DVD : Looney Tunes - Golden Collection, Volume Three

In association with Amazon.com

Rating:

- The Best Selection Yet, but also the same complaints
I can hardly believe some of the reviews I'm reading here. It seems every one wants more Foghorn Leghorn, Speedy Gonzalez and Chuck Jones. They want the cartoons from the 50s. Well, I've seen most of the WB cartoons over many long years, and the Speedy Gonzalezes stink; Forghorn Leghorn is funny once and then boring; and Chuck Jones is the most overrated catroonist of all times. He made some good cartoons--as a matter of fact, a lot of good cartoons--but he made a lot of junk too, including some of his most heralded (like "Some Froggy Evening" which is obvious, coy and not funny at all.)

Tashlin, Avery and, especially, Clampett, rule. Porky Pig's Feat, a (horror of horrors!) black & white cartoon from the 40s (horrors again) may be the funniest cartoon ever made. Clampett is the only director who could make a Bugs Bunny cartoon where Bugs was the goat and still make it hilarious: Falling Hare being the best example. But my god! that's a war time cartoon with references to A-Cards and Gremlins and its too much to expect people today to understand that!

This set even includes what is probably Freleng's best cartoon: She Was An Acrobat's Daughter, a wicked send-up of a night at the movies: but, heavenly days (a little Fibber McGee & Molly lingo there) there were references to Newsreels & Lew Lehr (who's dat?) and Leslie Howard & Bette Davis in the Petrified Forest. A lot of the reviewers here, I'm sure, were offended by the inclusion of anything that is so obscure in this new millenium. In "Thugs With Dirty Mugs", there is a joke about Fred Allen; In "A Gruesome Twosome", another of the greatest cartoons ever, there is a parody of Jimmy Durante! It seems it's asking too much to expect anyone post baby boom to understand anything that happened before the television age.

I liked this set for the reason most of the reviewers here disliked it: because of its concentration on the funnier, better written, more satirical cartoons of the pre-Jones age. The black & white Looney Tunes are terrific. I agree with one of the other reviewers, though, in that I'd like to see some of Tex Avery's travelogue spoofs. They are hilarious collections of the corniest gags imaginable.

About the PC stuff--it's intolerable, but we just have to tolerate it. These fascists are in control of this country now (and I don't mean since the recent election--it happened way before that) and we just have to put up with it. It's just curious that they think we should be offended by some stereotypes and not by others. Stereotypes of Black Americans are to be shuddered at but--why, the Durante spoof is a take off on an Italian American; the Edward G. Robinson spoof in "Thugs With Dirty Mugs" is a take off on a Jewish American. The finger shaking lecture is an old tradition in this country and the only thing that changes is what we get lectured about. The thing that never changes is the hypocrisy and the selective morality.

Other reviewers here, who probably are in favor of the PC fascism (I've read a few of them) make the usual, unimaginative and lame accusations: we don't like the PC lecturing because we're all racists. The fact is I don't care WHAT the lecture is about. I resent the fact of the lecture at all. We turn to these DVDs for entertainment, not for any lecture on how evil our ancestors were. If there were religious lectures at the beginning of DVDs of modern movies, which may offend church goers, I'm sure the pinkos would crab about that--and rightly so. It is the presence and not the content of the lecture that is offensive.

But folks, just learn to take it. It ain't going away. Remember, no one is really against censorship and the folks that crab the most about it only crab because they're not censors and they're not the ones deciding what gets approves. Right now what is generally called the "left" are the censors of our culture and it is their version of morality that decides what we can see and enjoy and what we will be lectured about. Get used to it.

But the PC garbage is what made me give this only 4 stars instead of the five it deserves.

Rating:

- Keep these alive, disclaimer or not!!
Yes, I thought the Whoppi disclaimers were absurd (HOW many generations have grown up with these cartoons, and now all of a sudden they're "bad"?) I never saw disclaimers on CBS when I watched these cartoons on Saturday mornings for years and years!!!

But aside from that, my main gripe is the organization. It would be better if they'd organize these into eras (I'm not as big on the Leon Schlesenger era from the 30s/early 40s as I am on the Fritz-era, and would rather these be organized chronologically. Not that I don't respect those early shorts for what they were, I just like the later ones better).

Regardless, as long as they keep releasing these I'll still keep getting them, since Cartoon Network and Nickelodean have completely removed them and decided that the new generation of kids "don't have the attention span" to appreciate them (I beg to differ, my kids LOVE Looney Tunes!), and replace them with garbage full of toilet humor (which, apparently, is OK by the PC police...)

Rating:

- looney tunes
This was a gift for my grandchildren . They can sit down and watch these cartoons and be entertained for hours. Their mother is also a big fan.

Rating:

- Looney Tunes - Golden Collection, Volume Three
DVD good quality however some of the cartoons I do not care for specifically

Rating:

- yay: return of original looney tunes
I'm so glad WB finally put together a collection of the original cartoons, unedited, and remastered. one of the best gifts I could get to nurture my inner child.

page 7 of 29