‘Porky and Friends: Hilarious Ham’ Announced

Hot on the heels of the 2nd Platinum Collection, we have this 18-cartoon set for fans of Porky Pig, as well as the smaller one-shot characters that come with him on the back of the collection. As always, the question is “If I have the Golden Collections, do I have to buy this?” Let’s find out.

Cartoons in this set will be (I’ll summarize the ones not out yet):

1) Tom Turk And Daffy (1944, Jones) – NEW TO DVD – Featuring a MYSTERY WRITER (and boy, is there a long, confusing story about that), this is a great early Daffy cartoon where he’s being an utter brat.
2) Wagon Heels (1945, Clampett) – GC5
3) Mouse Menace (1946, Davis) – NEW TO DVD – Art Davis’ first cartoon at Warners, this is another one pitting Porky against a mouse, this time utilizing a robot cat. It doesn’t go well.
4) One Meat Brawl (1947, McKimson) – NEW TO DVD – Porky and the Foghorn Leghorn dog are out hunting for groundhog, and the groundhog is determined to make them pay for it. McKimson’s earliest cartoons are some of his best.
5) Curtain Razor (1949, Freleng) – NEW TO DVD – Porky is a talent agent auditioning acts. A few gags (including the gasoline one) would be reused in Show Big Bugs by Daffy.
6) The Pest That Came To Dinner (1948, Davis) – NEW TO DVD – Can the world handle two Art Davis cartoons on one collection? Porky has termites, and tries various horrible methods to remove them.
7) Riff Raffy Daffy (1948, Davis) – NEW TO DVD – I guess the world can, as here’s a third Davis cartoon! I always liked ‘Daffy is screwy and Porky isn’t’ cartoons, though the question of how sane Porky is comes into question here.
8) Boobs in the Woods (1950, McKimson) – GC1
9) Dog Collared (1950, McKimson) – NEW TO DVD – Porky gives brief affection to a dog (no, not Charlie Dog), and lives to regret it.
10) Thumb Fun (1952, McKimson) – NEW TO DVD – A hitchhiking Daffy makes Porky’s life miserable. Some call this the final screwball Daffy cartoon, which isn’t true, but he *is* a screwball here.
11) Fool Coverage (1952, McKimson) – NEW TO DVD – I adored this cartoon as a kid. Daffy sells Porky insurance. “And one baby zebra!”
12) Corn on the Cop (1965, Spector) – NEW TO DVD – The final Porky Pig cartoon of the classic years. Shame it sucks. He and Daffy are police officers.
13) Corn Plastered (1951, McKimson) – NEW TO DVD – A wise-cracking crow annoys a farmer, who tries to kill him in various ways. The crow is a lot of fun.
14) Gone Batty (1954, McKimson) – NEW TO DVD – Stars Bobo the Elephant, in his 2nd and final cartoon, where he ends up at a baseball game.
15) Ant Pasted (1953, Freleng) – NEW TO DVD – Always nice seeing Elmer in a cartoon on his own. He’s taking on ants during a 4th-of-July picnic.
16) Dog Gone People (1960, McKimson) – NEW TO DVD – Another Elmer cartoon, but Arthur Q. Bryan had died by this time, so his voice sounds horrible. Elmer has to babysit his boss’s dog, who thinks he’s a human.
17) Bunny and Claude – We Rob Carrot Patches (1968, McKimson) – NEW TO DVD – The first of two appearances of Bunny and Claude, an obvious parody. Watch for the scene where it’s suggested they have sex on a pile of carrots. No, I’m not making this up.
18) The Great Carrot Train Robbery (1969, McKimson) – NEW TO DVD – And here’s the second B&C cartoon. It’s not as good.

So, worth getting? Well, 16 of the 18 cartoons are new to DVD. HELL YES! An absolute must-buy. Can’t wait.

