Customer Reviews

Looney Tunes: Golden Collection, Vol. 4

5 star:		(78)
4 star:		(29)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

At this yearly pase I will have to wait till about the year 2020 to have a complete Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies-collection! ;) So keep them coming! I love the favorites, but I also like and am interested in the lesser known ones!

Here's data on Golden Collection #4:

* Includes 60 episodes on a Four-Disc Set.

* Disc One: Showcase the long-eared star extraordin-hare with 15 Bugs Bunny Cartoons, including the 1958's Oscar-winning Best Cartoon Short Subject Knighty Knight Bugs.
* Disc Two: (Porky Pig) celebrates animation legend Frank Tashin, who brought a filmmaker's eye for angles, editing and style to his cartoon creations.
* Disc Three: Zips along pronto with fast-acting Speedy Gonzales and includes Tabasco Road Mexicall Shmoes and Pied Piper of Guadalupe, all of which were nominated for Academy Awards.
* Disc Four: And cats may have nine lives but they also have 15 cartoons on the fourth disc's batch of feline follies. The Fur's Gonna Fly.

* 26 Commentary Tracks on 25 Shorts (The Aristo-Cat get 2 commentary Tracks) by the likes of Paul Dini, Eric Goldberg, June Foray, Michael Barrier, Mark Kausler, Daniel Goldmark, Greg Ford, Eddie Fitzgerald, Stan Freberg, Art Leonardi, Jerry Beck and comments by the late Frank Tashlin, the late Fritz Freleng and the late Chuck Jones.
* 15 Alternate Studio Tracks (music or music and effects only tracks).
* 8 Cartoons From the Vault:
- The Goldbrick (1943 Snafu short).
- The Home Front (1943 Snafu short).
- Censored (1944 Snafu short).
- 90 Day Wounder (1956 Army reinlistment film by Chuck Jones).
- Drafty, Isn't It? (1957 Army recruitment film by Chuck Jones).
- Porky's Breakdowns.
- Sahara Hare Storyboard Reel.
- Porky's Poor Fish Storyboard Reel.
* 7 Behind the Tunes Documentaries:
- Bugs Bunny Superstar Part 1 (1976 documentary).
- Bugs Bunny Supperstar Part 2 (1976 documentary).
- Friz on Film (new documentary).
- 2 Behind The Scenes Look at Bugs Bunny Show.
* Frank Tashlin's Storyboards.
- Little Chic's Wonderful Mother.
- Tony and Clarence.
* Fifty Years of Bugs Bunny in three & one half Minutes (1989 short)
* Porky and Daffy in The William Tell Overtures!
* The Bugs Bunny Show:
- Ballpiont Puns Bridging Sequences.
- Foreign Legion Leghorn Audio Recording Sessions.
* Trailer Gallery:
- Bugs Bunny's Cartoon Carnival.
- Bugs Bunny's: All Star Revue.
* Behind the Tunes:
- Twilight in Tunes: The Music of Raymond Scott.
- Powerhouse in Pictures.
- One Hit Wonders.
- Sing-A-Song of Loonet Tune.
- The Art of the Gag!
- Wild Lines: The Art of Voice Acting.
- Looney Tunes: A Cast of Thousands.

* DISC ONE: Bugs Bunny Classics:

1. Roman Legion-Hare.
2. The Grey Hound Hare.
3. Rabbit Hood.
4. Operation Rabbit.
5. Knight-mare Hare.
6. Southern Fried Rabbit.
7. Mississippi Hare.
8. Hurdy-Gurdy Hare.
9. Forward March Hare.
10. Sahara Hare.
11. Barbary Coast Bunny.
12. To Hare is Human.
13. 8 Ball Bunny.
14. Knighty Knight Bugs.
15. Rabbit Romeo.

========================================

** DISC TWO: Frank Tashlin;
1. The Case Of The Stuttering Pig.
2. Little Pancho Vanilla.
3. Little Beau Porky.
4. Now That Summer is Gone.
5. Porky in The North Woods.
6. You're An Education.
7. Porky's Railrood.
8. Plane Daffy.
9. Porky the Fireman.
10. Cracked Ice.
11. Puss N Booty.
12. I Got Plenty Of Mutton.
13. Booby Hatched.
14. Porky's Poulty Plant
15. The Stupid Cupid.

