Short Film Review – “Looney Tunes Golden Collection”

Like cartoons? Get this.

Cast, Crew, and Other Info

Mel Blanc performed the vast majority of the voices.


Directed by I. Freleng or Robert McKimson in most
cases.

This
DVD release

includes everything but other languages. And “One
Froggy Evening.”


Past movie reviews can be found here.

Premise

This is a collection of 56 classic Looney Tunes and
Merry Melodies.
Specifically, we have:

DVD 1: Best of Bugs Bunny

Baseball Bugs

Rabbit Seasoning (possibly the greatest cartoon
ever)

Long-Haired Hare

High Diving Hare

Bully for Bugs

What’s Up Doc?

Rabbit’s Kin

Water, Water Every Hare

Big House Bunny

Big Top Bunny

My Bunny Lies over the Sea

Wabbit Twouble

Ballot Box Bunny

Rabbit of Seville

DVD 2: Best of Daffy and Porky

Duck Amuck (where Daffy is tortured by the
animator)

Dough for the Do-Do

Drip-Along Daffy

Scaredy Cat

The Ducksters

The Scarlet Pumpernickel

Yankee Doodle Daffy

Porky Chops

Wearing of the Grin

Deduce, You Say

Boobs in the Woods

Golden Yeggs

Rabbit Fire (with the infamous “Rabbit Season!” “Duck
Season!”
exchange)

Duck Dodgers in the 24 1/2th Century

DVD 3: Looney Tunes All Stars

Elmer’s Candid Camera (Elmer and Bugs)

Bugs Bunny and the Three Bears (Bugs)

Fast and Furry-ous (the only Road Runner cartoon)

Hair-Raising Hare (Bugs)

The Awful Orphan (Porky Pig)

Haredevil Hare (Marvin the Martian’ first
appearance)

For Scent-imental Reasons (the only Pepe le Pew
cartoon)

Frigid Hare (yet another Bugs Bunny cartoon)

The Hypo-Chondri-Cat

Baton Bunny (Bugs conducts an orchestra in a cartoon
without dialogue)

Feed the Kitty (Sylvester)

Don’t Give Up The Sheep (the only Sam and Ralph
cartoon)

Bugs Bunny Gets the Boid (still more Bugs)

Tortoise Wins by a Hare (Bugs again)

DVD 4: Looney Tunes All Stars

Canary Row (Tweety and Sylvester)

Bunker Hill Bunny (yes, him again)

Kit for Cat

Putty Tat Trouble (Tweety, Sylvester, and a third
cat)

Bugs and Thugs (Bugs is at it once more)

Canned Feud (Sylvester)

Lumber Jerks (the only Goofy Gophers cartoon
here)

Speedy Gonzales (the only Speedy cartoon here)

Tweety’s S.O.S. (Tweety’s third and final
cartoon)

The Foghorn Leghorn (with Henry Hawk)

Daffy Duck Hunt (more Daffy and Porky)

Early to Bet (the gambling bug, and what may be a
very early
Sylvester)

Broken Leghorn (the other Foghorn)

Devil May Hare (finally, the Tasmanian Devil gets a
turn)

As you can probably tell by my descriptions above, I
think there may
be a bit too much of Bugs Bunny. He’s got an entire
DVD to himself;
do we really need so many of him on the two “All
Stars” DVDs? We’ve
only got one appearance by each of the Road Runner,
Wile E. Coyote
(who isn’t even called Wile E. yet), the Goofy
Gophers, Speedy
Gonzales, and the Tasmanian Devil. “One Froggy
Evening” is missing
entirely. It seems that the icon selected for the
entire WB TV
network isn’t important enough to make it into an All
Star
collection. Let’s hope this is corrected when the
next collection
comes out later this year.

High Point

“Rabbit Seasoning.” (That whole “pronoun trouble”
sequence is
incredible. Daffy’s deadpan “shoot him now, shoot
him now” during the
second run through cracks me up every time.)

Low Point

“Elmer’s Candid Camera.” It’s old, it’s slow, and
it’s not that
funny. Bugs is just being a bastard for no reason,
instead of the
later retaliatory mischeviousness he’s most known
for.

The Scores

How many cartoon standards were created right here?
How many
completely original cartoons, such as “Duck
Amuck” and the
dialogue-free “Baton Bunny” have never been
recreated? There is so
much here that is groundbreaking for the world of
animation, that I
just have to give it a 6 out of 6.

