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Antoine Doinel wrote:Excellent point Matt. One of the reasons I've stayed away from these sets was their scattershot cartoon selection process.

Yeah, me too. Give me a huge Looney Tunes boxed set please, organized in a chronological fashion.

And please can anyone help me with this?: As a kid, I was blown away by one particular episode....Porky Pig is in it, some kids (little piggies? I can't remember) are caught smoking, and a great big song and dance routine ensues, where the main theme in the song is "little kids shouldn't smoke".....cigarettes and matches do a Rogers + Astair thing, and it looks late 30s/early 40s......

Is this episode familiar to anyone here?

Noiretirc wrote:Yeah, me too. Give me a huge Looney Tunes boxed set please, organized in a chronological fashion.

Yeah, I would love chronological sets too. The only problem is that there are close to 900 Looney Tunes shorts. Even if they did "huge boxes" of, say, 100 shorts each, they would still need nine volumes, and the earliest and latest ones wouldn't sell as well as the middle period ones that aired on Saturday mornings. They've been using the cartoons from the forties and fifties to help sell the others. Maybe they'll find a way to make it work.

Noiretirc wrote:And please can anyone help me with this?: As a kid, I was blown away by one particular episode....Porky Pig is in it, some kids (little piggies? I can't remember) are caught smoking, and a great big song and dance routine ensues, where the main theme in the song is "little kids shouldn't smoke".....cigarettes and matches do a Rogers + Astair thing, and it looks late 30s/early 40s......

Is this episode familiar to anyone here?

It's Frank Tashlin's Wholly Smoke, and it's available on Volume 5 of the Golden Collection.

Jeff wrote:It's Frank Tashlin's Wholly Smoke, and it's available on Volume 5 of the Golden Collection.

I love you.

Funny how I remember it in colour, and much more elaborate....childhood memories!.....but that's the one, and it's great, even though it is politically incorrect.

Thanks so much.

Noiretirc wrote:Funny how I remember it in colour

The colorized version is all that was shown for years.

TV Shows on DVD has the full press release. Here is the list of shorts (which is apparently not entirely accurate) that Warner asked them to remove.

Bugs Bunny: Hare Extraordinaire
No Parking Hare
Jack Wabbit and the Beanstalk
Hold the Lion, Please
What's Cookin', Doc?
Which is Witch?
Mutiny on the Bunny
Bushy Hare
Hare We Go
Rabbit Every Monday
Fair Haired Hare
Foxy by Proxy
Hare Lift
Upswept Hare
Hare Trimmed
Robot Rabbit

Daffy Duck: Frustrated Fowl
Tick Tock Tuckered
Ain't that Ducky?
Nasty Quacks
Daffy Doodles
Along Came Daffy
The Prize Pest
Quack Shot
The High and the Flighty
Boston Quackie
Don't Axe Me
China Jones
Daffy's Inn Trouble
Quackodile Tears
Good Noose
Fast Buck Duck

Here is the corrected, final list of shorts with lots of changes:

Bugs Bunny: Hare Extraordinaire
1. Apes of Wrath
2. Bedevilled Rabbit
3. Bushy Hare
4. Dr. Devil and Mr. Hare
5. False Hare
6. Foxy by Proxy
7. From Hare to Heir
8. Hare Trimmed
9. Hare We Go
10. Lighter than Hare
11. Lumber Jack-Rabbit
12. Mad as a Mars Hare
13. The Million Hare
14. Mutiny on the Bunny
15. Napoleon Bunny-part


Daffy Duck: Frustrated Fowl
1. Daffy's Inn Trouble
2. Design for Leaving
3. Dime to Retire
4. Ducking the Devil
5. The Iceman Ducketh
6. People Are Bunny
7. Person to Bunny
8. The Prize Pest
9. Stork Naked
10. Suppressed Duck
11. This Is a Life?
12. Tick Tock Tuckered
13. Nasty Quacks
14. Daffy Dilly
15. Wise Quackers

It baffles me that A Wild Hare still hasn't been released on any of these sets (apart from it's inclusion in a couple of the documentaries that have appeared as supplements). Given that it's a Tex Avery work, not to mention the first real Bugs Bunny cartoon, it seems like a perfect candidate for one of these sets. Especially now that they're doing character-specific releases -- what better way to start off a Bugs collection than with his first appearance? What am I missing here?

