Looney Tunes Golden/Platinum Collections

[EricJ]

Cecil is a surprise inclusion (for me at least) on the cover.

A surprise that he got on the cover, but looks like Vol. 2-Disk 2 is continuing the "Complete" arcs for non-Chuck "old" characters:
The three Cecil Turtles, the four Beaky Buzzards, the four Happy Rabbits, the two Flea cartoons, the three Nasty Canastas (including the "unofficial" Jerry Lewis version from Barbary Coast Bunny), and of course, the complete Rabbit Season/Duck Season Trilogy.
(Sadly, we get "Dough Ray Me-Ow", but we don't get the Complete Economic Educational Film trilogy.)

Think Warner's found their goldmine, for selling the toons to anal-retentive collector fans who don't want anything left out, and selling characters to casual showoff fans who remember one character or catchphrase line without remembering the original toon.

[Randall]

I'm one collector welcoming this set. I have to admit it's nice having all related toons in one place. This set looks like a winner...

...except that Tex's MGM cartoons get a small showing here. Naturally, I would have preferred that we get a complete Blu-ray collection of those. (That may come; but this feels more like a small sample trying to make fans happy, rather than a "whetting the appetite" offering; but we'll see.) But, I do like having Fritz's Captain and the Kids cartoons on here. In fact, I like that very much. I think I have only one of those on a VHS tape.

[Uncle Scooby]

Think Warner's found their goldmine, for selling the toons to anal-retentive collector fans who don't want anything left out

Well I slot perfectly into that bracket!

On a more serious note, that's what we all complain about/ask for... It's great to see WB are continuing the great work they have provided so far on DVD (Popeye, Superman, Peanuts etc.) into the Hi-Def era & supporting the niche well with the 3rd disc being Blu-ray exclusive. They are to be applauded - long may it continue!

We'll be seeing a remastered "Censored Eleven" included sometime at this rate....

[EricJ]

...except that Tex's MGM cartoons get a small showing here. Naturally, I would have preferred that we get a complete Blu-ray collection of those. (That may come; but this feels more like a small sample trying to make fans happy, rather than a "whetting the appetite" offering; but we'll see.).

...Do we know that??
It's true that MGM can't see marketing Tex past the Droopy/Wolf/Red cartoons--and so, like the wartimes and Private Snafu's, might pawn a few of the one-offs here for Warner to get out of having to do that collectors' set T&J fans keep asking for--but "the Rest" could refer to the 40's one-off Warner travelogues that now don't fit into Warner's idea of "classic characters".

Frankly, thought the anvil-and-tongue MGM Tex got a bit overexposed during the Roger Rabbit 80's (back when baby boomers thought that was what all cartoons looked like), but the minimalistic Warner spot-gag Tex has long been overdue for disk.
I'm sure a lot of wishful fans will be throwing a fit if "the Rest" of Tex turns out to consist of Hamateur Night, Holiday Highlights, Believe It or Else and Cinderella Meets a Fella, but I'll be a happy fan.

[Ben]

I do like having Fritz's Captain and the Kids cartoons on here. In fact, I like that very much. I think I have only one of those on a VHS tape.

If you still have your Tom & Jerry Volume Two laser set, I think you have a few more than one.

[Randall]

Huh. I'd forgotten about that. There were some nice bonus cartoons on there.

[EricJ]

On the subject of bonus cartoons, turns out next week's "Chuck Jones: Mouse Chronicles" had room for a few unmarked Mouse cartoons on the Bonus Disk 2, that were "hidden" for not being Chuck-directed:

* Country Mouse (7:04, SD): A muscular mouse from the country tries his hand at being a prize fighter.
* The Lyin’ Mouse (6:59, SD): A mouse caught in a trap pleads for his life with the cat about to eat him.
* The Mice Will Play (6:55, SD): Hijinks in a science lab lead to an unexpected mouse romance.
* Little Blabbermouse (8:16, SD): The fast talking mouse goes on an aerial ride through a department store and encounters various oddities and dangers.
* Shop Look & Listen (7:58, SD): Blabbermouse returns for another tour through a department store.
* Mouse Mazurka (8:05, SD): Sylvester the Cat tries to nab a mouse in a Eastern European village.
* Mouse-Warming (6:59, SD): Claude the Cat tries to get between two young mice in love.
* Mouse-Taken Identity (6:40, SD): Sylvester the Cat mistakes a baby kangaroo for a mouse while on duty in the County Museum.
* Mice Follies (6:20, SD): Ralph and Morton accidentally lead a cat back to their homes after a late night out on the town.
* It’s Nice to Have a Mouse Around the House (6:44, SD): Granny calls in Daffy Duck to exterminate Speedy Gonzales after he proves too much for Sylvester the Cat.
* Merlin the Magic Mouse (6:22, SD): The mouse magician has to figure out how to perform in front of a cat without getting eaten.

[Randall]

Too bad they're SD, but bonus cartoons are always welcome.

