Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume Two DVD with Mel Blanc, Arthur Q. Bryan, Stan Freberg (NR) +Movie Reviews

What an encore...

Big Joe '83 | Melbourne, VIC Australia | 10/03/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The marketing rep said last year defending the omission of "What's Opera Doc?" and "One Froggy Evening" from the first volume is that if they had all the best cartoons on the first set what will they do for an encore? Well, even without these two classics this set would still stand up as a great sequel to the first volume (Which was just as good despite the pedantic naysayers.)

Here some of the reasons why this set is worth your money;

First off the restoration job is just like the first set and it is all uncut, so the addition of all the material which Cartoon Network might deem improper for your child is included, but let's look at some of the best toons...

Porky in Wackyland

Great to see that they aren't afraid to stick a black and white cartoon in there especially this great surreal classic which introduced the Dodo bird.

The Dover Boys

The cartoon that introduced smear animation that was despised by the studio producers but is now used in practically all television animation. Especially Cartoon Network.

You Ought to Be in Pictures

Great one that has Daffy and Porky interacting with real people. The funny thing is the real people aren't actors. They were all workers at Termite Terrace.

Three Little Bops

Friz Freleng finally let loose a little with this highly creative swinging take of the three little pigs. I haven't seen this one in ages, it's practically Freleng's best work.

A Corny Concerto

Great parody on Disney's Fantasia by Bob Clampett. This set really pays tribute to him.

Of course that's barely even the tip of the iceberg of the quality of this set. All those Road Runner and Sylvester and Tweety cartoons might put some people off but I can't see why you shouldn't get this set if you aren't a fan... Unless you're broke I guess...

POST-THOUGHTS;

After seen the set I can say that Warner Bros. is very brave for including shorts like Have You Got Any Castles uncut. I thank them for that and I'd like to add that disc 4 is the best disc on the set with disc 1 in second place. Other highlights include; Ren And Stimpy creator, John K's commentary on The Great Piggy Bank Robbery, a dead-serious patriotic short by Chuck Jones called Old Glory and the cartoon that got Tex Avery fired; Heckling Hare. I'd also like to reiterate, these shorts are uncut and exactly how they were when they were released with the exception of the blue ribbon title cards. The abrupt ending to Heckling Hare was how that short was originally released and the footage that was meant to be there was gone because the studios didn't like it and this of course angered Tex Avery. So in case anyone was suspicious about that there's the explanation, so they are uncut from their original release date."

Directorial Information Organized by Disc

E. Lynch | Ypsilanti, Mi, USA | 02/25/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"For those of you who have a favorite Director you may have found categorization by character quite frustrating. Personally I don't care for a whole disc of Bugs, or a whole disc of Daffy; I want a whole disc of Chuck or a whole disc of Friz. Even the fine episode lists above, which really do hold all the information you need, are not organized according to how the episodes appear on the discs in the collection. To remedy this problem I have the following list to provide you with the episodes, organized in the order they appear on the discs, and who directed them. I hope this proves useful to someone, and will save them from having to do this all over again themselves.

Volume Two: Disc One

1.The Big Snooze (Bob Clampett)

2.Broomstick Bunny (Chuck Jones)

3.Bugs Bunny Rides Again (Friz Freleng)

4.Bunny Hugged (Chuck Jones)

5.French Rarebit (Bob Clampett)

6.Gorilla my Dreams (Robert McKimson)

7.The Hare-Brained Hypnotist (Friz Freleng)

8.Hare Conditioned (Chuck Jones)

9.The Heckling Hare (Tex Avery)

10.Little Red Riding Rabbit (Friz Freleng)

11.Tortoise Beats Hare (Tex Avery)

12.Rabbit Transit (Friz Freleng)

13.Slick Hare (Friz Freleng)

14.Baby Buggy Bunny (Chuck Jones)

15.Hyde and Hare (Friz Freleng)

Volume Two: Disc Two

1.Beep Beep (Chuck Jones)

2.Going! Going! Gosh! (Chuck Jones)

3.Zipping Along (Chuck Jones)

4.Stop! Look! And Hasten! (Chuck Jones)

5.Ready, Set, Zoom, (Chuck Jones)

6.Guided Muscle (Chuck Jones)

7.Gee Whiz-z-z (Chuck Jones)

8.There They Go-Go-Go (Chuck Jones)

9.Scrambled Aches (Chuck Jones)

10. Zoom and Bored (Chuck Jones)

11.Whoa, Be-Gone! (Chuck Jones)