=========================================

*** DISC THREE: Speedy Gonzales;

1. Cat-tails For Two.
2. Tabasco Road.
3. Tortilla Flaps.
4. Mexicali Schmoes.
5. Here Today, Gone Tamale.
6. West Of The Pesos.
7. Cannery Woe.
8. Pied Piper Of Guadalupe.
9. Mexican Boarders.
10. Chili Weather.
11. A Message To Gracias.
12. Nuts and Volts.
13. Panchos Hideway.
14. The Wild Chase.
15. A-Haunting We Will Go.

=======================================

**** DISC FOUR: Cats;

1. The Night Watchman.
2. Conrad The Sailor.
3. The Sour Puss.
4. The Aristo-Cat.
5. Dough Ray Me-ow!
6. Pizzicato Pussycat.
7. Kiss Me Cat?
8. Cat Feud.
9. The Unexpected Pest.
10. Go Fly A Kit.
11. Kiddin' The kitten.
12. A Peck Of Trouble.
13. Mouse And Garden.
14. Porky's Poor House.
15. Swallow the leader.

I know, we all have our favorite cartoons. And it's easy to nit-pick on the selection of 'toons in each volume. But, with the release of Vol. 4, there are still OVER 700 LOONEY TUNES that Warner Bros. can choose from. I think it's imperative that we fans continue supporting each release, in order to continue the Golden Collection series.

Having said that, I would prefer that they stop giving each disc a single theme. I love these classic cartoons, but even I will have trouble sitting through 15 Speedy Gonzales cartoons in a row. Wouldn't it be more fun for viewers to mix it up a little? Or better yet, take a cue from the Columbia House Video Library, and give each famous cartoon director his own disc.

OK, so I'm guilty of nit-picking, too. Vol. 4 is another treasure trove for classic animation fans, with incredible bonus materials. So come one, Looney Tunes fans! Grab The Golden Collection Vol. 4 so we can assure that "That's NOT all, folks!"

bugs has always been my favorite so the two star rating is not a knock on him or most of the other looney toons characters. the two star rating is based soley on the content of volume four. disc one is all bugs, half of them very good the other half less then memorable. the yosemitie sam "whoa" theme was cute. (whoa mule, whoa camel, whoa dragon) disc two "dash of tashin" are straight up generic cartoons. nice, cutezy, squirrels singing, birds chirping, you will watch it once and that will be that. disc three is speedy gonzalez a character i never cared for and a disc that may not even be watched once. disc four is dedicated to cats. i have three cats so its not as though i dont appreciate them, (the animals not the toons) its just that basically you have another disc of mostly less then memorable generic cartoons. i hate to be the one that dissents from all the other glowing five star reviews but its not like these sets come out all that frequently and they dont come cheap and if i may, i never cared for these "theme things" i would greatly prefer chronologic order. colombia does this theme stuff with its three stooges shorts and it drives me nuts. each disc comes with a written disclaimer bemoaning the hurtful and wrong images blah, blah, blah. there are a boat load of special features that you watch once or maybe not at all. another reviewer noted some edits and i also noted one in rabbit hood i remember robin hood says something in the end of the cartoon that appears to be edited here. okay, so i read my own review and it sounds so down, but honestly i thought volume four would be much much better. there are dozens and dozens of great toons sitting in some vault somewhere till who knows when?

I suppose that sooner or later Speedy Gonzales was bound to dominate an entire "Golden Collection," but I was definitely hoping that it was going to be Volume XXIV and not this one. Two or three of Speedy's shorts would be tolerable, but it appears as if his entire oeuvre has been collected on this set. As was the case with so many of Robert McKimson's post 1960's cartoons, many of these are totally forgettable and I suspect I'll be skipping around like crazy as I did when presented with more than three Tweety or Road Runner cartoons in a row on the earlier collections. On the other hand, I was shocked to see how few Daffy Duck cartoons were included in this set. Where are the great late 1940's Daffy cartoons such as "Riff Raffy Daffy," "The Stupor Salesman," or the side-splitting "Daffy Dilly?" The Duck just don't get no respect!