[GeorgeC]

A lot of films will NEVER be converted to HD for home video release because the studios don't think there's money it or that it's worth it. Many master elements just aren't in a shape that's worth trying to create HD masters from. The science/art of upscaling from SD elements is also still in a relative infancy. There are GOOD UPSCALES but for the most part this is with newer animation (they do this a lot with anime TV Blu ray releases in Japan) -- upscale from live-action isn't that great.

The bulk of MGM cartoons don't have any master elements in existence since a fire destroyed a bunch of them in the early 1970s.

The Tex Avery MGM shorts are supposedly in sad shape and would require a massive restoration effort on the scale of what was done for the original King Kong to make them presentable for HD home video release. WB just doesn't see that being worthwhile for most animation. WB's upper home video management doesn't seem understand that an audience still exists for these shorts... How many times have people logged onto Home Video chats with WB video reps or gone to cons and TOLD them over and over for at least the past 15 years that they want a re-release of the Tex Avery shorts??? The WB video guys are focused mostly on here and now, not the "old stuff" that isn't Looney Tunes or Tom & Jerry or some Hanna-Barbera. The last major Tex Avery collection release was 20 years ago now on laserdisc and since then the shorts have been shown progressively less and less on TV to the point that you have to own the old VHS/LD releases or find them on the Internet to see them now. This is as much due to political correctness -- and Avery sure isn't PC -- as much as to the fact that half the people in charge of these films are barely aware of their existence.

(This goes back to what I've said about a lot of classic animated shorts -- Disney, MGM, WB, Fox/Terrytoons, etc. IF these films do not get shown on basic cable TV at all, the audience will grey out and eventually disappear altogether. There's a total of at least 3-5 generations of kids who have never seen any of these shorts IN THE US -- they still get aired in international markets that don't share the US obsession with PC and skin color. In the meantime, there are adult fans who only vaguely remember some of this stuff and half of us get convinced by the time we hit our 30's and 40's that we just imagined these films!)

Look at the Fleischer/Famous Studios Superman shorts for instance. They're in sad shape and in that case WB DOES own master elements for all of them except for the one or two shorts where things have degraded so much that the master elements just aren't there anymore.

I doubt we'll see THOSE shorts in HD release on home video any time soon. I was re-watching the Superman shorts not long on the 2-disc release WB did a few years back and while they're still pleasant to view in SD you can see all the scratches/dirts on the film and occasionally hear audio drop-outs. It's all very visible/audible on SD. What people don't understand is that HD magnifies all those problems and makes them even more obvious! This is a huge part of why the HD masters are so much more expensive than SD. People don't understand that the cost of the physical Blu ray disc isn't what's expensive -- BD's cost about the same to manufacture as DVD as this point in time; it's paying to make an HD master that doesn't highlight all the physical defects inherent in the final movie product that's expensive!

There's no way WB is going to spend the money to fix all those problems. WB doesn't even manage its old Looney Tunes assets that well most of the time let alone know half of what it owns!

[Randall]

Actually, the Superman shorts ARE coming to Blu-ray soon... just not from Warner. It'll be a public domain release. Heaven only knows how they'll look, or if they'll even get cropped like on the Gulliver's Travels BD.

[GeorgeC]

Ah man... Those are NOT going to look good unless the prints are exceptional to begin with.
I wouldn't hold my breath on the quality of THAT Blu ray release...!

WB supposedly has the best film materials in existence for the series and look at the condition of what's there now.

On the other hand, with the exception of "Terror on the Midway," I have seen other Superman prints in other DVD collections (including "public domain") that had somewhat better quality prints than a few of the WB Fleischer releases...

[Ben]

While we still wait for Tom & Jerry to return to the BD format, at least Bugs and co are going to get a third volume!

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ITV5SRC

Cool...was kinda worried there for a while that this wouldn't ever come along. Not a great deal of anything "new" to HD, and even the extras pick from previous volumes and the Oscars collection from a few years back...but nice to see WB still catering for a specific crowd, even if the cover images depicts several off-model characters (just what does Porky look like!).

[Randall]

Nice to see this coming out, as I continue to move towards replacing my collection with HD versions of whatever I can find. But Porky looks just bizarre here!

[Ben]

Just to let you know in case it whizzed you by as it did me, but the last feature-length WB compilation movie, Daffy Duck's Fantastic Island, has been released on DVD.

Coming to disc in late November without any fanfare, this completes the cycle of films that picked up the TV concept of repurposing the old Looney Tunes cartoons with newly animated links by original directors like Chuck Jones and Friz Freleng for the big screen (The Looney Looney Looney Bugs Bunny Movie, The Great American Chase: The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Movie, Bugs Bunny's Third Movie: 1001 Rabbit Tales, Daffy Duck's Movie: Fantatsic Island and Daffy Duck's Quackbusters).

The more recent Space Jam has been on Blu-ray for a while now, although Looney Tunes: Back In Action just came to Blu too, on the same date as Fantastic Island's release. At just $9.99 each I just picked up both

[Randall]

I wasn't sure that LT:BiA was must-upgrade, but for that price I had to get it too.