12.Cheese Chasers (Chuck Jones)

13.The Dover Boys (Chuck Jones)

14.Mouse Wreckers (Chuck Jones)

15.A bear for Punishment (Chuck Jones)

Volume Two: Disc Three

1.Bad Ol' Putty Tat (Friz Freleng)

2.All Abir-r-r-d (Friz Freleng)

3.Room and Bird (Friz Freleng)

4.Tweet Tweet Tweety (Friz Freleng)

5.Gift Wrapped (Friz Freleng)

6.Ain't she Tweet (Friz Freleng)

7.A Bird in a Guilty Cage (Friz Freleng)

8.Snow Buisness (Friz Freleng)

9.Tweetie Pie (Friz Freleng)

10.Kitty Cornered (Bob Clampett)

11.Baby Bottleneck (Bob Clampett)

12.Old Glory (Chuck Jones)

13.The Great Piggy Bank Robbery (Bob Clampett)

14.Duck Soup to Nuts (Friz Freleng)

15.Porky in Wackyland (Bob Clampett)

Volume Two: Disc Four

1.Back Alley Oproar (Friz Freleng)

1.Book Revue (Bob Clampett)

2.A Corny Concerto (Bob Clampett)

3.Have You Got Any Castles? (Frank Tashlin)

4.Hollywood Steps Out (Unknown)

5.I Love to Singa (Tex Avery)

6.Katnip kollege (Unknown)

7.The Hep Cat (Bob Clampett)

8.The Three Little Bops (Friz Freleng)

9.One Froggy Evening (Chuck Jones)

10.Rhapsody Rabbit (Friz Freleng)

11.Show Biz Bugs (Friz Freleng)

12.Stage Door Cartoon (Friz Freleng)

13.What's Opera, Doc (Chuck Jones)

14.You Ought to be in Pictures (Friz Freleng)"

Overture, curtain, lights!

mrliteral | 06/09/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I'm always afraid of sounding like a grumpy old man when I say they just don't make cartoons like when I was a kid. Actually, the cartoons made when I was a kid were pretty lousy. The ones I enjoyed were already twenty or more years old even in my elementary school years; I would be exposed to them only through repeats, primarily in the Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Show. While there are certainly plenty of decent cartoons nowadays, there is something special about the Looney Tunes that have made them last through the ages. The four disc Volume 2 of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection provides sixty or so examples of this immortal animation.

The first disc features Bugs Bunny in various adventures and misadventures. Bugs is the singlemost iconic figure in the Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies pantheon, and these are all good to great cartoons. Bugs contends with his usual adversaries of Elmer Fudd and Yosemite Sam as well as witches, Dr. Jekyll, French chefs and a number of other one-time adversaries. Although entertaining, to me, I still think the best discs in the set are still to follow.

Disc two features the Road Runner. Actually, the principal character is that hard-luck scavenger, Wile E. Coyote. Because the story is pretty much the same in all these cartoons, they tend to blend together, so it's hard to remember if a certain gag occurred in Beep Beep or in Ready Set Zoom, but that's okay. This is fun stuff. The commentary tracks advise us of some of the "rules" of these films, especially that the Road Runner should never leave the road and Wile E. Coyote should always be done in by his own actions (the Road Runner doesn't do anything more than occasionally startle his adversary). And on this disc, the Road Runner cartoons are only the start; we also get some wonderful films featuring less frequently used characters: Cheese Chasers and Mouse Wreckers invert some of the usual cat and mouse gags by featuring the persecuted Claude the Cat, who would rather be left alone than deal with a pair of mice out to drive him crazy. The Dover Boys is also a gem that features some one-shot characters in a story that has its own unique look and feel; in fact, it was "too" unique and not very well-received by some of the Warner Brothers higher-ups.

Disc three features Sylvester and Tweety. I've never been much of a fan of the Sylvester and Tweety cartoon, and while these cartoons aren't bad, the best ones on this disc actually feature other characters and are primarily directed by the wacky Bob Clampett. The Great Piggy Bank Robbery has Daffy Duck dreaming of being Duck Twacy; Baby Bottleneck has Daffy and Porky Pig contending with distributing babies during a stork shortage; Duck Soup to Nuts spotlights the "classic" Daffy who is borderline insane as opposed to the angry, ambitious later version; and Porky in Wackyland is utterly bizarre and delightful. This disc also has the unusual Old Glory, a serious Porky Pig cartoon that provides a patriotic six minute history of the United States.