I have to say that I was incensed to see the inclusion of a few of the post-1964 absolutely worthless DePatie-Freleng cartoons as well. These should be buried forever and never included on any subsequent collections. I remember watching some of those on TV as a kid and thinking "how the heck did Daffy Duck end up being second banana to a Mexican rodent?" The bottom line is that they just aren't funny. It was nice, however, to see at least a few 1930's cartoons, although how long will it be until "The Major Lied Till Dawn," "Jeepers Creepers," and Tex Avery's art deco opus "Miss Glory" see the light of day?

After the absolutely worthless disclaimers from Whoopie Goldberg on the GCV3, I thought that perhaps this set would include some of the fantastically funny (albeit controversial and perhaps a bit racist) cartoons such as "Coal Black and De Sebben Dwarves,"
"Sunday Go To Meetin' Time," "Clean Pastures," "Uncle Tom's Bungalow," "Goin' To Heaven on a Mule," and all the fabulously surreal and totally unseen by anyone under the age of 45 Inki and the Mynah Bird cartoons. It appears as if WB is still equivocating about those, but if enough people let them know that we're now adults and can handle the content, perhaps they'll relent. Yeah, right. Is the most delectable heroine in cartoondom, So White, any more stereotypical than Speedy Gonzales? Let's try to force this issue with an unrelenting
internet attack!

I understand the economics of releasing these collections so as not to compete with one another, but like the "Complete Peanuts"
book collections, I worry that at age 53, I might not be around to enjoy the last volume. Can't the pace be picked up just a little bit to maybe two collections a year with 120 cartoons being represented? Maybe I'm just a crazy dreamer...

Like everyone else, I'm going to be purchasing each volume of the "Golden Collection" as soon as it's available, but I wish they would leave out some of the more forgettable Bugs Bunny
cartoons ("Rabbit Romeo???" What were they thinking? That's the absolute worst Bugs short ever!) and delve a bit into some of the more obscure gems among the 750+ cartoons that are still awaiting discovery. Despite these cavils, when each "Golden Collection" volume shows up in my mailbox, I always feel the way I did on Christmas morning when I was a child. Any complaints I may have are forgotten 8 hours later when I return to the real world, blurry-eyed but definitely better for all the laughter and memories that are kindled by watching the greatest cartoons ever produced.

WHAT? NO "ALI BABA BUNNY," YET? Well, ickety, ackety, oop!

Seriously, though, I will probably get this one when it comes out, speaking as a rabid Looney Tunes fan. But a whole DVD of Speedy, who's best in small (no pun intended), divided doses, is a bit much. And, if they could re-issue "Frigid Hare," which was banned on some TV stations because it makes fun of Inuit peoples, or good ol' "let's make fun of Latinos" Speedy, why not bring out "Coal Black and the Sebben Dwarfs" again? According to just about every review, this is one of the best cartoons nobody's ever seen, and the voice work by Dorothy Dandridge should make it worth something.

But (sigh!) these are relatively minor cavils. In a land where anime is gradually taking over Cartoon Network, it's good to see these great classics again.

Of all the Looney Tunes Golden Collection releases, this is easily the least of the four. In order:

The Bugs Bunny disc is the best of the four, at least as far as laughs go. A few of my favorites are on this disc, but for the most part they're just alright. Friz Freleng has never been my favorite Looney tunes director (that honor goes to Bob Clampett) and there's a good amount of his cartoons on this disc, so I give this one lower marks than I normally would. That's not to say that his cartoons are bad - far from it - but the sum of the parts is almost always greater than the whole with his cartoons. Every director has his share of dogs, of course (like when Chuck Jones tried to duplicate the brilliant DUCK AMUCK with the same thing happening to Bugs Bunny at the hands of Elmer Fudd - I don't enjoy seeing someone get the better of Bugs), but Freleng's cartoons seem to have a higher hit-or-miss ratio than the others. The ones with Wile E. Coyote aren't favorites, either - Wile E. is at his best when he doesn't speak.

