Looney Tunes - Golden Collection Volume 5 (Keepsake Case)

I'm typically several years late when it comes to purchasing the Golden Collection series and this one's no exception. I purchased this a few days ago and it arrived yesterday. Thanks to the availability of  Looney Tunes: Spotlight Collection, Vol. 5  I was able, several years ago, to see 30 of the cartoons that are featured in this edition of the Golden Collection.As usual the Golden Collection is aimed more at the cartoon enthusiasts...the animation historians...and die-hard fans of the Looney Tunes. The main reason for the Spotlight Collections were to aim at the general audience and aim at those who wouldn't pay more than $20.00 for a DVD collection (although the Golden Collections are well worth the higher price). A lot of the reviews of this DVD I've not read (there's too many) but those that I've skimmed through touch base on just about everything and so I'm not going to do any break downs of individual cartoons.This Volume Five nearly completes my collection of the series...I now need to get the final volume, Six, to make it complete.Given that the Golden Collection, this one being no exception, are filled with extra features and mini-documentaries on animators, directors, and the like I watched most of the extra features and bonus material first and that's what this review will mostly be about.The documentary I watched right away was "Drawn To Life: The Art of Robert McKimson" which is found on disc 2. I watched this first because I wanted to, first of all, see what the animators, historians and fans of the cartoons had to say. I also watched it first because McKimson is like the unheralded giant of classic Warner Brothers cartoons...and lot of McKimson's cartoons played a lot on ABC-TV's BUGS BUNNY AND TWEETY SHOW of the '80s and '90s and I was raised on his cartoons every bit as much as I was raised on the cartoons by Friz Freleng, Chuck Jones, Bob Clampett, and Tex Avery.The documentary is a celebration of McKimson's career...noted as being one, if not the only, person employed at Warner Brothers from it's beginning to it's end. McKimson and his brothers, Charles and Tom, were natural artists and obviously this enabled them to become animators...and later, as we know, Robert became a director at the studio. Within the documentary, strangely enough, there isn't any archival commentary from McKimson's peers at the studio and there's no verbal recordings of McKimson. There are pictures of him shown (of course!) and there's invaluable commentary from his son, Robert McKimson, Jr., and several others but there's no actual footage of the senior McKimson on camera discussing his career or the characters he known for (Foghorn Leghorn, Barnyard Dog, Prissy, Tasmanian Devil, Hippety Hopper, and Sylvester Junior).While the documentary on McKimson is a celebration of his work and his talents it wouldn't have been realistic without discussing the sad but true fact that he's largely forgotten and unheralded when compared to Friz Freleng, Chuck Jones, Bob Clampett, and Tex Avery. Several historians and cartoon enthusiasts offer their opinion on why that's the case...a lot of it has to do with the fact that McKimson passed away in 1977 before all the nostalgia and enthusiasm for cartoons really started to take off but also, according to some of the commentators, it also had to do with his low-key demeanor. It's a study in extreme ironies: McKimson was a skilled artist, animator, and director who did quite a lot of memorable cartoons but because of the low-key nature and the acclaim put on Friz, Chuck Jones, and the others through the decades it's created a scenario where a director's work is highly memorable albeit the name of the director isn't as well known by comparison. How's that for irony?Another extra is "Once Upon a Looney Tune"...which airs prior to the McKimson documentary on disc 2. In this feature we see the exploration of the zany, irreverent spin on fairy tales which is what's featured on Disc 2 of the collection. There are various spoofs of Little Red Riding Hood and The Three Bears in addition to other fables and fairy tales. It's interesting to note that in the "Once Upon a Looney Tune" feature they air a clip of Coal Black, a parody of Snow White. Those who are die-hard fans of the Looney Tunes know all about Coal Black but it caught me off-guard when I saw the clip pop up on the screen.Bob Clampett gets his own disc...it's Disc 3. Along side Tex Avery and Robert McKimson, Clampett's cartoons are laugh out loud funny in my opinion. It's often been said that Friz Freleng's cartoons had superior timing and razor sharp music coordination which brought out the humor in almost every cartoon. It's been said that Chuck Jones had superior timing, too, on top of using eye blinks, facial expressions, and word play to bring out the humor in his cartoons...but pretty much everyone who's given commentary about a Looney Tunes cartoon seems to point out Bob Clampett's work as being the looniest of all. Ironically, Clampett received a mini-documentary of his life and career back in the Golden