Looney Tunes Golden/Platinum Collections

[GeorgeC]

I'm definitely getting the 40th Anniversary Willy Wonka Blu ray, Ben.

It's one of my favorite movies... I was tempted on the last Blu ray with the book packaging but am glad I didn't get it now! This release looks so much better and blows it away.

I wasn't crazy about the Wizard of Oz Blu ray set but I would definitely get the Wonka set.

That film means too much to me.

P.S. -- The Burton film was mean-spirited and just doesn't have the charm of the Wilder film.
I've seen both on TV recently and I think the Wilder version holds up better.

[Dacey]

You know, I might be kicked off of the site for saying this, but I've always seen the Burton version as better than the Gene Wilder one, which while charming had a pointless song or two and that creepy tunnel sequence that felt out of context with the rest of the film. While both are good, the new one has always struck me as more solid entertainment overall.

[Randall]

I like 'em both about equally. The only thing I disliked about the Burton version was the "origin" bits with the dad. But, when Christopher Lee is playing the dad, it makes it almost worthwhile.

But back to Looney Tunes...

[Ben]

Goodbye, Dacey. It was fun up until now...

I think each Wonka has things to recommend in them, but the Wilder version was first and, it has to be said, Burton didn't bring a whole lot more than had already been done under Mel Stuart. Seeing the Burton film a little while ago and then the Wilder/Stuart one recently, I was reminded how much the earlier film did that Burton's couldn't help but not top.

But...as Rand says, back to the Looneys...!

[GeorgeC]

The Digital Bits posted a WB listing for the contents of both Looney Tunes Golden Collection Vol 1 on BD and the Tom & Jerry Vol 1 sets being released in November...

It is a fantastic list and the extras for Disc 3 of the LT set in particular are very, very good. It's the first time a lot of documentaries have been compiled together in a classic Hollywood animation set.

Might be well worth a second-dip for these shorts on home video. Definitely the sets to get IF you don't have any of the DVD collections. Here's hoping the remastering and restorations are better than the previous DVD releases!

Here's what The Digital Bits posted this Wednesday 17 August 2011 --



"Warner Home Video has finally revealed the list of 50 shorts that you'll find on the Looney Tunes: Platinum Collection - Volume 1 Blu-ray on 11/15. Disc One will include Hare Tonic, Baseball Bugs, Buccaneer Bunny, The Old Grey Hare, Rabbit Hood, 8 Ball Bunny, Rabbit of Seville, What's Opera, Doc?, The Great Piggy Bank Robbery, A Pest in the House, The Scarlet Pumpernickel, Duck Amuck, Robin Hood Daffy, Baby Bottleneck, Kitty Kornered, Scaredy Cat, Porky Chops, Old Glory, A Tale of Two Kitties, Tweetie Pie, Fast and Furry-ous, Beep, Beep, Lovelorn Leghorn, For Scent-imental Reasons and Speedy Gonzales.

Disc Two will add One Froggy Evening, Three Little Bops, I Love to Singa, Katnip Kollege, The Dover Boys at Pimento University, Chow Hound, Haredevil Hare, The Hasty Hare, Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century, Hare-way to the Stars, Mad as a Mars Hare, Devil May Hare, Bedevilled Rabbit, Ducking the Devil, Bill of Hare, Dr. Devil and Mr. Hare, Bewitched Bunny, Broom-stick Bunny, A Witch's Tangled Hare, A-Haunting We Will Go, Feed the Kitty, Kiss Me Kat, Feline Frame-up, From A to Z-Z-Z-Z and Boyhood Daze.

MANY of these shorts will include audio commentary and alternate audio tracks. These two discs will also include 11 Behind the Tunes featurettes (Wagnerian Wabbit: The Making of What's Opera, Doc?, Twilight in Tunes: The Music of Raymond Scott, Powerhouse in Pictures, Putty Problems and Canary Rows, A Chuck Jones Tutorial: Tricks of the Cartoon Trade, The Charm of Stink: On the Scent of Pepé le Pew, It Hopped One Night: The Story Behind One Froggy Evening, Wacky Warner One-Shots, Mars Attacks! Life on the Red Planet with My Favorite Martian, Razzma-Taz: Giving the Tasmanian Devil His Due and The Ralph Phillips Story: Living the American Daydream).