It's on Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Academy Awards Animation Collection - 15 Winners, 26 Nominee

It's on Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Academy Awards Animation Collection - 15 Winners, 26 Nominee

Yeah, I'd forgotten about that, but inclusion in that set hasn't stopped several other shorts from being released on the Golden Collections as well.

I personally hate the fact that Warner has spread out their tunes all over, expecially bundled in other classic films. I know it's a large catalog (Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies), but I hope they release these collective in the future since most of them are restored now.

Cinephrenic wrote:They should release all on Blu.

Looks like some will be. From Blu-ray.com--

Animation expert and historian Jerry Beck, while speaking on his blog CartoonBrew of the recently announced 'Looney Tunes Super Stars' DVD line, was asked if there was any chance of seeing any Looney Tunes on Blu-ray. Beck replied, "Yes, there are plans for a Blu-Ray release of Looney Tunes. I can say no more."

TV Shows on DVD informs that Beck has consulted with Warner Home Video about Looney Tunes DVD releases. He therefore can be considered a very reliable source in this connection.

I am disappointed in the forthcoming Bugs disc - too many 60s cartoons, most of which were atrocious. There are plenty more classic 40s era Bugs cartoons that we could be getting.

And we are still waiting on restored Inki and the lion cartoons to appear on DVD - now those are true gems of the catalogue.

We probably get like vol.2 for these. We need Tex Avery MGM shorts.

bugsy_pal wrote:I am disappointed in the forthcoming Bugs disc - too many 60s cartoons,

I counted only 4, 2 of which, IIRC, were pretty good.

On the Volume 6 collection, there are 4 bonus Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies cartoons, completely separate from the play-all menu. They are not remastered, and don't look or sound nearly as good as the other ones. Wonder what the point was of including them in there... even more random than the entire series...

Apparently the post-'53 toons on the new Bugs and Daffy discs have been matted to 1.85 for the first time on home video. Of course, most probably were presented this way theatrically and were drawn to accommodate the mattes, but one hates to lose any of the artwork. I have mixed emotions about it, but I'm certainly curious as to how it will look, having only seen these (hundreds of times) in 1.33. I wish they had gone with 1.66 instead.

When I saw this, I was first disturbed, then angry, then intrigued. It's definitely not how I remember seeing these (on TV), but the way everything fits is convincing. I'll give it time.

Did WB ever produce any cartoons in an actual widescreen format, a la MGM?

These screencap comparisons are arguing against the matting. The toons weren't drawn with 1.85 in mind.

Oh, fuck that. I'll be passing on these. Obviously the matting is wrong after all. I can't believe Warner didn't realize that before releasing these.

JFC, it's suddenly 1997-99 in reverse; instead of 'full-screen only' releases of widescreen products, we're now getting 'widescreen only' releases of Academy ratio products! Is it that difficult to meet in the middle? ](*,)

1.55 for everything? :-k

That wouldn't be a bad idea at this point, since home video companies are refusing to have both sides peacefully co-exist in the world of digital home video. :-"

Horrible. If people want to fill their screens at the expense of composition, let them use their TV's zoom function.

It's almost funny. Consumers complain about widescreen because it won't fill their screens. Then they complain about fullscreen and 2.35 because it won't fill their screens. There's no end!

Why don't they make TVs like picture frames? We could buy different sizes to fit different aspect ratios. Then everyone would be happy!

Of course these aren't nearly as exciting, now that we know Warner is ruining them, but the next two releases have been announced. I love Foghorn. *sniff*