A Few Words About A few words about…™ Bugs Bunny 80th Anniversary Collection – in Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

[Robert Harris]

I don’t see it as particularly deceitful on the part of Warner Bros. to publicize the new Bugs Bunny 80th Anniversary Collection as containing sixty of his most delectable short films, but it gives the collection short shrift. There are about another ten spirited away as extras, inclusive of the Roadshow Director’s Cut of Hare Ribbin’, Mr. Clampett’s 1944 Technicolor epic that was the first use of the WB shield going to Bug’s head.
This is nowhere near a complete Bugs collection, not even compleat.
It begins in with Chuck Jones’ Elmer’s Candid Camera, which was released in March of 1940, and uses an earlier incarnation of Mr. Bunny. It’s also Elmer’s first appearance as such, although a prototypical form was seen earlier.
A sort-of Mr. Bunny appeared earlier in Ben Hardaway’s April, 1938, Porky’s Hare Hunt, with the character simply identified as “rabbit.”...

Continue reading...

 

[JoeDoakes]

It's a nice package and would make a great Christmas present. I'd be happy to see it sell well even with the statuette. If so, maybe we'll see that 81st Anniversary Collection.

 

[Arthur Powell]

The minute I can buy a non-junk box version at a price comparable to what I would pay for the three WAC Popeye blu-rays I'll be happy to add this set to my collection. Until then, that ugly funko can go pound sand.

 

[yamato72]

I have the Looney Tunes Platinum Collection BDs, volumes 1-3, and have enjoyed them immensely, but I'm not sure how much of the Bugs material is duplicated on this set. Re your comment about the pack-ins, Volume One of the Platinum collection was a "book" style but the subsequent volumes were in standard multi-disc cases. I was happy to get the content, though.

 

[Patrick McCart]

I was really hoping at the price this would have been a fairly extensive collection, perhaps at least something like "The First 80 Bugs Cartoons" with an understandable omission of two specific shorts from the 40s rather than yet another haphazard mix of new and old.

The better deal, even as they iron out some "remastering issues" would be an HBO Max subscription. There's tons of cartoons that haven't been touched since the laserdisc days looking wonderful outside of some truly absurd tinkering with opening/closing titles.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

I have the Looney Tunes Platinum Collection BDs, volumes 1-3, and have enjoyed them immensely, but I'm not sure how much of the Bugs material is duplicated on this set.

There must be a listing of all 60 cartoons out there somewhere... mustn't there?

If not, I'll post my review tomorrow. I review each short individually so that'll show exactly which 60 shorts are in the set!

 

[AlexNH]

The minute I can buy a non-junk box version at a price comparable to what I would pay for the three WAC Popeye blu-rays I'll be happy to add this set to my collection. Until then, that ugly funko can go pound sand.

Let's send the funko back to Vietnam.

 

[RBailey]

There must be a listing of all 60 cartoons out there somewhere... mustn't there?

If not, I'll post my review tomorrow. I review each short individually so that'll show exactly which 60 shorts are in the set!

Bonus Content:

New Documentary: Bugs Bunny’s 80th What’s Up Doc-umentary!
10 Looney Tunes Cartoons episodes
Featured Cartoon Shorts

Disc #1:

Elmer’s Candid Camera
A Wild Hare
Hold the Lion, Please
Bugs Bunny Gets the Boid
Super-Rabbit
Jack-Wabbit and the Beanstalk
What’s Cookin’ Doc?
Bugs Bunny and the Three Bears
Hare Ribbin
The Old Grey Hare
Baseball Bugs
Hair Raising Hare
Racketeer Rabbit
Bugs Bunny Rides Again
Haredevil Hare
Hot Cross Bunny
Hare Splitter
Knights Must Fall
What’s Up Doc?
8 Ball Bunny
Disc #2:

The Rabbit of Seville
Rabbit Every Monday
Fair Haired Hare
Rabbit Fire
His Hare Raising Tale
Hare Lift
Upswept Hare
Robot Rabbit
Captain Hareblower
No Parking Hare
Yankee Doodle Bugs
Lumber-Jack Rabbit
Baby Buggy Bunny
Hare Brush
This is a Life?
Rabbitson Crusoe
Napoleon Bunny-Part
Half Fare Hare
Pikers Peak
What’s Opera, Doc?
Disc #3:

Bugsy and Mugsy
Show Biz Bugs
Hare-Less Wolf
Now, Hare This
Knighty Knight Bugs
Hare-Abian Nights
Backwoods Bunny
Wild and Woolly Hare
Bonanza Bunny
People are Bunny
Person to Bunny
Rabbit’s Feat
From Hare to Heir
Compressed Hare
Prince Violent
Shishkabugs
The Million Hare
The Unmentionables
False Hare
(Blooper) Bunny!

