WHV Announcement: Looney Tunes Mouse Chronicles Chuck Jones Collection (Blu-ray) (1 Viewer)

[Ruz-El]

Originally Posted by bigshot /t/320601/whv-announcement-looney-tunes-mouse-chronicles-chuck-jones-collection-blu-ray#post_3924234
I did a screening of cartoons at a local theater once and the menu of my disk listed the titles. I always program a few more shorts than I have time for, just in case I need them. I skipped past a couple of cartoons as I was talking, and after the screening was over, a guy came up to me and was very distressed. He was an odd character and never seemed to take his backpack off. He was genuinely upset that he hadn't gotten to see all the cartoons on the menu screen. He tried to get me to go back into the theater and show the cartoons I had skipped. It was as if he wouldn't be able to sleep at night unless he checked every film off the list. That's the kind of person Warner listens to when they put together these sets.

AT LEAST I ASKED POLITELY!!!

Seriously though, they can balance it out better. I think Warners did a great job on the Golden Collections since it kind of catered to everyone, even with the odd disc that was for me just painful to get through (Road Runner Cartoons). I'm hoping with this disc we get to the end of the Chuck Jones worship and get on with some of the cartoons that haven't been seen over and over again. Don't get me wrong, Jones is great and everything, it's time for more variety. I'd be more excited for this set if it had a second disc featuring a hodgepodge of other work. I'm guessing they've pretty much exhausted the characters they can spotlight so hopefully the next sets will be of more variety.

Or they'll just drop the whole thing since the market can't bear it. I wouldn't be surprised if it went that way frankly.

 

[Traveling Matt]

It's nice to see this kind of title happening, I like the theme and it's great these films are being restored. However, this doesn't really seem like anything other than a glorified version of the Super Stars disc it was intended to be.
As has been suggested, there's no reason to believe these films won't leave folks with yet another double-dip dilemma when they're reissued later as part of a collector's series (either the Platinums or a true Golden Collection successor).

 

[bigshot]

Maybe they'll release the films in alphabetical order and call it the Titanium Collection.

 

[Ruz-El]

Chronological and call it "The Archive Edition"

 

[bigshot]

But only get halfway through the series, and then start all over again by astrological sign of the release date alled the Superstars Galaxy Collection.

 

[bigshot]

How about a set of just the cartoons that have been released under more than two collections titled Quadruple Dip Fan Favorites!

 

[JoHud]

If they really wanted the OCD crowd, they would have included Angel Puss
But really, this was obviously suppose to be a "Super Stars" set, a line that is all about featuring "star" character roles. There are many people who prefer this or other sorts of "themes" for some reason or another, so I can't really fault them for going the "Complete Character Collection" route.
And while I'm not a fan of Sniffles, the Disney-like quality of them appeal to some people and I admit a few of them are pretty underrated. Still, I'm sure Chuck Jones' name and Hubie and Berte, rather than Sniffles, is the real hook for those who stumble upon it in a department store and have vague recollections of enjoying them. Since I doubt there are that many people who are familiar with Sniffles enough to even know if they will enjoy them--hence the Jones seal of approval on the box.
Personally, I'm going to buy this eventually only because they released them on blu-ray and I am very interested to see how the HD transfers look. I appreciate Jones' work and Sniffles isn't really a dealbreaker. It would have been nice if they ditched the "mouse" angle and went for a straight-up Chuck Jones Collection sampling two decades of his WB output, but it still looks like a nice set.

 

[Dan_Shane]

Originally Posted by Paul Penna /t/320601/whv-announcement-looney-tunes-mouse-chronicles-chuck-jones-collection-blu-ray#post_3924090
The Hubie & Bertie cartoons are a riot; it would be a mistake to dismiss them out of hand just because the characters are lesser-known. For me, they're worth the price of the set alone. And the last three Sniffles cartoons break the cutesy-poo mold of the earlier ones; Hush My Mouse in particular is a scream, a take-off on the "Duffy's Tavern" radio show, with great Mel Blanc voice work and a classic Edward G. Robinson caricature.

I concur. Personally, I'm happier about getting the lesser-known cartoons than the "star" vehicles. As long as future Blu-ray titles don't include "reruns" I'm on board for all of them.

If a giant chronological set miraculously appears someday a lot of people will be happy, and a greater number will gnash their teeth at being duped into multiple purchases, but for now I'm glad the current LT BD sets are offered through general retail rather than hidden away in TCM or Twilight Time catalogs.

 

[Ruz-El]

If any of these cartoons end up on the next Blu-ray Platinum collection you can comfortably add me to the teeth gnasher chorus!

 

[bigshot]

If they really wanted the OCD crowd, they would have included Angel Puss

I heard there was a Chuck Jones retrospective in Canada where they included Angel Puss. When the lights went up and it was time for Chuck to speak, he was nowhere to be found. He had gone home.

 

[David Deeb]

How about a set of just the cartoons that have been released under more than two collections titled Quadruple Dip Fan Favorites!

That's pretty funny. :tu:
Sony finally did the right thing with the Stooges films. They released all of the Three Stooges shorts in chronological order on numbered sets (Volume 1, Volume 2, etc. through Volume 8). Sony was guilty of the double dipping but finally listened to the fans. "The Three Stooges Collection" went on to become a big seller for them. So much that they are repackaging it already as a single box set (along with an unreleased 9th volume that we are "told" is being released separately soon - let's hope).
A big Looney Toon fan here, but likewise, I think sequencing 19 or 20 cartoons of the same character doesn't work as well as the "shuffle" play approach. "I thought I saw a Puddy-Tat" , back to back to back to back to back to back to back....arghh. Not sure if I'll get this or not, but good to see more LT on BD none-the-less.

