Looney Toons

[Mycroft]

I know it is juvenile, but I love 'em. Does anyone own the Looney Toons Golden Collection (or what ever they are called) Vol. 1, 2, or 3. I am wonder if they are worth it, since they were such a memorable part of my childhood and film hisotry.

 

[Wild Root]

I have the first one! WORTH IT!!! I have waited sooooooooo looooooooong for them to come out with these on DVD! I don't care if they may seem juvenal, I LOVE THEM! Nothing like the classic Bugs and Daffy stuff! Love them all! The best Cartoons ever made!

=WR=

Stop steaming my tail! What ya tryn' to do, wrinkle it?

I name this planet in the name of Mars hum, isn't that lovely Humm?

 

[Mycroft]

Hey what about the Robin Hood ones, they are some of my favorites. Also,the Road Runner ones. Does the DVD have the ones where Wild D. Cayote (SP) talks, there are only too. He talks about why he wants to the catch the road runner.

 

[Zach R.]

Sadly, I don't think Robin Hood Daffy(my personal favorite short) is on any of the Golden Collection DVDs to my knowledge, I think they are saving it for future sets.

 

[Wild Root]

The Robin Hood one is on the latest addition that just came out Tuesday. It's a good one! Yoikes and away!

=WR=

 

[shamus]

I actually put the press kits together last month on the latest one. It also comes with a Tom & Jerry dvd. The cartoon are worth it because they arn't censored at all. It's how it was when it was new!

The special features aren't anything to write home about visually, but they do have some good info in them if you're a loony toons fan. Though there's no real order to them. But you get a bunch of ones you know, and ones you might haven't seen in a long time.

 

[Wild Root]

Yes, they're uncensored which makes me soooooo happy! I hate it when they cut them up to make a 50-60 year old cartoon PC.:rage:

=WR=

 

[scotrace]

Or live action

Even though the entire Disney catalog is available in some format, my understanding (and experience, so far) is that "Song of the South" is simply not available except as a pirated copy, usually in Japanese with english subtitles.
This is the film with Uncle Remus. "Zippity Doo-Da" is the famous song from it. (My oh my what a wonderful day)
Simply censored from the catalog.

 

[Mycroft]

Even though the entire Disney catalog is available in some format, my understanding (and experience, so far) is that "Song of the South" is simply not available except as a pirated copy, usually in Japanese with english subtitles.
This is the film with Uncle Remus. "Zippity Doo-Da" is the famous song from it. (My oh my what a wonderful day)
Simply censored from the catalog.

That is because they don't want to get sued(Disney). Anyhow, the I love Robin Hood and Looney Toons, so I am there. How many Looney Toons are there, I heard around 300 only because I remeber my dad saying he say them in the theaters when he was little, and they are the same as I watch.

 

[Doctor Strange]

There are slightly more than one-thousand theatrical Warner Bros. cartoons, evenly split between the "Merrie Melodies" and "Looney Tunes" titles. A couple of hundred are the very weak late ones from the sixties. And the very early ones (before the Termite Terrace crew - Tex Avery, Bob Clampett, Frank Tashlin, Friz Freleng, Chuck Jones - figured out the house style during 1936) are primitive, and definitely an acquired taste. Out of the roughly 700 prime-period ones, more than half are delightful, and out of these, there are are probably around 150 gems... and out of these, a couple of dozen that always rise to the top of any best-WB-toons list.

While the current DVD selections represent many of these great and greatest titles, there are still plenty that haven't been released, not to mention the "unreleasable" ones, like Bob Clampett's greatest masterpiece, "Coal Black and De Sebben Dwarfs".

(Yeah, I know way too much about this stuff! That's what comes of having collected these cartoons - on 16mm film - and studying them intensely, and reading everything written about them, and attending Leonard Maltin's legendary New School course on cartoons, etc., for 35 years!)

A great site: http://looney.goldenagecartoons.com/

 

[Mycroft]

There are slightly more than one-thousand theatrical Warner Bros. cartoons, evenly split between the "Merrie Melodies" and "Looney Tunes" titles. A couple of hundred are the very weak late ones from the sixties. And the very early ones (before the Termite Terrace crew - Tex Avery, Bob Clampett, Frank Tashlin, Friz Freleng, Chuck Jones - figured out the house style during 1936) are primitive, and definitely an acquired taste. Out of the roughly 700 prime-period ones, more than half are delightful, and out of these, there are are probably around 150 gems... and out of these, a couple of dozen that always rise to the top of any best-WB-toons list.

While the current DVD selections represent many of these great and greatest titles, there are still plenty that haven't been released, not to mention the "unreleasable" ones, like Bob Clampett's greatest masterpiece, "Coal Black and De Sebben Dwarfs".

(Yeah, I know way too much about this stuff! That's what comes of having collected these cartoons - on 16mm film - and studying them intensely, and reading everything written about them, and attending Leonard Maltin's legendary New School course on cartoons, etc., for 35 years!)

A great site: http://looney.goldenagecartoons.com/

That is a great site, thanks. I am wondering where is Leonard Maltin's legendary New School course on cartoons, etc., held?

 

[Doctor Strange]

It's "legendary" because it hasn't been held since 1982!

But for around a decade - before he relocated to LA to be on Entertainment Tonight - Maltin's eight-evening course at the New School on 12th Street was *the* gathering place for the first wave of cartoon fans/collectors in the NYC area. During this time, he wrote his wonderful book ("Of Mice And Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons" - pretty much the first, and still the most useful, book on the subject!) and provided a focal point for the emerging cartoon subculture.