Disc Three is all special features. It'll add A Greeting from Chuck Jones, Chuck Amuck: The Movie, Chuck Jones: Extremes & In-Betweens, A Life in Animation, Chuck Jones: Memories of Childhood, 9 The Animated World of Chuck Jones cartoons (including Point Rationing of Foods, Hell-Bent for Election, So Much for So Little, Orange Blossoms for Violet, A Hitch in Time, 90 Day Wondering, Drafty, Isn't It?, The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics and The Bear That Wasn't), the pencil test for How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, The Door and 9 additional bonus cartoons (including Fright Before Christmas, Spaced-Out-Bunny, Duck Dodgers and the Return of the 24½th Century, Another Froggy Evening, Marvin the Martian in the Third Dimension, Superior Duck, From Hare to Eternity, Father of the Bird and Museum Scream).

Additionally, the book packaging will include "pages and pages of rare sketches and breathtaking images" as well as "insightful commentary by renowned animation historian Jerry Beck" and "a guide with synopses of the shorts featured in the collection." What's more, if you buy the Ultimate Collector's Edition version, you'll get a "framed Looney Tunes litho cel with a certificate of authenticity, souvenir tin sign magnet and character collectible glass featuring Bugs Bunny." Plus the set will be numbered. Whichever one you choose, that's a very nice package indeed!

Oh... but WHV isn't done yet: They've also released details on the shorts and content you can expect in Tom & Jerry: The Golden Collection - Volume 1, due on 10/25. There will be 37 shorts in all. Disc One will bring you Puss Gets the Boot, The Midnight Snack, The Night Before Christmas, Fraidy Cat, Dog Trouble, Puss N' Toots, The Bowling Alley-Cat, Fine Feathered Friend, Sufferin' Cats!, The Lonesome Mouse, The Yankee Doodle Mouse, Baby Puss, The Zoot Cat, The Million Dollar Cat, The Bodyguard, Puttin on the Dog, Mouse Trouble, The Mouse Comes to Dinner, Mouse in Manhattan and Tee for Two. Disc Two will add Flirty Birdy, Quiet Please!, Springtime for Thomas, The Milky Waif, Trap Happy, Solid Serenade, Cat Fishin', Part Time Pal, The Cat Concerto, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Mouse, Salt Water Tabby, A Mouse in the House, The Invisible Mouse, Kitty Foiled, The Truce Hurts, Old Rockin' Chair Tom and Professor Tom. Finally, extras in the set will include the new featurette Vaudeville, Slapstick and Tom and Jerry, 2 vintage featurettes (How Bill and Joe Met Tom and Jerry and The Comedy Styling of Tom and Jerry), commentary on 9 of the shorts, and the Anchors Aweigh Dance Sequence with Jerry and Gene Kelly."

[Randall]

Some have complained that there are too many double dips in the LT set, but I'm thrilled to see this list. After all, how could you put LT on BD and not include What's Opera, Doc?, right?

This collection is the best of the best, heavily slanted towards Chuck Jones, and that suits me fine. I can't wait to see these in HD. And those extras are fabulous, even if we've seen many of them before. At this point, between all the LaserDiscs and DVDs I have, I'm not even sure of what shorts I have altogether. But from now on, many of the best will be easily retrieved from this BD set.

T&J are not favorites of mine, but I'll be getting that BD set just as a vote of support. There are other cartoon collections I'd like to see in HD, so I'll vote with my wallet.

[EricJ]

Some have complained that there are too many double dips in the LT set, but I'm thrilled to see this list. After all, how could you put LT on BD and not include What's Opera, Doc?, right?.

As you can see from the tributes in the digibook, nervous-superstitious Warner is advertising their emphasis on the "Complete Collection" of (safely marketable) characters pop-culture Boomers remember, even if, as Warner constantly panics, they "don't remember" Bugs & Daffy outside of the Chuck pantheon.
We get the "Complete" Marvin Collection (all five), the complete Witch Hazel (four), the complete Ralph Phillips (both of them, but including the two army PSA's), all five Taz shorts, and supposedly the "complete" Marc Anthony & Pussyfoot, although they technically missed one.
Gee, as long as they're kissing up to their safe mainstream 70's-Saturday-morning 'Boomer safety net, why don't they put in "Long Haired Hare" and advertise it as "the Complete Giovanni Jones"?

A bit shameless bet-hedging, perhaps, but at least it gets the "easy" cult stars out of the way, and leaves more room for Pepe and Foghorn on the next sets.