Collection, Volume Two but it took until Volume Five for him to get a disc devoted to his directorial contributions at the studio. There have been other Clampett cartoons sprinkled throughout Volumes 1 through 4 so it isn't like his work was completely ignored. However, compared to the amount of cartoons directed by Friz and Chuck featured on Volumes 1 through 4, Clampett's contributions pale by comparison. Some say it's because Friz and Chuck were at the studio much longer and made more cartoons therefore more of their contributions are showcased...which makes sense...but then there are those who say that limiting the Clampett cartoons was did intentionally because the irreverence, satire, and all out zaniness clashed with the works of Freleng and Jones.There are two bonus features on Disc 3...one is all about the "Wacky Warner One Shots". This feature examines quite a lot of the cartoons from Warner Brothers which didn't star any of the popular characters (like Bugs, Porky, Daffy, Sylvester, etc. etc.). The second bonus feature, "Real American Zero: The Adventures of Private SNAFU", looks at Private Snafu...the inept soldier who doesn't do anything right. The training films were designed to teach newly enlisted soldiers how NOT to behave. By watching Snafu do the wrong things and get into a lot of trouble it was teaching soldiers to learn from Snafu's mistakes. The Snafu cartoons were never shown to the general public for obvious reasons. It's fun, though, to see the regular gallery of historians and animators who've contributed to the Golden Collection series speak more R-rated, too. The mini-documentary isn't an all out barrage of cuss words but given that it's all about the Private Snafu cartoons the language is a little bit looser. There are two bonus cartoons of SNAFU adventures and there are three cartoons starring SNAFU's Navy counterpart, Mr. Hook. SNAFU cartoons were made for the U.S. Army while the HOOK cartoons were made for the U.S. Navy.Disc 1 features cartoons starring either Bugs Bunny or Daffy Duck. Of course there are several cartoons that feature Bugs and Daffy together outwitting a shared enemy. In "Ali Baba Bunny" the shared enemy is Hasan, the simple minded treasure guard who can't remember the magic phrase 'open Sesame'. The main extra feature on Disc 1 is a Chuck Jones documentary from 2000 called "Extremes and In-Betweens: A Life in Animation". This is the second documentary on Chuck...the first, "Chuck Amuck", was featured on Volume One.Part 2 of the "Extremes and In-Betweens" documentary is on Disc 2...along with another Chuck Jones spotlight called "A Chuck Jones Tutorial: Tricks of the Cartoon Trade". This was originally a bonus feature on the DVD release of "Extremes and In-Betweens".Disc 4 showcases early cartoons. A bonus extra, "Unsung Maestro's: A Directors Tribute" takes a look at various directors at Warner Brothers who contributed quite a few cartoons for the studio but were never given a lot of spotlight. A lot of the time it was because some of the directors were there prior to the arrival of future super star characters like Porky Pig, Daffy Duck, and Bugs Bunny. The directors of the Looney Tunes in the earliest of years get some spotlight in this feature. One of the more notable cartoons on Disc 4 is "Scrap Happy Daffy" from 1943. It was directed by Frank Tashlin. The first cartoon directed by Tex Avery, "Gold Diggers of '49", is featured on Disc 4. It stars Beans the Cat but many historians say Porky Pig is the real star. The cartoon is also notable for injecting a lot of what would become trademarks of the Warner Brothers cartoons: visual humor, pop-culture references, and general craziness. The cartoon premiered in 1935...several years before Mel Blanc would become the voice of Porky Pig and what we have is original voice, Joe Dougherty, providing the vocals. The cartoon was animated by Bob Clampett and Chuck Jones several years before the two of them would become cartoon directors. Research shows that "Gold Diggers of '49" is the second cartoon to feature Porky Pig.All in all this is another perfect Golden Collection...some have ripped this version apart but I have no idea why there's anger and bitterness at all. There were some bitterness by some about Volume 4 due to several of the disc's concentrating on lesser known characters and highlighting cartoons that lacked a lot of the trademark humor of later cartoons from the studio in the '40s and '50s. One of the disc's on Volume 4 was devoted to Speedy Gonzales which infuriated some but delighted others. This Volume 5, in my opinion, doesn't feature any cartoon that deviates too much from what Looney Tunes enthusiasts crave. You can't go wrong with a disc devoted to Bob Clampett, neither! On top of this there's the wonderful look at Robert McKimson's work that I wrote of at the top of this review...and then there's the Chuck Jones documentary...and there's three made-for-TV Looney Tunes specials added as extra features on Disc 4: "Bugs and Daffy's Carnival of the Animals", "Bugs Bunny's Looney Christmas Tales", and "Bugs Bunny's Bustin' Out All Over".

