Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 5 (1 Viewer)

[Jeff Jacobson]

/htf/images/misc/wikipedia.gif Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs

 

[JasonJason]

Ah, cool Jeff, that link definitely explained it - thank you, sir!

I'm slapping myself in the head now wondering why I didn't think to just do that myself (hee hee). Thanks again!

 

[jhro]

I asked Gord earlier today and he said that they wont be writting anything about it.

 

[Tory]

Some Coal Black info:

http://classiccartoons.blogspot.com/...d-so-good.html

 

[george kaplan]

I'll be buying this regardless, but it will be a major disappointment if we don't get some of the controversial cartoons included. And if doing that means listening to Whoopi or anyone else, then I'm all for it. I don't care who they get to make such an announcement (and let's face it, they're certainly not going to release it without the disclaimer), it could be someone truly annoying and inappropriate (e.g., Ann Coulter) and I'd cheer if it meant getting the cartoons released.

 

[Joe Lugoff]

I can't stand Ann Coulter, but she'd give the correct introduction: "Listen, in the days these cartoons were made, people were racially insensitive ... now we go too far in the other direction ... so if you don't like anything in these cartoons, just get over it already!"

I think Gord counts Looney Tunes and not Three Stooges because the Tunes were on network television shows for so many years. But it's still inconsistent. I know some people (admittedly rather ignorant about movies and television) who think, beyond a doubt, that anything short (like the Three Stooges or Our Gang) had to be made for television.

 

[tjguitar85]

That's the most obvious reason. Warner considers it a TV title. Sony llkely doesn't.

 

[Jay Pennington]

For all I know the latter may be true but the former is not.

 

[Tony S]

I would like to know the answer to this question also. I was not really aware of the WDT until very late in the game, and as a result I had to pay big bucks for some of them on ebay. If I had read about them on tvshowsondvd.com I may have started collecting them earlier.

 

[David Rain]

Whoopi Goldberg is a very appropriate person to introduce a short with "controversial" themes. She's intelligent, outspoken and knows what she's talking about. Any of you who are offended by her can simply use one of those new-fangled remote controls to click forward to something else. See how easy that was ?

Perhaps there needs to be a second thread started for this release wherein people actually discuss the cartoons. And not where the damned thread belongs. 3 pages of posts and no one's talking about the actual box set.

And has there still been no official list of which shorts are going to be on it ?

 

[Kevin L McCorry]

Annual ritual, for sure. Every year the same thing, to use the parlance of one of the characters.

Every year, the set's announced, and then we get the TV versus film discussion. And then, we get all hail Bob Clampett. When's all his cartoons coming out? Hopefully soon. Before the rest, if the rest do make the cut before Vol. 10. Where's Coal Black and the Censored Eleven? We then get complaints there's not enough Tex Avery in the set. I complain that no one cares about Jones, Freleng, McKimson. People tell me it's because their cartoons are popular with the general public and anything popular can't be artistic or on the side of critical praise. There may be a disparaging remark about the animation in '50s cartoons. I go back to my cubby hole, buy the discs, sit restlessly through the early cartoons in the sets, listen yet again in the extras to the story of Friz Freleng, Tweety Pies, Eddie Selzer, and woodpeckers- among others, see 'Net postings about John K. being a genius and Michael Barrier being dull (not a fan of either of them, BTW), put the scratched-hub discs into proper keepcases and bin the digipak (whose cover art is always criticized, anyway), and let them sit on my shelf scarcely revisited as I no longer enjoy watching even the post-'48s (not without always thinking about how awful I'm constantly told they are). But keep them anyway in the vain hope that my appreciation might someday return with the turning of the tide of critical opinion. Some people chastise me for being so sensitive and a slave to the opinions of others. Another year, another go with the aforementioned.

This year, however, with the only extra of note being a doco already available on DVD, I very probably will opt for the Spotlight Collection and break some of the yearly cycle. Some of the fairy tale and Bugs/Daffy cartoon selection sound nice; they'll probably all be in the Spotlight Collection, anyway.

 

[Tory]

Members at the GAC have figured that the following shorts are on this set from the trailer on the Popeye DVD:

Senorella and the Glass Huarache
The Abominable Snow Rabbit
Paying the Piper
Scrap Happy Daffy
A Pest In the House
Goldimouse and the Three Cats
The Turn-Tale Wolf
Buccaneer Bunny
A Star Is Bored
Little Red Rodent Hood
The Super Snooper
The Stupor Salesman
Hollywood Daffy
The Old Grey Hare
Red Riding Hoodwinked
The Wacky Wabbit
Bacall To Arms
Little Red Walking Hood
Prehistoric Porky
Patient Porky
The Daffy Doc
Porky's Preview
Milk and Money
Bugs Bonnets

 

[tjguitar85]

Those are the ones I care about mostly. The day they put out a set with 60 B&W Bosko & Buddys are the day I stop ordering em.