[Ben]

This is a great selection, and who cares about any "double-dipping", a strange term to use when basically all of these cartoons are new to Blu-ray!

The Looney/Chuck extras are a lot of holdovers from other releases, and with all that on one disc it's looking like SD video, but at least we get the feature length docs without the disc breaks that were enforced due to space constraints on the DVDs.

Nice, nice, nice!

[droosan]

I've listed my 'golden age Hollywood cartoon shorts' Laserdiscs on eBay, this week. The auctions will end this Sunday afternoon/evening, December 14th.

Currently on auction are The Golden Age of Looney Tunes volumes 1-5, a collection of 12 other Looney Tunes Laserdiscs, The Compleat Tex Avery, a Happy Harmonies box, and a complete set of Betty Boop: The Definitive Collection.

These Laserdiscs contain literally HUNDREDS of short cartoons which are not available on DVD (I've noted these cartoons on the Looney Tunes and Tex Avery sets in red bold text .. the Happy Harmonies and Betty Boop sets are almost entirely unavailable on Region-1 DVD).

Also up for auction is a super-rare pair of titles featuring Walt Kelly's Pogo in animated form on VHS.

I realize that Laserdisc is pretty much the '8-track' of video formats, by now .. so, I don't expect there'd be much genuine interest, for most folks. But these cartoon collections are rarely offered for sale as complete sets, even on eBay .. and I can assure anyone who is genuinely interested that all of these Laserdiscs have been exceptionally well-cared-for; they still look great, and play perfectly.

Thanks for looking..!

[Randall]

I would bid on every one of those... if I didn't already have all those LDs. If anyone of you has a LaserDisc player, I heartily recommend all those sets. It's all amazing stuff that really needs to be in your collection.

Now, those Pogo tapes... Those I want. I could likely hold out and get them each for a lesser cost, but... getting both together in good shape in the original clamshells, and a single shipping cost from a trusted seller, is too good to pass up. Of course, as soon as I bid they'll be announced for DVD, but I'll take my chances. Getting the recent fabulous first volume of Kelly's strip has gotten me excited for Pogo in a big way.

[droosan]

Yeahhh, I might've set the opening bid on the Pogo tapes a bit on the 'high' side .. but they really are exceptionally rare..!

The Laserdiscs, OTOH, are a 'steal', compared to their original purchase price!

Full disclosure (also given in the auction description): The Pogo Special Birthday Special does display some 'tracking noise' during the first minute or so; mostly during P.T. Bridgeport's pre-title introduction. After that point, the video quality is great. Pogo for President looks great, throughout. Both tapes are former 'rental' titles (each hails from the dawn of VHS .. so, I'm unsure either title was ever available for 'retail' sale, in stores), but each is in excellent shape, considering this; they must not have been rented-out very often.


Fun Facts: Walt Kelly himself provides the voice for P.T. Bridgeport in The Pogo Special Birthday Special .. as well as Albert the Alligator and Howland Owl. Chuck Jones is the voice of Porky Pine and Bun Rab (the rabbit with the drum, who makes announcements), and June Foray is the voice of both Pogo and Miss Mam'selle Hepzibah.



Unfortunately, Walt Kelly was reportedly unsatisfied with how the animated special turned out. Though, I personally can't see why; it's a charming enough little show.


Pogo for President (originally titled I Go Pogo) was made several years after Kelly's death. It does seem to be more faithful to the strip than the Chuck Jones special .. in that the story tends to 'wander' off on tangents, on occasion (but delightfully so ), and the fact that much of the dialogue is quoted verbatim from several famous Pogo strip stories. Jonathan Winters is the voice of Porky Pine here, with none other than Vincent Price as Deacon Mushrat, and Ruth Buzzi as Miz Beaver.



The 'claymation' aesthetic suits Kelly's characters remarkably well; the movie often resembles a full-motion ViewMaster reel.


Best wishes to you in the bidding, Randall (I see you've already placed a bid!) .. and to anyone else who may be interested in my auctions!

[GeorgeC]

Good luck with your auction, Droo!

I have been very reluctant to go ahead with selling laserdiscs, myself... The demand just isn't there for the most part and people pay so little for them now. The best time to sell would have been in 1995, 1996 in retrospect(!). After DVD was announced in the mid-1990s, laserdisc player sales crashed. Between 1998 and 2000 was a golden market for buying LD's on the cheap. I can remember getting all of one anime series (3 LD volumes) for less than $20 in 1999!

