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All Rise...Judge Jim Thomas will name this DVD set "George," and he will love it and pet it. Editor's NoteOur reviews of Looney Tunes: Golden Collection, Volume One (published November 25th, 2003), Looney Tunes: Golden Collection, Volume Two (published January 24th, 2005), Looney Tunes: Golden Collection, Volume Three (published December 12th, 2005), Looney Tunes: Golden Collection, Volume Four (published January 8th, 2007), Looney Tunes: Golden Collection, Volume Six (published October 21st, 2008), Looney Tunes Platinum Collection: Volume Two (Blu-ray) (published October 22nd, 2012), Looney Tunes Platinum Edition: Volume One (Blu-ray) Collector's Edition (published November 27th, 2011), and Looney Tunes: The Premiere Collection (published November 10th, 2003) are also available. The ChargeTh-th-th-th-that's not all, folks! Opening StatementThe Looney Tunes Golden Collection was released…and the crowd
did roar. Facts of the CaseWarner Home Video is slowly releasing the Looney Tunes library, with one release of sixty shorts every year. With the release of this fifth volume, they're halfway through their planned release cycle. Here's what you get: Disc One: Bugs and Daffy Disc Two: Fun-Filled Fairy Tales Disc Three: Putting a Bob Clampett on It Disc Four: "The Early Daze" There's also an extensive collection of special features. The EvidenceWhen I was a kid, the one constant of my Saturdays was The Bugs Bunny Show. Not even a flood kept me from making certain that my butt was firmly planted in front of the TV before Bugs and Daffy came out in tuxedoes and launched into "Overture" (That sequence is included in the extras, which most assuredly earns Warner Home Video bonus points). Those cartoons became a part of me, as they became part of others as well. Consider the following: • In grad school, a friend of mine named Grace was in a deep funk. So I wrapped her up in a big bear hug, singsonging, "What a cute little bunny rabbit! I will name him George, and I will hug him and pet him…," and then gave her a noogie. She fell out laughing, those bad ol' blues washed away. • In high school, a friend of mine named his Dungeons & Dragons fighter "Hassan," just so he could go charging into battle screaming, "Hassan chop!!. (Years later, I had a bad-ass magic-user named "The Brain," but that's a different DVD set.) • While in grad school, I found myself reading Shakespeare while Looney Tunes was on in the background. The result was casting A Midsummer's Night's Dream using the Looney Tunes characters. I cast Elmer Fudd as Theseus, and rewrote the play's opening lines accordingly: "Hyppowita, I wooed thee with my sword, To this day, I can't help but think that my cast sheet, which I distributed to the seminar the next day, is the only reason I got an "A." (If anyone's interested, I can post the entire cast sheet in the forums.) My point is that the Looney Tunes long ago passed beyond mere entertainment, and into our culture's subconscious. One reason for this apotheosis, I think, is that the WB cartoons made it so easy to think of them as part of us. Fourth walls are forever being broken, and the cartoons repeated appropriate other aspects of our culture, be it fairy tales, movie stars, or even rationing. As a result, even the cartoons that do not reach the heights of a "What's Opera Doc?" manage to strike a chord deep within us, and the day brightens up. Which is, I suppose, a pretty long-winded way of explaining why I enjoyed this set. Each disc has a theme of sorts: Disc One: Bugs and Daffy Disc Two: Fun-Filled Fairy Tales Disc Three: Putting a Bob Clampett on It Disc Four: "The Early Daze" Warner Home Video has again done a spectacular job of restoration. I remember watching some of these shorts twenty-thirty years ago, thinking how badly the prints had aged: scratches, garbled sound, film splices…These cartoons, though, look like the producers swiped Mr. Peabody's WayBack machine and brought the prints back from the developer. Colors are clean and vibrant, and background textures that had washed out over the years have an almost tactile look to them. In many of the early shorts, the contrast between the backgrounds (and in some cases, foregrounds) creates an illusion of depth that is a treat (for a good example, look at the opening scene of "14 Carrot Bunny"). The mono audio track is crisp and clear. Considering the age of these shorts—the dates range from 1963 (the year I was born, btw) all the way back to 1933 (before my mother was born)—the near-pristine presentation is an amazing accomplishment. The extras are a mixed bag, but there are a LOT of them. They fall into two basic categories: Short-specific or standalone. Short-specific extras include commentary tracks by various animators, music-only tracks, and some behind-the-scenes material. The standalone extras include "Chuck Jones: Extremes and In-betweens-A Life in Animation," a PBS Great Performances special from 2000 (for some reason, this feature is split between two discs), "The Art of Bob McKimson," and "Unsung Maestros: The Directors." All are engaging and well done. For the cartoon historian, the "Unsung Maestros" is particularly nice, as it documents a series of directors who did not