 

[Colin Jacobson]

Bonus Content:

New Documentary: Bugs Bunny’s 80th What’s Up Doc-umentary!
10 Looney Tunes Cartoons episodes
Featured Cartoon Shorts

Disc #1:

Elmer’s Candid Camera
A Wild Hare
Hold the Lion, Please
Bugs Bunny Gets the Boid
Super-Rabbit
Jack-Wabbit and the Beanstalk
What’s Cookin’ Doc?
Bugs Bunny and the Three Bears
Hare Ribbin
The Old Grey Hare
Baseball Bugs
Hair Raising Hare
Racketeer Rabbit
Bugs Bunny Rides Again
Haredevil Hare
Hot Cross Bunny
Hare Splitter
Knights Must Fall
What’s Up Doc?
8 Ball Bunny
Disc #2:

The Rabbit of Seville
Rabbit Every Monday
Fair Haired Hare
Rabbit Fire
His Hare Raising Tale
Hare Lift
Upswept Hare
Robot Rabbit
Captain Hareblower
No Parking Hare
Yankee Doodle Bugs
Lumber-Jack Rabbit
Baby Buggy Bunny
Hare Brush
This is a Life?
Rabbitson Crusoe
Napoleon Bunny-Part
Half Fare Hare
Pikers Peak
What’s Opera, Doc?
Disc #3:

Bugsy and Mugsy
Show Biz Bugs
Hare-Less Wolf
Now, Hare This
Knighty Knight Bugs
Hare-Abian Nights
Backwoods Bunny
Wild and Woolly Hare
Bonanza Bunny
People are Bunny
Person to Bunny
Rabbit’s Feat
From Hare to Heir
Compressed Hare
Prince Violent
Shishkabugs
The Million Hare
The Unmentionables
False Hare
(Blooper) Bunny!

Okay then - I won't post my review to show all 60 shorts!

 

[Robert Harris]

Bonus Content:

New Documentary: Bugs Bunny’s 80th What’s Up Doc-umentary!
10 Looney Tunes Cartoons episodes
Featured Cartoon Shorts

Disc #1:

Elmer’s Candid Camera
A Wild Hare
Hold the Lion, Please
Bugs Bunny Gets the Boid
Super-Rabbit
Jack-Wabbit and the Beanstalk
What’s Cookin’ Doc?
Bugs Bunny and the Three Bears
Hare Ribbin
The Old Grey Hare
Baseball Bugs
Hair Raising Hare
Racketeer Rabbit
Bugs Bunny Rides Again
Haredevil Hare
Hot Cross Bunny
Hare Splitter
Knights Must Fall
What’s Up Doc?
8 Ball Bunny
Disc #2:

The Rabbit of Seville
Rabbit Every Monday
Fair Haired Hare
Rabbit Fire
His Hare Raising Tale
Hare Lift
Upswept Hare
Robot Rabbit
Captain Hareblower
No Parking Hare
Yankee Doodle Bugs
Lumber-Jack Rabbit
Baby Buggy Bunny
Hare Brush
This is a Life?
Rabbitson Crusoe
Napoleon Bunny-Part
Half Fare Hare
Pikers Peak
What’s Opera, Doc?
Disc #3:

Bugsy and Mugsy
Show Biz Bugs
Hare-Less Wolf
Now, Hare This
Knighty Knight Bugs
Hare-Abian Nights
Backwoods Bunny
Wild and Woolly Hare
Bonanza Bunny
People are Bunny
Person to Bunny
Rabbit’s Feat
From Hare to Heir
Compressed Hare
Prince Violent
Shishkabugs
The Million Hare
The Unmentionables
False Hare
(Blooper) Bunny!

The doc is also nicely done. A wonderful extra.

At $39.95, this would be a steal.

 

[DavidJ]

While I understand those who don’t want extra stuff with their discs, I like the idea of a nice miniature Bugs. Unfortunately, this is not it. That thing looks hideous.

 

[RolandL]

If Lumber-Jack Rabbit was is 3-D I would buy it.

 

[RBailey]

Okay then - I won't post my review to show all 60 shorts!

That'll teach me to read the posts a little closer. All I saw was the first part of your message. Drop an Acme anvil on me! Looking forward to your review.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

If Lumber-Jack Rabbit was is 3-D I would buy it.

View attachment 82205

The commentary for that one claims it's not very good 3D, It'd be nice to see that way but it doesn't sound like it's a great loss to get it 2D...

 

[Ken_Martinez]

I was really hoping at the price this would have been a fairly extensive collection, perhaps at least something like "The First 80 Bugs Cartoons" with an understandable omission of two specific shorts from the 40s rather than yet another haphazard mix of new and old.