I had a chance to go to a pop-con convention recently but I didn't take it... I could have probably gotten rid of some LD's then. Would definitely get more than I would have at Half-Price Books who are rip-off artists as far as video collections and books are concerned. (They give you decent money on some graphic novel stuff but peanuts on everything else...!)

I may yet go to a pop con if I hear of one in the near-future. Probably raid my old room at my parents' house and get rid of the LD's I still have stored in the closet!

**************

I have anime that hasn't been re-released on DVD or Blu ray. There are still tons of titles from the 1980s and 1990s that have not been re-released (in Japan let alone the US) since their original debut --- and some of that stuff is still pretty nice by today's standards.

As for the Disney classics... I don't think I have a problem letting those go as much. IF I had known about DVD/Blu ray back then...! Many of their boxes are still higher standard than what gets released now. With very few exceptions, the curating on movie releases is nowhere near as careful as it was in the height of the LD days.

At any rate, I do think the MGM and WB animated shorts collections were handled better in the laserdisc days. All the nonsense that's gone down the waterfalls since DVD debuted -- political corrrectness, market surveying to death, DVNR, etc. -- doesn't erase the fact that companies were willing to sell these shorts in LD box set collections back then that may have seen only two or three pressings in the realm of 1500 copies of less each.

A shame to say that today the print run standards have been so elevated that studios won't even consider DVD releases unless they're guaranteed 200k copies of a film will sell. They're down to doing DVD-R which is a horrible release format for anything. They might as well re-release movies on VHS! At least the tapes would last longer!

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I am not picking up the Looney Tunes Platinum Blu ray set any time soon... I have a billion other things I'd rather get first seeing as this same material was released on DVD not long ago.

Also, I have to admit I am rather upset at the curator of that set and his recent behavior at an open union meeting. (I've seen the video...) Let's just say his behavior and hand gestures were ugly and disrespectful to another individual. I think it speaks volumes about him. I don't think I'll be giving him any money for his books in the near-future.

[EricJ]

Fun Facts: Walt Kelly himself provides the voice for P.T. Bridgeport in The Pogo Special Birthday Special .. as well as Albert the Alligator and Howland Owl. Chuck Jones is the voice of Porky Pine and Bun Rab (the rabbit with the drum, who makes announcements), and June Foray is the voice of both Pogo and Miss Mam'selle Hepzibah.
Unfortunately, Walt Kelly was reportedly unsatisfied with how the animated special turned out. Though, I personally can't see why

Well....I can. This was the 70's-MGM Chuck Jones, who had turned mushy, lost his sense of comic timing, and talked us to death.
("Family Birthday suggested by Linda Jones, age 5"...Yeah, I can see how Kelly might have a few complaints. )

Pogo For President
Jonathan Winters is the voice of Porky Pine here, with none other than Vincent Price as Deacon Mushrat, and Ruth Buzzi as Miz Beaver.

And continuing the dream-team voice casting, Arnold Stang as Churchy, Stan Freberg as Albert, and Skip Hinnant (Fritz the Cat, aka Fargo North from the Electric Company) as Pogo.
They've got a good rhythm for capturing a few of the strips, but the director keeps wandering off into slapstick filler, and a few sidetracks that're just plain wrong.
(PT Bridgeport as a con-man villain, with Jimmy Breslin's New Yawk voice?....Nnno.)

We keep getting half of a good Pogo adaptation, you'd think someone would give it one more try.

[Ben]

I'm with Rand...if I didn't already have all those LDs I'd be bidding.

But I couldn't ever imagine selling any of those sets. I just love the feel of LaserDiscs and the packaging. Plus it's nice to know what you have in one format or another even if they can be obsolete.

I did go through a phase of selling off some singles when the DVDs were announced, but after paying so much to import them and with so little interest in the UK it's just not really worth what I would likely get for them.

Anyway, I still watch my LDs and like to see them stacked up along the wall, even if just for old time's sake!

[droosan]

Truth be told, I'd kept them for so long for many of those same reasons (plus the fact that I'd spent over 15 years -- and rather a lot of money -- building my collection) .. but in recent months, it's come down to a 'space' issue .. I simply no longer have the room to store these Laserdiscs; my book library has finally crowded them out.

So, I'm selling the titles which still have some inherent worth (there'll be a huge anime listing, sometime next month), and I'll be giving away/donating the rest locally.