Disc Two is given completely over to the cartoons of Frank Tashlin, and while a lot of his later cartoons were genious, his early ones that featured Porky when he was the only star in the house are interesting (to me, anyway) more as curios than anything else. They don't really seem to go anywhere when compared to later output. I keep in mind that the studio was still finding its way when these were made, and that when viewed from an historical perspective, they're interesting, but to me that's all they are. PLANE DAFFY and THE STUPID CUPID are the best examples of Tashlin's work present.

Giving Disc Three completely over to Speedy Gonzales was not a good idea in my opinion. Those cartoons are really only rehashes of the Tweety/Sylvester series and the only one I really enjoy is the first one, where Speedy looks more like a peon than the more streamlined version he ended up as. Again, the sum of the parts is greater than the whole with these cartoons.

I like what they did with disc four and think they should continue to do what they did here, which is to feature the one-shot or limited run cartoons the studio created that don't feature the studio's "stars". There are a lot of good cartoons on this disc, although one of my favorites, FAIR AND WORM-ER, still hasn't made the cut.

A rather disappointing collection this time.

These days, with all the hype around animation on televsion, is it sometimes just too easy to really forget about the classics in animation. While so many youngsters are definitely more interestd in cartoon gems like Spongebob Squarepants, Jimmy Neutron, and Fairly Odd Parents, many people don't seem to remember about those days where the classic animation was organic and fresh. That is why the Looney Tunes have still been a essential part of animation today. With Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig and others, their classic era in animation has long been forgotten by so many. Thankfully, the success of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection, many are rediscovering those wonderful Warner Brothers gems of the 40's and 50's. Now, the fourth edition has come around, and it definitely delivers.

The Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 4, continues to reflect on the classic era of Warner's greatest animated classics. The DVD set features 60 delightful shorts that are still fun and entertaining. Disc 1, like the previous DVD editions of the golden collection is all about Bugs Bunny himself. This editon features so many great hare-brained classics that some of them even haven't been on home video before. There are just a lot of delightful classics from the only Bugs Oscar-winning short Knighty Knight Bugs, and other middle aged set cartoons like Chuck Jones' classic Knight-Mare Hare which was set as a parody of Mark Twain's A Conneticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, and Rabbit Hood. There are also other great gems from To Hare Is Human, Rabbit Romeo, and The Grey Hounded Hare where Bugs falls for a robotic rabbit at a greyhound dog race.

Disc 2: Highlights the era of legendary unsung hero Frank Tashlin, or as some of the classic cartoon historians called him, Tish Tash. The cartoons that are highlighted in this volume are mostly from the 30's, and 40's. Some of the cartoons here have influenced later characters like I've Got Plenty Of Mutton, which later influenced characters Ralph Wolf and Sam Sheepdog, and The Case Of The Stuttering Pig, which was one of the very few cartoons that featured Petunia, Porky's significant other, and gems like The Stupid Cupid where Cupid Elmer tries to make Daffy fall in love with a hen, and it backfires on him.

Disc 3: to myself is considered the actual crown jewel of all the discs in this collection. This volume features Speedy Gonzales, and it has really been long overdue that a volume has featured him. These past few years, when Looney Tunes cartoons were featured on Cartoon Network, all of Speedy's classics were sadly blacklisted, with fears of discriminating Mexican-Americans. This however is the first time since 1985 a Speedy feature has been placed on home video. This edition features a lot of great follies from the Fastest Mouse in All Mexico!! The episodes here not just highlight Speedy and his bouts against Sylvester, but also some of the cartoons after Warner Brothers Termite Terrace era, facing Daffy Duck too. This disc features greats like Speedy's debut in Cat-Tails For Two, and Speedy Oscar-nominated classics The Pied Piper Of Guadalupe by Friz Freleng, and Tobasco Road, Speedy's 3rd cartoon. Other greats here highlighted are Pancho's Hideaway, the only time Speedy is paired off against a Bandito who looks and acts similar too Yosemite Sam, and The Wild Chase, where the answer is decided who is the fastest Speedy Gonzales or Chuck Jones' favorite speed demon, The Road Runner. The actual only disadvantage with this disc is that the classic self-titled Speedy Gonzales wasn't highlighted here. That was featured on the first volume of the Golden Collection.

