of Seville" (1950), Chuck Jones good homage to both Rossini's opera and the conventions of his personal Bugs/Elmer Fudd cartoons (this is particularly welcome as Jones' Wagnerian masterpiece, "What's Opera Doc?" is notably absent from the gathering). All the cartoons on this disc, aside from "Wabbit Twouble" (1941), an early Clampett-directed Bugs and Elmer brief, were produced between 1948 and 1953.

Disc Two The Best of Daffy and Porky features 14 'toons starring either Daffy Duck or Porky Pig or each with 9 of the selections directed by Chuck Jones. The disc starts off with Jones' brilliant, surreal "Duck Amuck" (1953) through which Daffy struggles on the mercy of an animator who erases his surroundings, puts him in a variety of genre pictures and customarily drives him mad for sheer sport; "The Scarlet Pumpernickel" (1950) with Daffy as Dumas' hero; the artistically astounding "Duck Dodgers in the 24th Century" (1953); "Deduce You Say" (1956), with Daffy and Porky stepping in as Sherlock Holmes and Watson; "Rabbit Fire" (1951), an earlier (however not as funny) cartoon using the same "duck season/rabbit season" gag as Disc One's "Rabbit Seasoning"; and "Wearing of the Grin," (1951) with a clueless Porky falling prey to a pair of leprechauns, leading to Porky's being chased by means of a Dali-eque panorama by a pair of magical green shoes. The disc additionally features a lesser-seen cartoon, "Yankee Doodle Daffy" (1943), with Daffy taking part in a persistent agent attempting to sell Porky on his client, a lollipop-licking duck named Sleepy Lagoon in the method Daffy does hilarious imitations of Al Jolson and Carmen Miranda. A few of the perfect Daffy cartoons are MIA here, nonetheless, including "Robin Hood Daffy," "Beanstalk Bunny" and "Ali Baba Bunny." One can solely hope they will be on the next release.

Discs Three and four are devoted to "Looney Tunes All-Stars," a catch-all phrase meaning "different characters besides Bugs, Porky and Daffy." The three prime characters appear on these discs, too, but there's also a sampling of Foghorn Leghorn, Speedy Gonzales, Sylvester and Tweety, and one paltry selection each starring the Road Runner and Pepe le Pew. Highlights of the Jones-heavy Disc Three include "Bugs Bunny and the Three Bears" (1944), featuring the voice of Stan Freberg, with Bugs taking place on the home of Henry, Mama and Junior Bear (their first look in a Warners cartoon); "Baton Bunny," (1959), the basic brief with Bugs as "Leopold," conducting Franz von Suppe's Morning, Noon and Night in Vienna; "The Hypo-Chondri-Cat" (1950), wherein streetwise mice Hubie and Bert torture poor, hysterical Claude the Cat; and the marvelous "Feed the Kitty" (1952), with bruiser canine Marc Anthony taking a shine to a giant-eyed kitten. Only two of Disc Three's shorts are non-Jones selections, and several other are lower than the better of their kind. "Fast and Furry-ous" (1949), whereas notable as the primary Road Runner/Wile E. Coyote cartoon, is hardly the best of the bunch and the just one offered on this set. Likewise, the one Pepe le Pew choice, "For Scent-imental Reasons" (1950) received an Oscar for Best Short Subject (Cartoon) however there are better Pepe shorts in the catalog, and 1953's "Don't Quit the Sheep" is the first and the least efficient of Jones' cartoons featuring Ralph Wolf and Sam Sheepdog.

Disc Four presents a Jones-much less assortment, showcasing works by directors Robert McKimson and Friz Freleng produced from 1942 to 1959. It's not a powerful disc, however, and feels haphazard in its lackluster selections 1948's "The Foghorn Leghorn" was McKimson's first outing with the blowhard rooster and the writing is pretty limp; "Speedy Gonzales" (1955) launched that character, always one of many weakest creations within the Looney Tunes stable; and "Tweety's S.O.S." (1951), "Puddy Tat Trouble" (1951) and "Canary Row" (1950) ... well, they all feature Tweety, and one has to wonder why probably the most annoying Looney Tunes character gets three slots on the disc. On the other hand, there's a few gems right here Freleng's at the highest of his sport with 1951's "Canned Feud," with a home-alone Sylvester battling a mouse for a much-needed can opener; "Early to Bet" (1951) follows a card-loopy cat after he is bitten by the insidious Gambling Bug and the hilariously cruel methods he has to repay his canine opponent when he loses; and "Bunker Hill Bunny" (1950) is a strong Bugs/Yosemite Sam face-off.

* * *

There's a variety of extras supplied on the Golden Collection, distributed throughout the four discs. Twenty-six of the cartoons offer commentary tracks by animation historians Michael Barrier and Jerry Beck, filmmaker Greg Ford or actor Stan Freberg. The commentaries are useful, providing a wealth of background information, especially as regards the historic context of among the more esoteric jokes. Twelve shorts are available with a music-solely option, providing the chance to marvel at the genius of composer Carl Stalling. The new, 60-minute featurette Irreverent Imagination: The Golden Age of Looney Tunes gives sound-bites from Termite Terrace animators and relations, plus plenty of clips from cartoons and images from the era. It's a nice overview of the period, if somewhat shallow. Much better is the 2-half, 1975 documentary The Boys from Termite Terrace, originally produced for CBS' Camera Three series. Filmed ten years after Warners had dismantled their animation unit, it provides an excellent background on the Looney Tunes creators and features interviews with both Jones and Freleng. Also on board is a 46-minute Cartoon Network featurette, Toon Heads: The Lost Cartoons, a irritating tease that discusses many of the cartoons that should have been included on the premier Warners set like Jones' WWII-era "Private Snafu" shorts, Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising's early 1930's Bosko cartoons, and varied advertising efforts.

The remainder of the extras are much less impressive 12 new featurettes are provided below the heading Behind the Tunes, every touching on a character or creator with a skimpy three or 4 minute, hit-and-run clip and sound chew nugget. The ones devoted to Mel Blanc and Carl Stalling are especially disappointing, offering nothing greater than a nod to their contributions without giving the viewer anything of substance (those all in favour of Stalling's work would do better to learn the in depth liner notes provided with the 2 music CDs produced in the nineteen nineties entitled The Carl Stalling Project: Music From Warner Bros. Cartoons, 1936-1958). The eight-minute Blooper Bunny: Bugs Bunny 50th Anniversary Special from 1991 is an ostensible "behind-the-scenes" look at the taping of a WB television particular it has some very funny moments, and falls utterly flat in others. There's additionally an introduction by Chuck Jones, plus still galleries, pencil exams, cartoon schematics, a 10-minute segment from The Bugs Bunny Show, and clips of animated segments from two 1949 Jack Carson movies.

Dawn Taylor

- Color - Full-display screen (1.37:1) - Four single-sided, single-layered disc? (SS-SL) - Dolby Digital 2.Zero Mono (English, French) - Subtitles: English, Spanish, French - Commentary on 26 shorts by Michael Barrier, Jerry Beck, Greg Ford and Stan Freberg.

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