The better deal, even as they iron out some "remastering issues" would be an HBO Max subscription. There's tons of cartoons that haven't been touched since the laserdisc days looking wonderful outside of some truly absurd tinkering with opening/closing titles.

Apparently, WB had to be talked into making the set what is it. What they really wanted to do was just make a Blu-Ray version of this DVD, because they thought the Funko was the thing that was going to entice collectors.

Between this, the Platinum and Golden Collections and HBO Max, almost every Bugs short that's not blatantly racist has been restored in HD and is ready to go for a release.

 

[Ejanss]

Apparently, WB had to be talked into making the set what is it. What they really wanted to do was just make a Blu-Ray version of this DVD, because they thought the Funko was the thing that was going to entice collectors.

Yyyep. That's our Warner, still living in 2008, and hoping for those retail displays at Best Buy.

Back when we got the "$800 Bookshelf" version of Peter Jackson's Tolkien, I genuinely tinfoiled whether Warner's insistence on plastic collector statuettes for big mass-retail rollouts of house-franchise icons, during their "Physical purge" phase of trying to turn the entire audience Digital, was either:
A) Genuinely believing that the only people who collected Blu-rays were fanboy completists and collector-hoarder eccentrics who wanted "things" for their hobby,
or
B) Trying to orchestrate a secret message to the rest of the industry that Physical fans were "weird" and only wanted crazy things to collect, while it was the hit-movie audience that wanted to pre-order Digital and help boost those home-theater sales...And, that the plastic bonus gifts were becoming bigger and more expensive and unreasonable to see where the edges of the envelope were, and if they reached a point that they couldn't sock the market for big bucks, they could turn to the other studios and say "Well, we tried to appeal to the Physical fans, but they didn't care anymore/you just can't please them!"

10's Warner was just...plain...EVIL, back before Ultraviolet finally got its hinder kicked.

 

[Dick]

How many of these cartoons have been released on Blu-ray previously?

 

[Nick*Z]

There must be a listing of all 60 cartoons out there somewhere... mustn't there?

If not, I'll post my review tomorrow. I review each short individually so that'll show exactly which 60 shorts are in the set!

Only 20 of these shorts have found their way to Blu-ray in the past. So, the bulk is new for your consumption.

 

[BobO'Link]

It's the Funko thing that's keeping me away from this set. If they ever see fit to release it without the junk I'll pick up a copy.

 

[Nick*Z]

I don't see it as particularly deceitful on the part of Warner Bros. to publicize the new Bugs Bunny 80th Anniversary Collection as containing sixty of his most delectable short films, but it gives the collection short shrift. There are about another ten spirited away as extras, inclusive of the Roadshow Director's Cut of Hare Ribbin', Mr. Clampett's 1944 Technicolor epic that was the first use of the WB shield going to Bug's head.

This is nowhere near a complete Bugs collection, not even compleat.

It begins in with Chuck Jones' Elmer's Candid Camera, which was released in March of 1940, and uses an earlier incarnation of Mr. Bunny. It's also Elmer's first appearance as such, although a prototypical form was seen earlier.

A sort-of Mr. Bunny appeared earlier in Ben Hardaway's April, 1938, Porky's Hare Hunt, with the character simply identified as "rabbit."

View attachment 82177​

The quality varies for the 60+ films. Some appear to be more recent image harvests from original SE elements, while others appear to have come from IPs or other dupes.

The older transfers can be identified by the window-boxed main titles.

Generally, color is very nice to superb, and audio follows suit.

As a devotee of Mr. Bunny, I'd love to see more of his work. He appeared in around 160 short animated films, so there's a way to go.

Possibly an 81st Anniversary, Volume two?

For those into minutia, the numbers as seen in the main titles, are the Vitaphone release numbers.

All of that noted, the release seems to harken back to the bad old days at Warners, when the studio
would release huge boxed sets, inclusive of a miniature of Clark Gable's dentures, genuine sparkly
ruby slippers in miniature, et al.

For Bugs 80th, the set (which is in a large box) includes a made in Vietnam sparkly miniature of
Bugs.

And the set, albeit in three discs, with all of the accoutrements, is currently $80.

Sorry, but that just seems a bit steep.

Image – 3.5 - 5

Audio – 4 - 5

Pass / Fail – Pass

Upgrade from DVD (where applicable) - Yes

Highly Recommended

RAH

In all fairness to the WB, they never claimed this as the 'complete' or 'compleat' collection. Merely, an anniversary set in honor of Bugs' 80th. But yeah, I sincerely wish they would come around to releasing the remaining 71 shorts. I also wish they'd go back and give us more Popeye sets from WAC - but that's a separate story for another thread!