 

[Keith Paynter]

Well, sorry folks, but it looks like Coal Black (along with with other speculated Censored Eleven titles Goldilocks and the Jivin' Bears and Tin Pan Alley Cats) are not part of the set...

Jerry Beck, consultant on the series, has confirmed this at The Animation Show animation history forum (of which he is a moderator).

http://www.animationshow.com/forums/...ndpost&p=30587

Damn...but, I'll still be picking it up.

 

[Patrick McCart]

WB really ought to just wait until they can put out a disc with the Censored 11, plus Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips and the Inki cartoons. If they leave Hittin' the Trail out as a bonus cartoon (since it's lesser Harmon-Ising), they would have 15 shorts in all.


A breakdown of shorts from each "era" (not including extra shorts)

103 - 1930-1948 (to Haredevil Hare)
121 - 1948 (post-Haredevil Hare) to 1959
99 - 1950-1959
12 - 1960-1969

So, how exactly are the 1950s cartoons neglected? Just on the fourth volume, the Bugs and Speedy discs are made up entirely of post-1948 cartoons. Nearly all of the best work from Jones, Freleng, and McKimson are from the 1950s, especially Jones. It's just that Clampett, Tashlin, and Avery get the most exposure for the 1930s-1940s ears since their work varied less than Jones and Freleng. Freleng could put out a bunch of great cartoons, then put out some mediocre work since he was the most prolific of all the directors.

 

[Kevin L McCorry]

And these days, his mediocre work consists of everything of his manufacture that was on The Bugs Bunny Shows. It's now fashionable to hate "formula" Tweety and Sylvester and Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam catoons. The wisdom now is that Freleng was only half decent in the '30s and early to mid-'40s. You won't find appreciation of Freleng's later work on the Internet message boards, but lots of people declaring it unwatchable.

 

[WillG]

I recall being able to skip through those introductions

 

[Patrick McCart]

I think a lot of his one-shots from the 1930s and 1940s are less memorable, while nearly any of his Yosemite Sam or Tweety/Sylvester cartoons are great. Most of Freleng's Bugs cartoons are teriffic, too. Show me where his 1950s cartoons are said to be terrible, since it's news to me.

As for making best-ofs, it's easier to handle Avery, Tashlin, and Clampett since they had short careers. Avery only spent about five years at WB. Freleng directed shorts from 1933 (likely supervising a lot of earlier Harmon-Ising too), all the way to the studio closing in 1964. Jones worked from 1938 to 1964. McKimson from 1946 to 1969! You could fit a whole 4-disc set with the best of any these three directors since they made so many. Jones and Freleng have had the most exposure on the GC sets, anyways.

The only one of the cartoon shows that would be worth re-creating for DVD would be The Bugs Bunny Show since it actually had new footage shot. Most of the other shows (besides the one that re-used TBBS fotage) just packaged shorts together with an intro. Including shorts as shown would exclude the pre-1948 cartoons, as well as anything not included in the CBS/ABC packages. Now that all of the cartoons are in one place, they have complete freedom to cull from all forty years of the original theatrical shorts instead of just what's handed over to the network.

 

[Corey3rd]

remember that there are still 5 more volumes on the slate. They can't do it all at once cause then there'd be nothing left. everyone will get proper tribute. And maybe at some point the Censored 11 will all be released. Although best would be a single DVD collection.

Also remember that the cartoons on the collection are being restored (which supposedly why it's only 60 per year cause you don't want to rush the process). Selection probably is also determined by source elements.

 

[Patrick McCart]

I think it was also hinted that they would issue the remaining cartoons if the 10 are successful. They're obviously big sellers, so I think we'll get the 3-4 extra volumes, even if there's a minimum of extras. Although, the remaining cartoons will most likely be the lesser pre-Porky B&W cartoons (especially the Buddy cartoons), the post-1964 Road Runner/Speedy cartoons (the inclusion on the 4th GC is probably the last we'll see of those for a while), and the really bad stuff like Good Night Elmer.

They could probably do the remaining cartoons in two denser sets, perhaps one with the remaining B&W cartoons (the lesser Bosko, Buddy, and B&W Merrie Melodies, and the lesser 1941-1943 one-shot B&W Looney Tunes) and one for the remaining color cartoons (the lesser color shorts and the remaining 1964-1969 duds).

They could probably release a single disc collection with all of the un-PC stuff (The censored 11: Hittin' the Trail for Hallelujah Land, Clean Pastures, Coal Black, Goldilocks and the Jivin Bears, Sunday Go to Meetin' Time, The Isle of Pingo Pongo, Angel Puss, Tin Pan Alley Cats, Jungle Jitters, All This and Rabbit Stew, and Uncle Tom's Bungalow; Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips, Tokio Jokio, Goin' to Heaven on a Mule, September in the Rain; the five Inki cartoons: Caveman Inki, Inki and the Minya Bird, The Little Lion Hunter, Inki and the Lion, and Inki at the Circus; Wise Quackers, Confederate Honey, Robinson Crusoe Jr, maybe others).