This fifth volume in the LOONEY TUNES GOLDEN COLLECTION series is indeed a dream come true for the obsessive fan *AND* the casual viewer who remembers the golden days of having Warner Brothers cartoons not only on prime time TV but shown in all incarnations on local TV on weekday evenings.Disk one, BUGS BUNNY & DAFFY DUCK is like reliving the days when "THE BUGS BUNNY SHOW" was part of prime time viewing on our TV airwaves, with cartoons that need so badly to be seen in this kind of quality, neatly blending the truly classic and the offbeat to give a well-rounded impression of how these characters developed over the years. "BUGS BONNETS", a cartoon that lends new meaning to the term "clothes make the man" (or even bend the gender), is one of those offbeat, subtle titles that I so often recall seeing on TV, but only on "THE BUGS BUNNY SHOW", and we get to see Daffy Duck in transition, his "fun period" as the commentary tracks stress, with cartoons like "PEST IN THE HOUSE" (perhaps his finest performance), "STUPOR-DUCK" (with its great intro by Daws Butler mimmicking all the "SUPERMAN" adventures in much the same way that "SUPER RABBIT" had done) and "YOU WERE NEVER DUCKIER" (a cartoon that pairs Daffy, oddly enough, with feisty Hennery Hawk, a kind of link to the little guy's "foist" cartoon, "THE SQUAWKING HAWK" in which Hennery goes out on his very first hunt for chickens after refusing to eat his "woims", and we realize that he still doesn't know what a chicken really is. Even nicer is the fact that, if you missed your chance, like me, to have the entire "STUPOR-DUCK" music track in any format, as it once appeared on the cassette only of an audio collection called THE CARL STALLING PROJECT, here's your ultimate chance to have the audio and the video in one place!!Disk Two gives us some terrific FAIRY TALE fractures, long before Jay Ward had done it with Bill Scott, and the restorations here are eye and ear-popping!! Yes, it truly pops the ears to hear the restorations on toons like "THE BEAR'S TALE" and "LITTLE RED WALKING HOOD", not to mention (but you know I'll mention it anyway) "HOLIDAY FOR SHOESTRINGS" because of its splendid music track and, now, fully restored title card and overall visual and audio. On the first two disks, we get parts one and two of "EXTREMES AND IN-BETWEENS", a special on the career of Chuck Jones originally run on PBS. I missed this one, but am now glad it is neatly housed in this set as "BUGS BUNNY, SUPERSTAR" was in the fourth volume, giving Robert Clampett his own platform to tell of his days at Termite Terrace. Chuck Jones does indeed do himself justice in this long overdue documentary and we also learn of what it really takes to make a clever animated cartoon. Upon seeing this special we long for a shot at "THE DOT AND THE LINE" on some collection in the near future and, perhaps, this is a hint of what's to come.Disk Three gives us a well-rounded glance at yet more Robert Clampett cartoons, oddly beginning with a title that was finished by Arthur Davis but still has Clampett's "stamp" and howl and overall twisted sense of humor about it, "BACALL TO ARMS", also including true classics like "THE WISE-QUACKING DUCK", "WAGON HEELS", both versions of "HARE RIBBIN'" and that hilarious impression of Bugs and Elmer Fudd as aged adversaries looking back at their "careers", with the hapless hunter still chasing Bugs with his "wightning quick wabbit-kiwwer".It is the special feature section on this disk that shines, though. Aside from the alternate "director's cut" of "HARE RIBBIN'" mentioned above, you get two PRIVATE S.N.A.F.U." shorts and three "HOOK" cartoons pushing war bonds and what to do after the term of duty, with great voice work here by Arthur Lake; makes you wonder why he didn't do more voice work for the studio in the homefront cartoons.But it is the fourth disk here that is the fan favorite for this reviewer! This is an entire disk labeled "THE EARLY YEARS" and we truly learn just how some of the earliest characters and traits in LOONEY TUNES stars blossomed. The disk opens with "ALPINE ANTICS", a fun cartoon which shows what the studio's finest unsung animators could do with Disney-like characters, taking them in their own direction, "I'VE GOT TO SING A TORCH SONG" which takes the BUSBY BERKELEY number and does a fantastic job of starting up the list of caricature-laiden cartoons as time capsule of the various entertainers and celebrities of the day (and this cartoon actually features restored footage that did not appear as part of the BUSBY BERKELEY collection's special feature) and "MILK AND MONEY", one of those early PORKY PIG cartoons, giving the viewer a chance to see Porky before Mel took over as his voice, when Joe Dougherty, a real stutterer, gave Porky his vulnerable and naive charm. Other highlights here include "EATIN' ON THE CUFF" (a Robert Clampett clasic about a little moth that falls for a honey bee and even integrates live action in to the cartoon) and "WISE QUACKS" (a cartoon in which Daffy Duck, an expectant father, nervously ingests a little too much of the bubbly and, somehow, the poor kid gets left behind, strange and dark and truly a lost LOONEY TUNES treasure), "SCRAP-HAPPY DAFFY" (showing Daffy Duck's over-the-top patriotism with a great reference to that one-eyed sailor in hopes that a can of spinach could save Daffy and the day) and "WHOLLY SMOKE" (a parable on the perils of smoking as only those at Termite Terrace could deliver it)!! There are others as well, like "PORKY AT THE CROCCADERO" a tour de force for Porky Pig who wants to become an entertainer in the worst way and, eventually, does, mimmicking entertainers of the age like Cab Calloway in much the same way as the first LOONEY TUNES star, Bosko, had done with Maurice Chevallier in a cartoon called "BOSKO IN PERSON", only Porky had a jazzier score, thanks to Carl Stalling. It is a top-notch disk from beginning to end and a fantastic finale to one of the best sets I've bought this year!!