 

[Brandon Conway]

The "character theming" doesn't seem to harm the Tom & Jerry sets... (which I know aren't LT, but "play" the same way as a LT character set).

 

[Ruz-El]

Originally Posted by Brandon Conway /t/320601/whv-announcement-looney-tunes-mouse-chronicles-chuck-jones-collection-blu-ray/30#post_3924339
The "character theming" doesn't seem to harm the Tom & Jerry sets... (which I know aren't LT, but "play" the same way as a LT character set).

Good point. I don't know why I can sit through a half hour of Tom and Jerry better than I can a half hour of Chuck Jones cartoons. I guess they're just a 1000X better in quality.

The lack of theming though is probably why all we've got for MGM sets is Tom & Jerry and a Droopy collection. There's so much more to be had.

 

[bigshot]

The "character theming" doesn't seem to harm the Tom & Jerry sets... (which I know aren't LT, but "play" the same way as a LT character set).

I can't take more than three Tom & Jerry cartoons in a row. They're better when they're mixed with Harman Ising and Tex Avery shorts.

 

[bigshot]

I once attended a screening of Avery cartoons... Two solid hours. I found out what eating ice cream every day for every meal for a year would be like.

 

[Rob_Ray]

Trouble is, watching Avery back-to-back you realize what a limited arsenal of jokes he had. A great arsenal, but limited. Lines such as "Corny, isn't it?" "Whoa, I've been sick!" and a few others get reused numerous times, and, like Tom and Jerry, too often viewing multiple cartoons proves repetitious. Cartoons were meant to augment a feature, not BE the feature.

 

[Ejanss]

I once attended a screening of Avery cartoons... Two solid hours. I found out what eating ice cream every day for every meal for a year would be like.

Oh, I remember the annual two-hour screening of Avery cartoons at the Off the Wall theater (which actually was shown off the wall of a small Harvard Square coffeehouse) in Cambridge, MA--
This was back in the early 80's, and MGM-Avery-centric mania for classic Toonz wouldn't be until Roger Rabbit in the 80's (and nobody really watched Tom & Jerry in the 70's anymore to see the Droopy cartoons), so an entire generation was just discovering the Tex-man.
An all-MGM disk I could take or leave, but I'm on the list for an all-Warner collection:
So much post-Roger attention was paid to the spastic MGM Wolf bugging his eyes and unrolling his tongue at the Red Hot Babe, you forget just hilariously minimalistic Tex's humor was at Warner. Repetitive, maybe, but he would slip that joke or radio-pop-ref into the last second with a complete somber deadpan, and in "Believe It or Else" or "A Feud There Was", the joke would just hit you with a "WTF?" non-sequitir out of nowhere.
As for character theming, it DEFINITELY sounds like Warner's paranoia of the outside world found a new marketing security teddy-bear to hug after fears of the LT Platinum Blu:
The "Complete Marvin" and "Complete Taz" were desperately trying to sell the disk to casual show-off mainstream fans who didn't know any other characters, but it was a stronger selling point for collectors than "Spin the wheel and guess which titles we randomly chose this year!"
Ten years ago "The Complete Sniffles on Blu-ray" would have literally been a cheap fan punchline when the first LT Golden boxes came out, and now it seems like a good way to make sure there's no titles left out. Would I buy a Complete Sniffles boxset--complete with the agonizingly paint-drying early-Chuck water-torture of "The Egg Collector" and "Sniffles Takes a Trip"--just to get my hands on a hard disk copy of "Hush My Mouse"? Umm........(thinks).....yes.

 

[JoeDoakes]

Warners can market a Bluray of some character that no one outside of collectors has heard of, but the *Mickey Rooney - Andy Hardy films go to the archives. Why not a second Platinum collection? It's already branded for sales. Now this to create confusion?
It's as stupid as Sony not being able to market (the amazing) Jolly Frolics UPA shorts so it went to TCM Vault online. I found that release by pure accident. No wonder sales are down.
Again, I'm glad to be able to buy these, but I think the problem with DVD/Bluray sales isn't so much the market as it is the studios.
*feel free to substitute any number of titles

WHV is split between film and television/animation. The television/animation half seems much more keen on traditional retail. What frustrates me is that Warners won't do any pressings for archive releases, even for their most popular titles. If they can print boxes and photos for some of the sets, they can press a few disks, at least on a limited basis.

 

Gary appears to be right. Disk two of the Platinum collection contains the complete cartoons of Marvin the Martian, Witch Hazel, and the Tasmanian Devil. I'm guessing these Sniffles and Hubie and Bertie cartoons would not have fit well into the idea of complete sets for characters on a platinum set because they are too numerous and not popular enough. To me this makes this set pretty sensible and a nice pickup for hardcore WB fans. I hope next year we can get both Blacque Jacque Shellacque cartoons since neither of them have made any other DVD release. How much do "You wanna bat!" that BJS will be on the next Platinum Collection? Any other BJS fans out there?

 

[Ejanss]

Gary appears to be right. Disk two of the Platinum collection contains the complete cartoons of Marvin the Martian, Witch Hazel, and the Tasmanian Devil. I'm guessing these Sniffles and Hubie and Bertie cartoons would not have fit well into the idea of complete sets for characters on a platinum set because they are too numerous and not popular enough. To me this makes this set pretty sensible and a nice pickup for hardcore WB fans. I hope next year we can get both Blacque Jacque Shellacque cartoons since neither of them have made any other DVD release. How much do "You wanna bat!" that BJS will be on the next Platinum Collection? Any other BJS fans out there?

Since it's easier to go by sixes and sevens, I"m holding out hope for Pepe LePew. There weren't that many, but memorable.
(Think there were a few more Foghorn Leghorns, if they're including the cheap 50's-60's cartoons, but one can hope.)