The animation is very well done, without any
of the noticable
errors that can be found in The Complete
Goofy
. This
looks fantastic, with maybe three or four moments in
the entire
collection that don’t look perfect. (There are a
couple of moments
that appear to have been using bleached film masters.
In general, the
restoration is excellent, though.) I give it 6 out
of 6.

The stories in the shorts range quite a bit.
Some of them
have genuine plot, such as “Drip-Along Daffy,” while
others are
surprisingly entertaining given the simplicity of the
premise, such as
“Baton Bunny.” I give it 4 out of 6.

The voice acting is remarkable. It’s all Mel
Blanc
. He had a
variety of voices, with distinct personalities and
intonation, and all
very expressive. Frank
Welker
is the only other voice actor I know of
who came close to
this level of work. I give it 6 out of 6.

The emotional response is excellent. I
watch these, and I
laugh. (Unless it’s one of the extremely old Elmer
Fudd cartoons.) I
give it 5 out of 6.

The production category is meant to review
the original
product, which is why it scores 5 out of 6. If it
included the
restoration and DVD treatment, it would be higher.
They did a
fantastic job.

Overall, this is a set that should be owned
by every fan of
animation, and every parent. Anyone else out there
should seriously
consider it. I give it 6 out of 6.

In total, Looney Tunes: The Golden
Collection
receives 38 out
of 42. No wonder the sales of this convinced Warner
Bros. to release
another set like it this year.

7 replies on “Short Film Review – “Looney Tunes Golden Collection””

  1. Wacky

    I think my basic understanding of the elements of plotting came from Warner Brothers cartoons.

    I wonder why they’ve included “Dough for the Do-Do,” however, instead of the original, “Porky in Wackyland.” “Dough…” is the same cartoon with a framing device.

    The collection also lacks “Hare Trimmed,” which contains what may be the single funniest line in the Warner Bros. canon. Granny has inherited a fortune. Yosemite Sam plans to court her to get her money so he can do nasty things with it. Bugs Bunny decides to court her, too, so he can derail Sam’s plan. At one point they’re both chasing her around the house.

    “I haven’t had so much fun,” she says, “since the boys got back from Gettysburg.”

  2. Its really, really, really godd.. BUT!!
    I leaped for joy (metaphorically) when my flat mate told me this was out. I grew up with Warner Bros cartoons (rather than Disney etc) so it was a dream come true.

    Except that it doesn’t have two of the classics. Daffy Duck’s Robin of Sherwood rip off which has teh most hysterical repated gag in I have ever seen (the one when he is trying to swing through the trees and keeps wacking into them), and “Thats Opera Doc”, which is just a marvellous piece of Bugs Bunny and just cracks me up.

    Hopefully they will release these on another disc at some point along with Animaniacs and Pinky and the Brain (which I do believe WB are thinking about releasing?!).

    • Re: Its really, really, really godd.. BUT!!

      Daffy Duck’s Robin of Sherwood

      Isn’t that the one with the “actually, it’s a dollar-and-a-quarter quarterstaff” line?

      Comedy Gold.

      • Re: Its really, really, really godd.. BUT!!

        Isn’t that the one with the “actually, it’s a dollar-and-a-quarter quarterstaff” line?

        Yup… I even found a piccy of the buck and a quarterstaff. :D

        I have found one way of getting the “Robin Hood Daffy” cartoon… unfortunatly this is it… hmmm.

        The search continues…

        • Re: Its really, really, really godd.. BUT!!

          I have found one way of getting the “Robin Hood Daffy”
          cartoon… unfortunatly this
          is it… hmmm.

          My parents have this DVD, so I just checked it out. The
          DVD also has “Rabbit Hood,” and neither is reproduced in
          the quality we see in the Golden Collection. “Robin Hood
          Daffy” looks OK, but has terrible sound, while “Rabbit
          Hood” sounds good, but is jittery and shows signs of
          damage caused by ground in dirt on the original film. I
          hope they release a cleaner version on some future Golden
          Collection.

        • Re: Its really, really, really godd.. BUT!!

          I have found one way of getting the “Robin Hood Daffy” cartoon… unfortunatly this is it… hmmm.

          The search continues…

          Why “unfortunately”? This is a top-quality film. I bought this long before I even knew about Robin Hood Daffy being on there.

    • Re: Its really, really, really godd.. BUT!!

      “Thats Opera Doc”, which is just a marvellous piece of Bugs Bunny and just cracks me up.

      Is that the one where Elmer Fudd sings “Kill the Wabbit, Kill the Wabbit”?

      If so, bummer. I want to see that one again. Anyone know of any DVDs or videos where it’s available?

Comments are closed.