The fourth disc is really a compilation of kitty kat-tastrophy. This disc features some of the best in Warner's lesser-known cat characters from Claude Cat in The Aristo-Cat, the kitten Pussyfoot, which pairs off with dog Marc Anthony in two cartoons Kiss Me Cat, where the dog tries to mak sure Pussyfoot stays in their happy home and keeps the mischief and the mouse away, and Cat Feud. There are also more funnies from Sylvester here too, including Mouse and Garden where Sylvester and his friend Sam spend the night in a abandoned shaft on the pier, trying to fight over a single mouse in the house, andThe Unexpected Pest where Sylvester make a slave into a mouse, just to keep his stay in his home.

All in all, the shorts have all been restored and remastered to the best quality, and just still as funny and exciting to watch. There are also a lot of great extras here too, highlighting moments around Speedy, and how he became the mouse we all know of today, and the documentary Bugs Bunny Superstar, and the short of 50 years in 3 1/2 minutes, which was featured as part of Happy Birthday Bugs: 50 Looney Years primetime special from 1990.

If there is one DVD boxed set I definitely recommend, this happens to be that one. I still enjoy the Looney Tunes shorts today, because they are fun to watch, and filled with laughter and promise. If you're a die hard fan of these laughable cartoons, I definitely recommend this as an addition to your DVD collection. If you haven't seen these cartoons before, you absolutely don't even know what you are truly missing. I hope there is another great volume of these delights that comes up again soon. That is really all folks!!!

DVD Cover: B

Shorts: B+

Price: A-

Remastering: B 1/2+

Extras: A

Overall: B+

Another worthwhile set of the best cartoons ever produced finally appears. A few more favorites appear, including Knighty Knight Bugs, Rabbit Hood and 8 Ball Bunny. A few of my favorites are still MIA, including:
-Ali Baba Bunny, Bugs & Daffy find a cave full of treasure. Hassan chop!
-Stupor Duck, Daffy goes Superman and saves things that don't need it.
-From Hare To Heir, Yosemite Sam has to be nice to Bugs to get money. Dirty rackin frackin rabbit!
-The High And The Flighty, Daffy sells practical jokes to Foghorn and Dawg, including the infamous Pipe Full O' Fun Kit No. 7.
-Racketeer Rabbit, Bugs takes on gangsters Edward G Robinson and Peter Lorre. Rocky's too smart for ya, see?

I was quite excited to see that a fourth installment of the Golden Collection was coming out, and put in an order as soon as I heard about it.

A couple days ago I got the discs in the mail, and popped them in, waiting to see what great cartoons they contained. Instead I was immediately hit with a politically correct statement about the humor which these discs contain. Why was this necessary? Are we at a point in society that we are so scared of offending someone that everything needs to come with a disclaimer?

Is it ok to posit today's viewpoints on art that was drawn 60 and 70 years ago? These cartoons are more than just animation put in a series of photographs run at 24 frames per second. They are a part of American history that reflect more than adequately their time in America. Growing up and watching these cartoons on television, I never thought of Speedy Gonzalez as part of a stereotype. I saw him as a really fast mouse that was a hero to all the other mice. Pepe Lepew was simply a love-lorn loser. Who cares if he is a French skunk?

That disclaimer I think does more harm than good. Children who think highly of these characters may have their views of them distorted into something they were never intended to be.

If people have such a problem with this, and I honestly doubt many do, then they should come to their own conclusions instead of being told what to think about these cartoons.