The final disc features celebrity parodies and music. While some of these cartoons are merely decent with a greater emphasis on music than humor, there are also some real great ones here: Rhapsody Rabbit, Show Biz Bugs and Stage Door Cartoon are all standouts, and You Ought To Be In Pictures is a great mix of live action and animation. The two all-time classics, however are One Froggy Evening and What's Opera, Doc? One Froggy Evening is a little morality play about a greedy man who finds a frog that performs elaborate song-and-dance numbers, but only when no one (besides the man) is watching. It's doubtful that any other character other than that frog has been able to achieve such fame based on so little screen time (only seven or so minutes). What's Opera, Doc? is considered by some to be the best cartoon EVER. It is the perfect blend of a so-called high art (opera) and low art (cartoons).

All these cartoons, plus a lot of special features such as commentaries and rare footage, make this an exceptional package. It would be hyperbole to say every one of these cartoons is great, but most of them are: on individual merit, I'd say they are roughly 50% five-star, 40% four-star and 10% three-star material. Overall, this is easily a five-star package. There may be good and great cartoons nowadays, but these cartoons (generally fifty to seventy years old) still need to be seen.

"

Another Great Compilation, Worth Every Penny!

BRADLEY R HUTSON | Illinois | 11/06/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is a great effort by Warner Bros. to give us another satisfying helping of their classic "Looney Tunes" shorts. 60 cartoons are presented in this volume, not 56 like the first one. Several of the more popular tunes that were not included in the first collection are present here ("What's Opera, Doc?", "One Froggy Evening" and "I Love to Singa" among the most notable), and all of these cartoons are worth having at such a reasonable price level. Like the first set, the tunes look cleaner and brighter than than they do on television. Also, once again they are presented in their original uncut format. Anything otherwise would of course be unexcusable. I was also pleased to see that the shorts that were originally black and white are presented in that manner here as well, not as the colorized versions now shown on television channels such as Boomerang. Some of the tunes do exhibit minor glitches (speckles, "flickering" colors, etc.), but they look pretty good for films that are anywhere from 50-70+ years old. Plus, they will last forever in this format with no further deterioration. They are definitely the best transfers that money can buy.

There are only a couple of complaints I have this time around, the first one being the fact that each tune does not have it's own picture on the short selection menus as they did the first time. Sometimes I don't recognize the tunes based on their titles, but when I would highlight them and the picture would pop-up, I would often recognize that immediately and say to myself "Oh yeah! THAT one!" I guess they had to omit that feature to fit the 15th tune on each disc as opposed to the 14 per disc on the first collection. Whatever the case, I miss that feature and wish it would be re-instated for future collections if possible.

My other complaint (which has nothing to do with the quality of this volume) is the slowness with which Warner is putting these out. With studio output of over 1,000 cartoons and at the rate of 56-60 per year as it has been thus far, I will be nearly 50 years old before I will have the entire library of "Looney Tunes" in my collection. Put some more people on this project, guys! At least try to get us TWO collections per year! I want to still be able to see my television clearly to watch the tunes! :)

In summary, anyone who loves these good old classics can't miss with this set. It needs to be supported if we want Warner to continue mining these gems and put out further collections, so go out and pick yours up right away!"

Another Good Purchase

David Carrejo | El Paso, TX | 01/07/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This second volume of classic cartoons proves to be as much a delight to watch as the first volume. It also provides an indication that Warner Brothers will continue to release many of its gems from the vaults in completely restored and uncut form. In most cases, the colors are rich and vibrant like never before. Like the first set, this collection is not comprehensive but goes a long way in helping Looney Tunes fans build their cartoon collection. Hopefully, in time, completists like myself will be more satisfied.

Here are the best ones featured on Volume 2:

"Baby Bottleneck" (A classic cartoon where Porky and Daffy are aids to the burned-out stork who delivers babies)

"The Big Snooze" (A wild cartoon where Bugs invades Elmer's dreams to change his mind about tearing up his contract and breaking up the act; "The rabbits are coming, Hooray, Hooray!!)

"Bunny Hugged" (Bugs makes his professional wrestling debut as `The Terror' in an entertaining bout with `The Crusher')

"A Corny Concerto" (Elmer as the conductor and M.C. introduces two hysterical, musical vignettes (sans dialogue) -- the first, involving Porky, the hunter, chasing Bugs, the second, a baby duckling attempting to join a group of swans)

"French Rarebit" (Two French chefs from competing restaurants battle it out to feature Bugs on their menu, but wind up in the oven themselves; "Personally, I prefer hamboiger.")