Looney Tunes Platinum Collection 2 announced

It’s a good thing that this post goes under Unshelved, as this announcement is so new there’s not even a cover art image to give you. Warner Brothers has announced the 2nd of its Platinum Collection sets for Blu-Ray on October 16th, with 3 discs containing 15 cartoons and bonus features. There’s also a separate 2-DVD set with just the cartoons.

Like the first Platinum Collection, 80% of these cartoons have been previously released on the Golden Collection DVDs. If you have a fantastic audiovisual setup that shows the difference between Blu-Ray and DVD, you might want to buy them again. Otherwise, there are ten new to DVD cartoons here to inspire grumpy cartoon fans to purchase it anyway. So here’s a breakdown:

DISC 1
A Wild Hare (1940, Avery) (Academy Award Collection)
Buckaroo Bugs (1944, Clampett) (GC5)
Long-Haired Hare (1949, Jones)(GC1)
Ali Baba Bunny (1957, Jones) (GC5)
Show Biz Bugs (1957, Freleng) (GC2)
The Wise Quacking Duck (1943, Clampett) (GC5)
What Makes Daffy Duck? (1948, Davis) (NEW TO DVD)
Book Revue (1946, Clampett) (GC2)
Deduce, You Say (1956, Jones) (GC1)
Porky In Wackyland (1938, Clampett) (GC2)
You Ought To Be In Pictures (1940, Freleng) (GC2)
Porky In Egypt (1938, Clampett) (GC3)
Back Alley Oproar (1948, Freleng) (GC2)
Little Red Rodent Hood (1952, Freleng) (GC5)
Canned Feud (1951, Freleng) (GC1)
Gift Wrapped (1952, Freleng) (GC2)
Birdy And The Beast (1944, Clampett) (NEW TO DVD)
Home, Tweet Home (1950, Freleng) (NEW TO DVD)
Going! Going! Gosh! (1952, Jones) (GC2)
Zipping Along (1953, Jones) (GC2)
Scent-Imental Romeo (1951, Jones) (Pepe DVD)
The Foghorn Leghorn (1948, McKimson) (GC1)
The High And The Flighty (1956, McKimson) (NEW TO DVD)
Tabasco Road (1957, McKimson) (GC4)
Mexicali Shmoes (1959, Freleng) (GC4)

DISC 2
Wabbit Twouble (1941, Clampett) (GC1)
Rabbit Fire (1951, Jones) (GC1)
Rabbit Seasoning (1952, Jones) (GC1)
Duck! Rabbit, Duck! (1953, Jones) (GC3)
Drip-Along Daffy (1951, Jones) (GC1)
My Little Duckaroo (1954, Jones) (GC6)
Barbary-Coast Bunny (1956, Jones) (GC4)
Tortoise Beats Hare (1941, Avery) (GC2)
Tortoise Wins By A Hare (1943, Clampett) (GC1)
Rabbit Transit (1947, Freleng) (GC2)
Porky’s Hare Hunt (1938, Hardaway/Dalton) (NEW TO DVD)
Hare-Um Scare-Um (1939, Hardaway/Dalton) (NEW TO DVD)
Prest-O Change-O (1939, Jones) (NEW TO DVD)
Elmer’s Candid Camera (1940, Jones) (GC1)
Bugs Bunny Gets The Boid (1942, Clampett) (GC1)
The Bashful Buzzard (1945, Clampett) (GC5)
The Lion’s Busy (1950, Freleng) (NEW TO DVD)
Strife With Father (1950, McKimson) (NEW TO DVD)
An Itch In Time (1943, Clampett) (GC3)
A Horsefly Fleas (1947, McKimson) (NEW TO DVD)
Hollywood Steps Out (1941, Avery) (GC2)
Page Miss Glory (1936, Avery) (GC6)
Rocket-Bye Baby (1956, Jones) (GC6)
Russian Rhapsody (1944, Clampett) (GC6)
Dough Ray Me-Ow (1948, Davis) (GC4)