Uncut,

I've always liked the Looney Tunes cartoons that were so much a part of going to the pictures in the 50's and 60's. Plenty of cartoons that are a great laugh e.g. Buccaneer Bunny. If you enjoy Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Yosemite Sam, et al then you'll enjoy these DVDs. Note the 4th disk in the set comprises much older b&w Porky Pig cartoons from the 30's & 40's. I'd only seen a couple of these before, back in the days when TV used to show Looney Tunes cartoons. They're still fun to view but they hadn't arrived yet at the Porky Pig character of the 50's and 60's.

Again another ageless show lots of good old humor, althought i do not see the need to make the introduction about "the language" used in back on the day. In our society we should be mature enough to address that this cartoons come from an era where not everything said was taken as an "insult" like today. People sometimes see's too much into things and that is when problems start as it stops being just entertainment then it becomes Political, Social, etc....I just see it for what it is a CARTOON.

This product, Loonie Tunes Golden Collection 4 and 5 are Christmas gifts for this year, 2018. Last year collection 1,2 ,3 were a delight to my son. I will look forward to buying the last of the collection, 6. I am hoping there will be a price drop.

Just like new.

Somehow I missed buying this volume back when they were first being released. Our family loves watching all the other sets, so finally got around to picking up this one too. Glad to have all the volumes of these excellent collections.