Looney Tunes on DVD Finally!

Well, we've come to a crossroads - dvd's from worn out Eastman prints or dvd's from new Eastman prints - that's why I look forward to the new prints. I'm not gonna have easy access to a theater that would run a show of toons - that's a nice benefit for Steve being near El Lay. We just need to track down someone with a cache of 35 mm Technicolor prints and roll our own...

 

No to mention Porky's "Where the deeeer and the antelope pl-pla-pl...where the deeeer and the antelope pl-pla-pl...where the deeeer..."

I guess I can understand WB's rationale in keeping the b&w cartoons (and, for the most part, the prewar stuff in general) off this set. They have to sell some of these things to the casual fans before they can start taking care of the die-hard connoisseurs. If the first batch sells well enough and Warner commits to a full-fledged DVD campaign, maybe we'll see a couple of sets dedicated to b&w titles somewhere down the road.

 

Was "Claws For Alarm" the earlier one where Porky's bed ends up balanced on the side of the house? If that's the one I remember, it's a classic.

Looking at the complete list of cartoons on the 4 DVD set, I think it's not a bad selection for starters. I would have liked to see more cartoons from the mid-40s, but I think they have focused on what many would argue is the heyday of WB shorts. I personally think the Bugs/Yosemite Sam collaborations might be a bit over-represented, but then they are pretty funny cartoons. I would have liked to see Bugs a bit more from earlier years, such as "Falling Hare", "Super Rabbit", etc. And where the heck is "The Dover Boys"? That was singled out as a Jones classic in the recent doco about him, and it is quite extraordinary. AT least they had the sense not to put too many late 50s cartoons in the package.

 

The Dover Boys laid the blueprint out for UPA (which in my estimation was a verrrrrry bad thing for animation - I don't like the "graphics is the future of animation" thinking that giving UPA toons so much press when they hit the scene). Mr. Jones made a few toons like that (Wakiki Wabbit, if I got the title right also had that flat background, bare bones look to it also), then slipped back to more traditional backgrounds....

 

No, that would be "Scaredy Cat". That one's being included on the first Golden Collection set.

 

The Dover Boys was an interesting experiment, with the stylised backgrounds and characters, and the "smeary" animation - but I think it worked well with that old-time "damsel-in-distress" story, and was quite funny. Wackiki Wabbit was also unusual for its weird backgrounds, but was still a typical Jones Bugs adventure, and also pretty funny. I'm not familiar with the UPA stuff that well, so I hadn't picked up on that connection.

 

What were they experimenting with The Dover Boys? Human animation? I do remember the LD set said something about that particular cartoon, and how revolutionary it was at the time.

I thought it was hilarious... the "damsel-in-distress" beating up the bad guy and screaming for help... they just don't make them like that anymore.

 

I think it was more the style of the animation - like the few bits where the action is sped up, and there is a smeared effect to the movement. It added a slapstick effect that went just right with the story. Also, the very stylised backgrounds and character designs were pushing things to the limits somewhat - Chuck Jones had done that with some of his other cartoons of the time - eg. some of his early Bugs cartoons had kind of surreal backgrounds - but he took it too extremes with Dover Boys.

 

Paul, if you like funny cartoons you haven't missed much if you haven't seen any/many UPA toons; they're more like an exercise in graphics...

 

A friendly-but-urgent plea from Jerry Beck (by way of the ToonZone forum):

It's nice to know that there's at least one guy at Warners who's trying to fight the good fight with these things.

 

Jerry works on his own - he compiled a series of the Columbia shorts (they did a vault search, tried to make sure the toons had their original title cards and other good stuff) but nobody has coughed up yet for a tv run. I'd like to see them for the 40's stuff like The Fox and Crow (NOT the UPA era stuff that they also own). He's a consultant kinda guy who's also working on the Tom and Jerry stuff that Warner's owns.

As an aside, my brother fivecent (occasional Forum visitor) paid a visit and we watched my naughty Banned Warner 11 Toons disc; most of the prints it was sourced from were AAP TV prints really showing their age. Mr. Beck said Warner (to their credit) is making prints of ALL their toons - just don't hold yer breath for release of any banned toons - visit Termite Terrace on the web and ask about the banned stuff - you'll get a history lesson and leads on where to see/get Coal Black, Goldilocks and the Jiving Bears and other naughty things)....

 

FYI, Amazon now has these sets up for preorder. Price looks pretty good too!

 

This weekend I saw a great deal on the Chuck Jones - Extremes and In-Betweens, a Life in Animation DVD so I picked it up and gave it a spin last night. It has two of the restored cartoons as a bonus, so I was most curious to see the picture quality as well as be able to answer my question posted above. Much to my delight, the colors are absolutely gorgeous and do not look over enhanced at all. I did notice what seemed to be some artifacting, though, but it wasn't overly distracting and it may be a result of my DVD player/setup (I didn't have a lot of time to spend checking my DVD player decoding settings as I was too giddy simply watching this DVD). If the picture quality that I saw on these two cartoons is representative of what the rest will look like then I'm looking forward to these sets even more anxiously than I already was!

 

Sounds like a very fair price. Can't wait to get my hands on this set.

 

I was amazed to be able to see paintbrush strokes all over Feed The Kitty!

I may have to make the half-hour trip out to Best Buy after work on Tuesday, I don't think I can wait until next weekend. This is an event!