DISC 3 (Included in Blu-ray Only)
King-Size Comedy: Tex Avery and the Looney Tunes Revolution (new documentary)
Tex Avery, the King of Cartoons (1988 film)
Friz on Film (GC extra, 70-minute documentary)
ToonHeads: The Lost Cartoons (GC extra, from the TV show)
Real American Zero: The Adventures of Private Snafu (GC extra)
The World of Leon Schlesinger (GC extra)
Friz at MGM (Captain and the Kids cartoons) (GC extra)
The Best of the Rest of Tex (MGM cartoons? unknown)
Private Snafu (GC extra)
Mr. Hook (GC extra)

So, what’s new? What Makes Daffy Duck is a great wacky Daffy cartoon, one of Davis’ best. Birdy and the Beast is the last Clampett Tweety cartoon to be restored for DVD/Blu-Ray, and he’s at his nastiest. Home Tweet Home is the last remaining early Sylvester/Tweety pairup not to be on DVD. The High and the Flighty features the one off pairing of Foghorn Leghorn with Daffy Duck, here a traveling salesman.

Porky’s Hare Hunt is the first appearance of ‘proto-Bugs’, a goofy, Woody Woodpecker-ish rabbit that eventually evolved into the Bugs who debuted in A Wild Hare. Hare-Um Scare-Um features the same rabbit, and should have its original ending, lost for more than 70 years, restored! (This is the biggest reason to get the set.) Prest-O Change-O features Jones’ Two Curious Puppies, dialogue-free characters he used in the early days, battling a white rabbit who, again, is one of Bugs’ ancestors.

The Lion’s Busy features Beaky Buzzard, and has him battling an eccentric lion in a battle of wits and patience. (Beaky is smarter here than his other three cartoons.) Strife With Father is Beaky’s last cartoon, and is a parody of actor Ronald Coleman, here cast as an English Sparrow. Lastly, A Horsefly Fleas features the return of the ‘Food Around The Corner’ flea, who is still looking for a place to stay and eat.

Is that enough to justify buying 40 cartoons over again? Well, I suppose it depends how hardcore a fan you are!

‘Mouse Chronicles: A Chuck Jones Collection’ Announced

And here I was thinking that we wouldn’t get any Looney Tunes news until San Diego Comic Con. No doubt that will feature an announcement of the 2nd Platinum Collection (at least I hope…), but for now we have this: a new collection of 19 of Chuck Jones’ cartoons from 1938-1951 featuring his stars who were mice: Sniffles; and Hubie & Bertie. The collection is out August 28th on both DVD and Blu-Ray.

Jerry Beck notes that it was originally part of the ‘Super Stars’ sets we’ve seen the last few years, which is why you don’t see any other one-shot mice here, just the ‘stars’. Of course, I put stars in air quotes for a reason. Sniffles and Hubie & Bertie are not exactly Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. The name that’s selling the discs here is Chuck Jones.

A list of the contents:

Naughty but Mice
Little Brother Rat
Sniffles and the Bookworm
Sniffles Takes a Trip
The Egg Collector
Bedtime for Sniffles
Sniffles Bells the Cat
Toy Trouble
The Brave Little Bat
The Unbearable Bear
Lost and Foundling
Hush my Mouse
The Aristo-Cat
Trap Happy Porky
Roughly Squeaking
House Hunting Mice
Mouse Wreckers
The Hypo-Chondri-Cat
Cheese Chasers

The first 12 cartoons on this set range from 1938 to 1946, and star Sniffles. Sniffles was named from his debut, Naughty but Mice, where he has a cold. Despite lacking the cold in his other cartoons, the name stuck. Most of the first 9 cartoons on here feature Chuck’s ponderous, slow, Disney-imitating style. Sniffles is cute rather than funny, and a lot of his more cloying cartoons can be very trying for the adult viewer – or indeed anyone over the age of two.