do a lot of Looney Tunes, but nevertheless had a major impact. There's also some material from the old Bugs Bunny Show, which ran on ABC in primetime in the early '60s. There are some commercials for Post cereals and Tang, along with some reconstructions of the material created specifically for the show, to bridge the cartoons together. However, since all we get is the bridging material, and not the complete show, it's somewhat fragmented. The set includes three TV specials: "Bugs' and Daffy's Carnival of the Animals," which is a not particularly effective attempt to imitate Fantasia; "Bugs Bunny's Looney Christmas Tales," which is, obviously, various Christmas stories told Looney Tunes style; and, finally, "Bugs Bunny's Bustin' Out All Over." All are notable primarily for their bad animation—though the third special does have a splendid gag involving Elmer learning the laws of gravity. Doing a commentary for a cartoon has to be a daunting task. Think about it—you've only got 5 minutes to say something about the cartoon; that can't be easy. Most here are very good; Mark Kausler's commentary on "Little Red Walking Hood" tosses out nuggets of information right and left, such as telling us that Red's speech and mannerisms were based on Katherine Hepburn. It's fascinating how he—and other animators on many of the other commentaries—can note where one animator leaves off and another begins. Historian Jerry Beck provides a great track for "Bacall to Arms," pointing out the short's problematic history; it was only partially finished when Bob Clampett left the studio, and the people who completed it didn't quite understand what Clampett was trying to do, resulting in a pretty disjointed—though still funny—finished product. Of the two commentary tracks for "Buckaroo Bugs," the standout features directors John Kricfalusi (Ren and Stimpy) and Eddie Fitzgerald, along with cartoonist Kari Fontecchio. The threesome laughs throughout the short, pointing out little things that illustrated Clampett's technical sophistication. The Rebuttal WitnessesOther judges have previously complained about the random arrangement of cartoons within a disc; that issue remains. And there's no explanation; unless there's some reason no one's revealing, they should be in chronological order. The one place where the set just doesn't measure up is the Bob Clampett retrospective of Disc Three. To begin with, there is no focused examination of his body of work. Clampett was one of the six major directors of Warner Brothers cartoons (The others were Friz Freleng, Tex Avery, Robert McKimson, Arthur Davis and Chuck Jones). If the man's work merits a dedicated disc, surely he merits a brief introduction to the man and his art, so that the shorts can be viewed with a more informed eye. Problems such as these result partly from the sheer numbers of cartoons involved; making a comprehensive plan for a ten volume series rapidly becomes an exercise in futility, as you never know what supplemental material might turn up in during development. So you get a few hiccups along the way—a behind the scenes piece on Clampett is included in volume two, while this set has a feature on Robert McKimson—go figure. The selections for Clampett are somewhat perplexing—though to be fair, many of Clampett's best works were included in the earlier sets. For example, one quintessential early short, "Porky in Wackyland", was included in volume 2). But also missing in action is what many consider one of the greatest shorts of all time. After Duke Ellington urged Bob Clampett to make a black musical cartoon, Clampett took his entire animation team to Harlem clubs so that they could capture the essence of the jazz culture. The result was the parody, "Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs". It was immediately hailed as a classic, and even today is a hit at conventions. But in the late '60s, it became one of the "Censored Eleven"—eleven Warner Brothers cartoons that were basically disavowed due to their inherent racism. Many openly wonder if Warner will ever have the nerve to release it. (A brief snippet of the short is included in the Disc 2 featurette, "Once Upon a Looney Toon.") I wish they had managed to include at least one classic Marvin the Martian short in this collection, but that may just be me (he says, looking up at his Marvin the Martian lava lamp, his multiple Marvin cookie jars, his Marvin & Bugs sericel, and his battery-powered Marvin the Martian Pez dispenser). Closing StatementConsider this: the first four Golden Collections totaled 240 shorts, including several that appear towards the top of any rational list of best cartoons ever made. OK, so this set doesn't have any shorts that measure up to the utter genius of "Duck Amuck," "Rabbit of Seville," or (sigh) "One Froggy Evening." You know what? Doesn't matter. This set rocks. The VerdictWarner Home Video is found not guilty, though they would be well-advised to spend some more time organizing future releases, so that in the future, other animator/directors don't get short-changed as did Bob Clampett. Give us your feedback!Did we give Looney Tunes: Golden Collection, Volume Five a fair trial? yes / no Other Reviews You Might Enjoy
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