Customer Reviews

Looney Tunes Super Stars: Daffy Duck Frustrated Fowl

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(17)

 

 

Warner has done something here that they never did with the Golden Collection DVDs, they CROPPED the picture of the 1954+ cartoons to make them look widescreen. The animators at Warner Brothers NEVER animated for wide screen until the 1980 revival. This is evident in the first CROPPED cartoon DESIGN FOR LEAVING (1954), there are jokes missing because they are in the upper or lower portions of the picture which are not there now. Maybe they were shown at the theaters this way, but I want to see them the way the animators intended us to see them.

I have already contacted the powers that be at Warner Home Video to request a re-call and issue a proper un-cropped DVD of these classic cartoons.

This would have NEVER happened in the Golden Collection sets. Someone who does not know better must be in charge now!

"Frustrated Fowl" is the best way to describe this DVD! This will be the LAST Looney Tunes DVD that I buy if this is going to be the new standard. Keep the old un-cropped Laserdiscs, a TRAVESTY has been committed here!

1-800-553-6937 is the Warner Home Video customer service number.

****DAFFY DILLY information****

When Daffy Dilly was first released to theaters on October 30 1948, it was a two-strip CINECOLOR Nitrate film. One color was on each side of the print. On August 18 1956 Warner Brothers re-released the cartoon, re-mastered as a three-strip TECHNICOLOR Safety film (replacing the original titles & credits with the new 'Blue Ribbon' titles).

The original 2-strip Nitrate negatives were either lost or destroyed after this. BUT a Safety film 16mm archival CINECOLOR print has survived with all of the original titles & credits. Warner Home Video did transfer this print to Hi-resolution video but decided the cost of restoring it up to the quality of the three-strip Technicolor 35mm negatives was prohibitive & they opted not to include it on this DVD.

Personally, I would have put up with scrates & low fidelity sound in the titles (CINECOLOR used a blue sound track which does not re-produce well) just so that we could see the original Cinecolor titles & end title.

I was really looking forward to this DVD, and the companion Bugs Bunny one. All new to DVD cartoons, remasterd, looking great, and furthering the goal of getting the complete LT/MM library in my collection.

But, there is a serious flaw with this, and the Bugs Bunny disc. The aspect ratio is screwed up. The first few cartoons are just find, presented in a proper "pillar box" format on a wide screen TV. But then, starting with Design for Leaving, the cartoons are suddenly full screen, cropping the top and bottom of the image. At first I thought I had a defective disc, but when both this and the Bugs disc showed the same problem, it suggested to me that WB has screwed up on the mastering of these discs. And yes, it is a formatting error with the disc. If you play the disc on an older 4:3 TV, the ones that are stretched on the wide screen sets are squished inward on the older style ones. This is really sad becuase these are excellent cartoons, but I refuse to pay good money for a defective product. I'll be returning my copies for a refund. :(

The only reason that I will not be buying "Daffy Duck: Frustrated Fowl," and the only reason for my 1-star rating, is because someone at Warner Bros decided to use matting to cover up the tops and bottoms of most of the cartoons on this DVD.

For example, in the original version of "Design For Leaving," Elmer Fudd is shown sitting on a bus, and we can see his face through the bus's window. But on this DVD, we can only see his mouth and the bottom of his nose.

Warner Bros claims that their reason for doing this is because that's what the artists originally intended. I very much doubt this claim. Why would they draw Elmer's face if they never intended for anyone to be able to see it? Furthermore, none of the cartoons on the six Looney Tunes Golden Collections are matted, and no one ever complained about the fact that those cartoons weren't matted.

I bought all six Golden Collections. But I will not be buying "Frustrated Fowl."

All cartoons on this volume are new to DVD, and none have previously been released as part of the Golden Collection sets. There are no bonus features. This volume contains a diverse mix of Daffy Duck cartoons from the 1940's to 1960's. List of cartoons (and year of release) follows.

1. Daffy's Inn Trouble (1961)
2. Design for Leaving (1954)
3. Dime to Retire (1954)
4. Ducking the Devil (1957)
5. The Iceman Ducketh (1964)
6. People Are Bunny (1959)
7. Person to Bunny (1960)
8. The Prize Pest (1951)
9. Stork Naked (1955)
10. Suppressed Duck (1965)
11. This Is a Life? (1955)
12. Tick Tock Tuckered (1944)
13. Nasty Quacks (1945)
14. Daffy Dilly (1948)
15. Wise Quackers (1949)

For those of you who are unhappy with the fake widescreen format on the cartoons, here is a customer service number for Warner Home Entertainment. This is a voice mail set up specifically for consumer feedback on their DVD product:

818-977-6065

Be polite yet firm. Make sure to suggest the idea of a disc replacement program.

Most of these Looney Tunes are excellent. I was especially looking forward to "Design for Leaving" (the one with Daffy and Elmer Fudd and the modernized house with the "not the wed won" button). Unfortunately, the bulk of these shorts have been cropped to fill a widescreen TV. This is absolutely ludicrous! Much of the artistry of Looney Tunes is in the beautifully composed scenes, and much of the humor comes from the way the characters interact within the space. Now they're awkwardly zoomed-in and, in some cases, are missing essential pieces of the frame (which included sight gags and other storytelling elements). Why spend the time restoring these when you're only going to reveal about 65% of the frame? Extremely disappointing.

Yeah, there are WB apologists out there who are just happy more Looney Tunes have been released on DVD. Yeah, there are some toon fans out there who say cropping does not bother them.

But cropping two-thirds of the cartoons on this set was a completely unnecessary thing to do. I really don't understand the mentality that was behind this decision. Just who is WB catering to by ruining these cartoons like this?

I just excitedly put Daffy Duck: Frustrated Fowl into the DVD player, and I tell you I couldn't put into words how shocked and disappointed I was to find these classic cartoons had been fiddled with, at first I thought it must be a faulty copy that slipped through quality control, which is why I came on to amazon.com to check if there had been a recall put out, only to be even more horrified to read this is how the distributors intended the films to appear. Surely not?! I'm still confident this was due to an error made in the production of this first release and a recall will be soon be announced.
Anybody seeing these cartoons presented in this skewed edited fashion will give the viewer a false, unfair and misleading impression, and lack of enjoyment they would otherwise experience seeing these cartoons as originally produced, at the cinema or back on Saturday Morning TV. Do you self and your family a big favour and steer clear of this release until it has been recalled and the cartoons restored to their original classic stature allowing them to be fully enjoyed and appreciated the way their original writers, directors and animators intended them to be.

The only way we can stop Warner Bros. from cropping all of their cartoon releases is not to buy cropped cartoons like the ones on this DVD, which would be excellent otherwise. If you've already bought it, return it! I did.

As said before most of the cartoons of this set are cropped and tampered with. The top and bottom of the shorts have been cut to adapt them to widescreen format. This makes them unwatchable as bits of the action and animation are missing, the image looks cropped and you keep concentrating on the missing parts. VERY UNCOMFORTABLE viewing. Plus I must say the image restauration doesn't look as pristine as the Golden collection series.

What is more unsettling is that Warner Bros keeps doing this all over again, tampering with content (censorship, cropping...) showing no respect at all for intellectual property but most of all no respect whatsoever for the customer. It is disgusting.

Sadly I can't recommend the buying of this product and its sister : the Bugs Bunny superstar. The viewing is really uncomfortable, and the fan and collector is not respected by Warner. The product is not worth the money it cost.