"From Duck Soup to Nuts" (A sly, loony Daffy tries to outwit Porky, the duck hunter)

"The Great Piggy Bank Robbery" (A great cartoon with Daffy imagining himself as Dick Tracy (Duck Twacy) battling Tracy-like villains)

"Hare Brained Hypnotist" (Elmer resorts to using hypnosis to try and catch Bugs, but to no avail.)

"Hare Conditioned" (Bugs refuses to be stuffed and placed on display by a stubborn store manager; "Kind of outsmarted you, eh, little chum?")

"I Love to Singa" (Mr. and Mrs. Owl's youngest fledgling is determined to sing Jazz rather than acceptable, less-rebellious music; a wonderful representative of the spirit behind Looney Tunes animation)

"Kitty Kornered" (A hysterical short involving Porky battling his own cats who refuse to be put out for the night; "It's uncatstituional!!!")

"Little Red Riding Rabbit" (A pristine version of a wartime classic where the big bad wolf wants to eat Bugs; adding to the fun is a Red Riding Hood who is a loud, overbearing, and intrusive bobby soxer; "Hey, Grandma, I brought a little bunny rabbit for ya' ta haaave!!")

"Mouse Wreckers" (Two wandering mice, Hubie and Bertie, deciding they want to live in a certain, comfortable home, resort to building paranoia in a champion mouse-chaser cat in order to oust him from the premises)

"One Froggy Evening" (An all-time favorite by Chuck Jones starring Michigan J. Frog - a true classic; "Hello, my baby! Hello, my honey! "Hello, my ragtime gal!!)

"Porky in Wackyland" (The original, outrageous cartoon where Porky looks for the Do-Do bird; a color remake of this short is on Volume 1)

"Rhapsody Rabbit" (Bugs, the pianist, does his best to perform live despite "help" from a spirited, musical mouse)

"Show Biz Bugs" (Daffy refuses to be outdone on the stage by the star of the show, Bugs; he ultimately decides to blow himself up on stage; "I know. I know. But I can only do it once.")

"Slick Hare" (A classic that involves Elmer, the waiter, trying to find Humphrey Bogart an order of fried rabbit with Bugs as the key ingredient)

"Snow Business" (A hysterical cartoon that involves a snowbound Sylvester and Tweety; while Sylvester has definite plans to eat Tweety, a house mouse is desperate enough to eat Sylvester)

"The Three Little Bops" (A Friz Freleng classic featuring Stan Freberg's vocals and pitting the three little pigs, a jazz trio, against a tone-deaf big bad wolf who wants to join their act)

"Tortoise Beats Hare" (A Tex Avery classic where Bugs and Cecil Turtle meet and race for the first time; the sequel is on Volume 1)

"Tweetie Pie" (A classic, early Tweety cartoon where Sylvester (named "Thomas" in this short) destroys his owner's house trying to eat Tweety despite the fact that the owner's broom keeps getting him in the end)

"You Ought To Be in Pictures" (Daffy talks Porky into leaving Warner Brothers in this revolutionary cartoon involving live film coupling both human and cartoon characters)

"What's Opera, Doc?" (One of the all time classics fully restored and uncut; "Kill the rabbit! Kill the rabbit! Kill the rabbit!)

There are many other memorable cartoons included. For example, disc two boasts a nice collection of Road Runner cartoons. Sylvester and Tweety fans will be happy with disc three. Throughout the set, important features such as alternate musical scores and commentaries enhance the viewability of many of the cartoons. The 50th anniversary special is also included in this collection in two parts.

There are, of course, drawbacks to the set. Clearly missing are "Robin Hood Daffy", "Knighty Knight Bugs", and other gems that include Daffy, Porky, and Yosemite Sam (characters clearly not featured as often in this set). We should anticipate more appearances from them in subsequent volumes. Furthermore, "Sinkin' in the Bathtub" (Bosko's debut), which is listed as a bonus feature in this set, is OMITTED. The chapter menus on each of the discs are also designed a little differently than the first set - it's more difficult to determine which cartoon is which since the picture shown doesn't change when you highlight a cartoon title.

It's also important to note that the scaled down version with two discs is not as good an investment as the full four disc set. Continue to buy the full collections as they are released by Warner Brothers to be more satisfied."

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