That said, there are some interesting cartoons here. Sniffles and the Bookworm is a ‘things come to life’ cartoon, albeit a more serious example of the form. The Brave Little Bat features Sniffles trying to deal with a loudmouth bat who absolutely won’t stop talking. And Sniffles’ final 3 cartoons, made in the mid-40s after a three year break, are much funnier and Chuck Jones-ish. Ironically, Sniffles undergoes a personality transplant in them, going from cute and adorable to being unable to shut up or go away – that’s right, exactly like the bat in his last cute cartoon.

The real treat here, even if it involves the most double dipping from prior Golden Collections, is the 2nd half of this set, featuring seven cartoons with Hubie & Bertie (from 1943-1951). These are Jones near the top of his game, and are some of my all-time favorites. They only have a cameo in Trap Happy Porky (one of Jones’ rare mid-40s Porky efforts), but the other 6 have them taking center stage. Hubie & Bertie get what they want, not by violence or cute mischief, but by psychological damage. Seeing them break the mind of Claude Cat is a thing of beauty.

As I noted above, there’s some double dipping here. Four of the seven Hubie & Bertie cartoons have been on prior Golden Collections – Trap Happy Porky, Roughly Squeaking, and House Hunting Mice are new to DVD. Sniffles fares better. Only Sniffles Takes A Trip has shown up (unrestored) on a prior collection. This means 14 cartoons here are new to DVD.

The reason I like this collection so much is because Jerry Beck had noted previously that Warner Brothers had asked them to focus their restoration only on cartoons made after 1953 (as they could be released widescreen). The cartoons on this collection feature precisely zero from that period, and 3 from the 1930s. Given my goal is every cartoon restored and on DVD, this is a big step in that direction. (I am presuming they will also be uncut – though there’s very little to object to here. Hubie & Bertie have some typical cartoon violence. I think Toy Trouble has a blackface gag.)

Buy Warner Brothers cartoon DVD/Blu-Ray sets and support restoration of even more classics! Sniffles will thank you. Probably in a cute, adorable way.

EDIT 7/27/12:

They’ve announced a list of bonus cartoons that will come with this set. it’s not clear if they will be restored or not, but most of them are quite rare these days, so it’ll be great to see them anyway.

The Country Mouse (1935, Friz Freleng) – A mouse dreams of being a boxer, but the big city proves his undoing.
The Lyin’ Mouse (1937, Friz Freleng) – A mouse, trying to save his skin, tells a cat the story of the Lion and the Mouse. Freleng is starting to find his feet here – great WB-style cynical ending.
The Mice Will Play (1938, Tex Avery) – One of Avery’s attempts at doing a ‘cutesy’ musical cartoon, this gets away with it mostly thanks to the end gag.
Little Blabbermouse (1940, Friz Freleng) – The first of two shorts featuring a W.C. Fields mouse and a kis mouse who never stops talking. Influenced the later Sniffles cartoons.
Shop Look & Listen (1940, Friz Freleng) – And this is the 2nd of those.
Mouse Mazurka (1949, Friz Freleng) – Sylvester chases after a mouse while the cartoon is set to various Eastern European musical themes. Friz timed to music is best Friz.
Mouse-Warming (1952, Chuck Jones) – Claude Cat without Hubie and Bertie, interfering with two teenage mice nd their romance. Some gunplay, edited from TV, should return here.
Mouse-Taken Identity (1957, Robert McKimson) – This is a Hippety Hopper cartoon, set in a museum. It features the gags you see in all the Hippety Hopper cartoons, as well as Sylvester, Jr. Also had edited gun scenes that should be restored.
Mice Follies (1960, Robert McKimson) – The last of McKimson’s Honeymooners parodies with mice, and the only one not yet on DVD.
It’s Nice to Have a Mouse Around the House (1965, Friz Freleng) – The first cartoon pairing Speedy Gonzalez with Daffy Duck, for better or worse. Also has Sylvester in a cameo. At least Freleng directs this.
Merlin the Magic Mouse (1967, Alex Lovy) – One of Warner’s late 60s attempts to create new marketable characters, and probably one of the better ones (though still not that good). Another WC Fields parody.

Now there’s even ore reason to buy it!