Looney Tunes on DVD Finally!

Paul, that's interesting because I think Clampett took some characters in the wrong direction - I've never cared for the way he used Bugs Bunny. Now, Coal Black and some other naughty Warner toons he directed and are not shown anymore are another story!

 

I agree, Clampett's Bugs was too much of a bully for my taste. I loved his Daffy, though.

The "now I've seen everything" line was also used in Clampett's "Horton Hatches The Egg", by a Peter Lorre fish. And let's not forget Daffy's "suicide" at the end of "The Scarlet Pumpernickel"!

 

I had never noticed that line. I re-watched that cartoon yesterday night. Indeed - it adds another dimension to a cartoon I already loved! Thanks for the tip.

Looney Tunes were always a bit extreme. Paul, I think there are more cartoons with endings like the ones you mentioned. Sadly, (?) a whole new generation will NEVER enjoy some situations, due to censorship. On top of my head, I can think of a Bugs Bunny cartoon, where he (and a hound, whose name I can't remember) falls to his death, only to be saved (they were out of gas), then they fall again. The true ending is missing, just like the one you mention with Elmer Fudd.

There were a whole lot of cartoons that have never been released due to stereotyping, too.

I guess Cartoon Network could do a "Late Nite Black and White" again, this time with all the censored cartoons. They could show it at 2:00 AM on Saturday nights. That'd be fun!

 

I'd have to agree with you indy and guy, that Clampett's Bugs was a rather nasty piece of work, and definitely not the way Bugs eventually evolved. I still love those cartoons. The Daffy ones are excellent, especially The Great Piggy Bank Robbery and Baby Bottleneck - Daffy at his most extreme.

I've also always really liked Gruesome Twosome (with Tweety and the Jimmy Durante cat) and Kitty Cornered (with a hapless Porky and a very sputtering Sylvester).

I agree Javier, it would be a shame to not have some of those extreme cartoons available to future generations (of adults). Some of the racial stereotyping in them is a bit much now though.

 

Paul, I think one of the most controversial scenes involving prejudice happened not on a Looney Tunes cartoon, but on Fantasia. The scene with the black minotaurs polishing the white minotaurs' hoofs, specifically. If I remember correctly, the Fantasia Anthology mentions this as a scene that had to be deleted at the last minute.

I can't remember if it is still available as an extra on said Anthology...

 

Clampett's Bugs was different, but I still liked him.

And I liked Chuck Jones. But, frankly, I consider him the most overrated of all the Looney Tunes directors. His character and set designs were fantastic...but his cartoons just weren't as funny as those of many of his contemporaries.

 

Michael, I also like Chuck Jones work, but I have a preference for his earlier stuff. His really early experiments, such as The Dover Boys, and his early Bugs films, are incredible. And he did some wonderful stuff in the late 40s and early 50s - classics such as Duck Dodgers, The Ducksters, The Rabbit of Seville, Rabbit Hood (love that cartoon!). As the 50s wore on, his work became more formularised or something, and the style of animation was degraded. I for one think that the much heralded "What's Opera Doc?" is one of the worst Warner and Chuck Jones cartoons, and probably the most over-reated. It signalled the demise of the whole enterprise.

 

Ahhhhh - now we're on the same page! I think What's Opera Doc gets too much praise, while The Rabbit of Seville used the same basic concept and was a much funnier picture to boot... CJ's later stuff seems overthought, not so much from the heart. Clampett's toons frequently seem too annoying to me - they're almost angry instead of funny (better be careful - our host is a Clampett man ). I kinda favor Tex Avery myself, but he really blossomed after he headed to MGM (although we gotta heap praise on Fred for taking the rabbit that had shown up in several Warner's toons and making him into the Bugs Bunny we all know and love in A Wild Hare)...

 

I love to discuss the merits and styles of the different Warner directors, and it's nice to see the range of views. I didn't know our host was a Clampett admirer..... I agree with you indy about Clampett's cartoons - they are very aggressive and at times violent (I kind of like that). I do like the totally subversive nature of them, and the way he stretched the rules of animation. Some of them are quite nightmarish eg. the Great Piggy Bank Robbery, Book Revue.