Fortunately my opinions and perceptions are pretty well in place, and despite the attempt on telling me what to think about the cartoons, I still find them funny. And no I am not a racist. Despite the disclaimer, I can still give this a high rating. Come to your own conclusion about these cartoons, these pieces of art that are Americana. If you find them offensive, send them back. Don't be told what to think.

according to Jerry Beck, these are the bonus features

BUGS BUNNY - Disc 1

Commentaries
* Rabbit Hood by Director Eric Goldberg
* Operation: Rabbit by Writer Paul Dini
* Mississippi Hare by Director Eric Goldberg
* Hurdy-Gurdy Hare by Writer Paul Dini
* 8 Ball Bunny by Historian Jerry Beck
* Rabbit Romeo by Actor June Foray and Historian Jerry Beck

Alternate Audio Programs
* Operation: Rabbit Music and Effects Track
* Knight-Mare Hare Music Only Track
* Southern Fried Rabbit Music and Effects Track
* Sahara Hare Music Only Track
* Barbary-Coast Bunny Music Only Track
* To Hare is Human Music Only Track
* Rabbit Romeo Music Only Track

Behind the Tunes
* Twilight in Tunes: The Music of Raymond Scott
* Powerhouse in Pictures

Bugs Bunny Superstar Pt. 1 (1976 documentary)

Fifty Years of Bugs Bunny in 3 ½ Minutes (1989 short)

The Bugs Bunny Show
* Ballpoint Puns Bridging Sequences
* Foreign Legion Leghorn Audio Recording Sessions

Trailer Gallery
* Bugs Bunny's Cartoon Carnival
* Bugs Bunny's All-Star Revue

FRANK TASHLIN - Disc 2

Commentaries
* The Case of the Stuttering Pig by Animator Mark Kausler
* Now That Summer is Gone by Historian Michael Barrier with Director Frank Tashlin
* Porky in the North Woods by Animator Mark Kausler
* You're an Education by Historian Daniel Goldmark
* Plane Daffy by Filmmaker Greg Ford
* Cracked Ice by Historian Michael Barrier with Director Frank Tashlin
* Puss N Booty by Historian Jerry Beck
* I Got Plenty of Mutton by Filmmaker Greg Ford
* Porky's Poultry Plant by Historian Michael Barrier with Director Frank Tashlin
* The Stupid Cupid by Director Eddie Fitzgerald

Bugs Bunny Superstar Pt. 2 (1976 documentary)

Porky and Daffy in "The William Tell Overture"

Frank Tashlin's Storybooks
* Little Chic's Wonderful Mother
* Tony and Clarence

From the Vault
* The Goldbrick (1943 Snafu short)
* The Home Front (1943 Snafu short)
* Censored (1944 Snafu short)

SPEEDY - Disc 3

Commentaries
* Cat-Tails for Two by Actor Stan Freberg and Historian Jerry Beck
* Mexican Boarders by Filmmaker Greg Ford with Director Friz Freleng
* Nuts and Volts by Animator Art Leonardi and Historian Jerry Beck
* The Wild Chase by Writer Paul Dini

Alternate Audio Programs
* Cat-Tails for Two Music and Effects Track
* Tabasco Road Music Only Track
* Mexicali Schmoes Music Only Track
* West of the Pesos Music Only Track

"Friz on Film" (A new one hour documentary)

From the Vault
* 90 Day Wondering (1956 Army reinlistment film by Chuck Jones)
* Drafty, Isn't It? (1957 Army recruitment film by Chuck Jones)

CATS - DISC 4

Commentaries
* Conrad the Sailor by Filmmaker Greg Ford with Director Chuck Jones
* The Aristo-Cat by Director Eddie Fitzgerald
* The Aristo-Cat by Filmmaker Greg Ford with Director Chuck Jones
* Dough Ray Me-ow by Historian Jerry Beck
* Pizzicato Pussycat by Daniel Goldmark
* The Unexpected Pest by Actor June Foray and Historian Jerry Beck

Alternate Audio Programs
* Cat Feud Music Only Track
* The Unexpected Pest Music Only Track
* Go Fly a Kit Music Only Track
* A Peck of Trouble Music and Effects Track

Behind the Tunes
* One Hit Wonders
* Sing-a-Song of Looney Tunes
* The Art of the Gag
* Wild Lines: The Art of Voice Acting
* Looney Tunes: A Cast of Thousands

From the Vault
* Porky's Breakdowns
* Sahara Hare Storyboard Reel
* Porky's Poor Fish Storyboard Reel