I was lucky enough to take it during the last semester he did it, and it was a *scene*! Film cans, VHS tapes, film lists, cels, etc., were often seen being passed around... If a question came up that Maltin couldn't answer - unusual, but it happened - he'd throw it open to the class, and someone was sure to know. There were experts on particular characters and studios, and lots of folks like myself who had tracked down the info the hard way - this being before DVD, the Internet, and a shelf full of good books on the subject! It was all about seeing the films in revival houses and collectors' living rooms in those days, and trading copies of the legendary Film Comment issue from 1975, Leslie Carbarga's pioneering privately published book on the Fleischers, etc... Adults weren't even supposed to be interested in cartoons back then! We fan/collectors were viewed as a particularly odd class of nerds... And being labeled a nerd was *not* cool yet!

It was the best education/entertainment value I've ever experienced, and it led me to doing my own cartoon class for the Learning Annex a few years later. (But mine was a flop - we never had enough folks interested for it to pay for itself. That's hard to believe now, when everybody loves and appreciates the genius of classic animation! But twenty years ago, things were different.)

 

[Mycroft]

It's "legendary" because it hasn't been held since 1982!

But for around a decade - before he relocated to LA to be on Entertainment Tonight - Maltin's eight-evening course at the New School on 12th Street was *the* gathering place for the first wave of cartoon fans/collectors in the NYC area. During this time, he wrote his wonderful book ("Of Mice And Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons" - pretty much the first, and still the most useful, book on the subject!) and provided a focal point for the emerging cartoon subculture.

I was lucky enough to take it during the last semester he did it, and it was a *scene*! Film cans, VHS tapes, film lists, cels, etc., were often seen being passed around... If a question came up that Maltin couldn't answer - unusual, but it happened - he'd throw it open to the class, and someone was sure to know. There were experts on particular characters and studios, and lots of folks like myself who had tracked down the info the hard way - this being before DVD, the Internet, and a shelf full of good books on the subject! It was all about seeing the films in revival houses and collectors' living rooms in those days, and trading copies of the legendary Film Comment issue from 1975, Leslie Carbarga's pioneering privately published book on the Fleischers, etc... Adults weren't even supposed to be interested in cartoons back then! We fan/collectors were viewed as a particularly odd class of nerds... And being labeled a nerd was *not* cool yet!

It was the best education/entertainment value I've ever experienced, and it led me to doing my own cartoon class for the Learning Annex a few years later. (But mine was a flop - we never had enough folks interested for it to pay for itself. That's hard to believe now, when everybody loves and appreciates the genius of classic animation! But twenty years ago, things were different.)

What a pity. :cry:

 

[DanielJones]

Dr. Strange: Gotta love a man with a catalog memory for cartoons. My recollections come from the Carl Stalling music.

Play a bit of his music and I can tell you which toons it came from and the scene it was in. Didn't study the toons, I just have a photographic memory for useless trivia. That, and I love my old toons. And yes, I have both Carl Stalling Project CD's.

Cheers!

Dan

 

[Wild Root]

Ah, the music! You know, that?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s one of the problems with toons today! The music sucks! Also the back ground art is for crap! Back in those days, the color, shadowing and such were very real to life in many ways. Yes, things were not true to life but, definitely much more thought out then what is seen today.

The music is so great how it plays to the motions of the caricatures! Got to love it!

=WR=

 

[DanielJones]

It's all in the music...

WR: Carl Stalling was the master. He could convey emotion and a sence of speed just with his music. Of course he used stock classical pieces but a lot of the stuff from 1939 to 1954 was his music. The composers of today are just a "shadowy reflection" of what Carl Stalling was. My favorite was the piece called the Anxiety Montage. WB used it in the haunted house toon (Claws for Alarm-1954) with Porkey & Sylvester. Made it quite memorable for me.

Cheers!

Dan

 

[Wild Root]

Ah, I just watched that one last night! It's a good one with the mice and all! So funny it is! Hahahhahaha, it's just brilliant how Sylvester shadows Porky when he gets into bed and doesn't know Sylvester is there till he says good night to him! So funny!

=WR=

PS. Ooops, I was thinking of the earlier one when Porky buys a house and it's infested with those mice that try and kill them. Oh well.

 

[Doctor Strange]

Yes, Stalling's scoring is unbelievably brilliant. But don't forget Stalling's secret weapon - the wonderful compositions of Raymond Scott! Discovering that one guy was responsible for so many of the unique musical phrases used constantly in the Warner Bros. cartoons was a mind blower!

(See: http://raymondscott.com/ )

BTW, here's a bit of trivia for ya: Before his amazing career at Warner Bros., Carl Stalling was there from the very moment that cartoon music was born - he conducted the small ensemble that created the soundtrack for Disney's "Steamboat Willie" in 1928!

 

[Wild Root]

Raymond Scott

I have a CD of his! Great work and I can see why it became cartoon music! Even in later years, the Ren & Stimpy show used a lot of Raymond's work. ?¢‚Ǩ?ìPower House?¢‚Ǩ? is one of the mostly used songs of his!

=WR=

 

[DanielJones]

See? I learn a little something new to me every day. Thank you for the Illumination gentlemen.

Cheers!

Dan