To me, Avery's Warner stuff seems less visually driven, and more focused on characters and goofy gags. Of course, by the time of the MGM stuff, he was doing the ultimate bulging-eyeball jaw dropping contortions, which have only since been equalled or surpassed by Ren and Stimpy

 

I have not seen many of those B&W cartoons at all - I assume many of them are on the "Golden Age" Looney Tunes laserdisc collections (sigh). What a treat, seeing those films with Leonard Maltin - he's a walking encyclopedia of cartoons. It was through him (and having kids) that I came more to appreciate the Disney studios efforts, in terms of the innovation and seamlessness of the production. I think the Warners stuff is up there with Disney

 

Yes, "Of Mice and Magic" is significant - have had it in my library for years. I remember also reading an article back in the 80s from Film Comment, which was a retrospective look at the Warner cartoons (coinciding with an exhibition and/or retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, I think), and focused on the different styles of the directors - that was the one thing I read that made me really start exploring those cartoons (as much as one could do with the available crappy public domain video compilations available in Australia). I remember this article highlighted Clampett as being perhaps the wildest of the bunch.

 

The black and white toons rarely get their due; believe me, I watch 'em when they show up, but that's kinda tricky - Toonheads is about the only place to get B&W Looney Toons action, and The Popeye Show (well, they're Popeye toons - bleccchhhh)....

I'll put a plug in for Joe Adamson's book on 1975's Tex/Fred Avery "Tex Avery - King of Cartoons" - the first GOOD book on animation I ever found (and there's a lotta junky ones out there). The Clampett/Avery/Jones/Freleng "I created that character" brouhaha isn't part of the story, so it's a pretty nice overview of Avery's career - here's a picture of the boys in Mr. A's unit at Termite Terrace...

 

So, what's this Daffy Duck doozy that I'm gonna haveta see???? I'd better be rolling on the floor when I get to see it!

As for Mr. Clampett - his toons seem to me like they were made by the kid who'd flick someone's ear, and get a response via a laugh, then do it again and mebbe a chuckle.... and again and possibly a smirk.... and then again and finally the flickee turns around a delivers a slap to the flicker.... (can I say flicker without getting Gorted)???

 

The first two volumes of the Looney Tunes LD collection are not exactly chock full of B&W cartoons... if memory serves me right, all the non-color ones are NOT Daffy, Bugs or the gang.

As far as directors are concerned, I love Tex Avery's style. His "mambo" cartoons, or his "westerns" are *very* funny stuff.

 

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  Nice list! I'd second that and add Porky Pig's Feat.

 

Porky the Wrestler should be up there...

 

No, stereoptic, "Porky Pig's Feat" is the one where he and Porky have the unpaid hotel bill and keep trying to escape. Tashlin's best cartoon by far.

"Dime To Retire" is a late-'50s McKimson cartoon where Daffy is a desk clerk and rents out a cat to Porky to eliminate a mouse, then rents him a dog to get rid of the cat, etc. Is that the one you're thinking of?

Jerry Beck has put up some cool before/after images of some restored scenes at his website.

http://www.cartoonresearch.com/kaz.html

 

Thanks for the link, Mike... the restored images look superb. The LD's look as washed-out as the VHS tapes, apparently.

 

Perhaps it's just me, but those restored images almost look *too* vibrant.

I'm not a restoration expert by any stretch of the imagination so maybe someone more familiar with restoration and/or cartoons from that era can comment on whether those look to be accurate representations of what audiences of the time would have seen or whether they look to be overly enhanced. I'm hoping, since Jerry Beck has been involved in the restorations, these are indeed accurate and that I'm simply not used to ever seeing them look this good.

Any info is appreciated.

Thanks,

Dan

 

Steve has explained that true Technicolor IB prints have exceptionally vibrant, almost 3-D appearance; HOWEVER, these restorations aren't Technicolor prints (someone noted Technicolor recently closed that operation after having restarted it not too long ago - confusing, isn't it???) - I think Steve mentioned they'll most likely be Eastman color, which is a whole nother beast. Do some searching at the site for some older threads that explain things in more/better detail than my quick n' dirty summary...

 

Yes, those colours do look rather intense. Lets hope they haven't overdone it, and it all turns out fine in the end (!). Can't wait to see this stuff.

I wonder if there'll be any Art Davis cartoons in there.... he did some fine cartoons for WB in the 40s