All 28 Listed Here – You be the Judge, November 27, 2008

Disc One:

“Elmer’s Candid Camera” (1940)–Elmer Fudd’s out to shoot a wabbit–this time, with a camera. Unluckily for him, his subject is Bugs Bunny.

“Bugs Bunny and the Three Bears” (1944)–Goldilocks is nowhere to be found, but the Three Bears think Bugs is just right–to eat. Bugs, however, has other plans for the hapless trio.

“Fast and Furry-ous” (1949)–Accelerati Incredibulis meets Carnivarious Vulgaris on a desert highway. Carnivarious Vulgaris attempts to capture Accelerati Incredibulis. Final Score: Accelerati 1, Carnivarious 0, despite the latter’s use of several fine Acme products.

“Hair-Raising Hare” (1946)–Bugs finds that monsters really do live such in-teresting lives.

“The Awful Orphan” (1949)–In this precursor to Single White Female, a persistent mutt shows Porky why dogs are man’s best friend. Problem is, Porky’s a pig.

“Haredevil Hare” (1948)–Decades before Neil Armstrong went to the Moon, a brave rabbit made one giant hop for mankind. Unfortunately, Marvin the Martian was waiting for him, with an Aludium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator.

“For Scent-imental Reasons” (1949)–This Oscar-winning short has “ze locksmith of love,” Pepe LePew, pursuing a reluctant pussycat. “Do not come wiz me to ze Casbah,” Pepe tells her. “We shall make beautiful musicks togezzer right here!” Pussycat is unimpressed.

“Frigid Hare” (1949)–Bugs takes a wrong turn at Albuquerque and winds up at the South Pole, pursued by an Eskimo. (Since there are no Eskimos at the South Pole, Bugs really made a wrong turn.) Bugs whips out the lipstick, and transsexual antics ensue.

“The Hypo-Chondri-Cat” (1950)–Hubie and Bertie the mice force Claude the hypochondriac cat to confront his inner demons–and angels.

“Baton Bunny” (1959)–Warner Brothers Symphony guest conductor Bugs Bunny conducts “Morning, Noon, and Night in Vienna” by Franz Von Suppe to an overly appreciative insectile audience.

“Feed the Kitty” (1952)–In what may be the greatest Looney Tunes cartoon ever made, ferocious bulldog Marc Anthony is reduced to a big ol’ softie by a cute kitten. (The gut-wrenching “cookie” scene was later paid homage in Monsters, Inc.)

“Don’t Give Up the Sheep” (1953)–Neither wind nor rain nor Wile E. Coyote look-a-like Ralph the Wolf shall keep dutiful employee Sam Sheepdog from protecting his flock.

“Bugs Bunny Gets the Boid” (1942)–Bugs is targeted for carrion-ization by a family of buzzards.

“Tortoise Wins By a Hare” (1943)–In one of the rare instances in which Bugs loses, Cecil, the Lance Armstrong of racing tortoises, keeps outracing Bugs, who resorts to dressing up as an old man to pry Cecil’s secrets out of his shell. The secret? “Streamlining.”

Disc Two:

“Canary Row” (1950)–Tweety Bird suspects he may have spotted a feline. This suspicion is shortly (and repeatedly) confirmed, prompting Tweety to declare that he did, in fact, see a putty-tat.

“Bunker Hill Bunny” (1950)–In this gripping account of one of the Revolutionary War’s lesser-known battles, Bugs Bunny defends Fort Bagel Heights against “Hessian oppression” in the form of Yosemite Sam. True to historical record, Sam is soon rendered a “Hessian without no aggression,” prompting him to join forces with his erstwhile enemy.

“Kit For Cat” (1948)–On a frigid evening, homeless tomcat Sylvester finds refuge with mansion-and-yacht owner Elmer Fudd. Unfortunately, a cute orange kitty also seeks shelter in the Fudd residence. There can be only one.

“Putty Tat Trouble” (1951)–One white Chwistmas, a hungry orange feline intrudes upon Sylvester and Tweety’s twisted co-dependent relationship.

“Bugs and Thugs” (1954)–When pampered urbanite Bugs Bunny gets mixed up with criminal masterminds Rocky and Mugsy, the talkative rabbit is forced, not only to shut up, but to “shut up shuttin’ up.”

“Canned Feud” (1951)–If Alfred Hitchcock directed a cartoon version of Home Alone, it might look something like this. Sylvester, left behind in a house full of canned food and no can opener, inexorably descends into madness and horror, aided by a sadistic mouse.

“Lumber Jerks” (1955)–The ambiguously gay gopher duo go looking for their missing tree. What they find instead is some fabulous home furnishings.

“Speedy Gonzalez” (1955)–The fastest mouse in all Mexico makes his debut in this Oscar-winning short, a class warfare allegory in which cheese factory owner-slash-capitalist oppressor Sylvester tries to keep the working mouse down.

“Tweety’s S.O.S.” (1951)–Tweety once again sees a bad ol’ putty-tat, this time on a cruise ship. The result? Pain, exciting and new.

“The Foghorn Leghorn” (1948)–Henery the rising young chicken hawk is determined to bag himself a…

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Solid collection of classic Looney Tunes, November 2, 2003

By 

Wayne Klein “If at first the idea is not absu… (My Little Blue Window, USA) –

  

  

For those folks not interested in the bells and whistles(i.e., extras, interviews, rarities, etc) available on the deluxe Golden Collection, The Premiere Collection is a very good place to start collecting these classic shorts. The positives carried over from Golden are many; these are transferred from new prints with considerable digital clean up (without any digital alteration to the original images). The unforgiving quality of DVD is such that you will see many analog flaws on some of the older cartoons (particularly those with darker colored backgrounds). There’s a considerable amount of what appears to be dust but could just be analog imperfections in the surviving negatives and prints generated from them. More than likely, many of these errors were there from the moment they shot the cartoons and were on the original animation background cels.

The set is flawed not so much by what is included but by what it omits; There’s none of Tex Avery’s formative Warner cartoons and Bob Clampett’s wacky style is represented only by a couple of shorts (and his most zany Porky in Wackyland is MIA). While the set (like The Golden Collection) is heavy on Chuck Jones that could actually be a good thing. Jones’ shorts were far and away the best the unit produced (outside of Clampett’s) and also the most innovative. That’s not to dismiss Friz Freleng’s classics or Robert McKimson’s best cartoons; Jones was more consistent and also pushed the boundary much more as a director. Much of his best work was done with Maurice Nobel and Michael Maltese and there’s a couple of representative samples here as well (most notably The Fast and The Furry-ous).

If you purchase this set, though, be forewarned as a couple of Jones’ best works are missing; Duck Dodgers, Drip-a Long Daffy, Rabbit Fire, Rabbit of Seville and the brilliant Duck Amuck are nowhere to be found on this set. The cartoons that are included including the brilliant Scaredy Cat are important works but this collection is a bit lite on Jones’ best work.

Marketing is the key word here folks. Most stores that wouldn’t carry a more expensive boxed set like Golden will cary the two disc sets like this. Hopefully both are well received so that the classics missing from this set will make it to a second or third one.

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