Looney Tunes: Platinum Collection, Volume Two Blu-ray Review: Rabbit Season, Duck Season, Cartoon Season

Looney Tunes Platinum Collection Volume Two has been reissued. Of the 50 main cartoons, 6 are from the 1930s, 22 are from both the ’40s and the ’50s. This volume does a better job focusing on the history of and the contributors to the Looney Tunes franchise.

Buy Looney Tunes: Platinum Collection, Volume Two Blu-ray

Like Volume One, this set opens up with a focus on their biggest star: Bugs Bunny. Although their had been earlier rabbits with similar trickster traits, “A Wild Hare” (1940, dir. Tex Avery) is considered the official debut of Bugs Bunny, who goes unnamed until his next short, “Elmer’s Pet Rabbit.” It’s a hysterical outing as Bugs outsmarts Elmer and it’s clear why they repeated the successful formula. In contrast, “Buckaroo Bugs” (1944, dir. Bob Clampett) finds Bugs to be the villain as he robs a town of its victory garden. Bugs is the victim of a bully, opera singer Giovanni Jones in “Long-Haired Hare.” (1949, dir. Chuck Jones).

Bugs and Daffy are competitive frenemies for a pair of shorts. “Ali Baba Bunny” (1957, Jones) epitomizes how Jones altered the Daffy character, to his detriment as he is no longer daffy, but selfish and greedy. They end up at the Arabian Desert in Ali Baba’s cave where treasure is hidden and all Daffy can focus on. In “Show Biz Bugs” (1957, dir. Friz Freleng), the pair have a vaudeville show and as the title indicates Daffy can’t even get a break from the filmmakers who titled the cartoon let alone from the audience, which unfairly favors Bugs. A couple gags are reused from Freleng’s “Curtain Razor” (1949).

Next up, Daffy gets out of Bugs’s shadow. Daffy is hunted by Mr. Meek in “The Wise Quacking Duck” (1943, Clampett) and both Elmer Fudd and a fox in “What Makes Daffy Duck” (1948, dir. Arthur Davis). The filmmakers show off their literary knowledge in “Book Revue” (1946, Clampett) where the book jokes come fast and furious. Daffy appears thanks to Looney Tunes comic book and does a Danny Kaye imitation that will surely slip by modern viewers. Continuing the book theme, Daffy portrays Dorlock Holmes and Porky is Mr. Watkins in “Deduce, You Say” (1956, Jones).

Heading back to when Porky was the Looney Tunes star, “Porky in Wackyland” (1938, Clampett) finds our hero head to Africa to hunt for a dodo bird, in a cartoon as surreal as anything that Hollywood released. “You Ought to Be in Pictures” (1940, Freleng) is an entertaining and inventive live action/animation hybrid that sees Porky unsuccessfully try to become a feature-film star on the advice of Daffy, who wants to become the lead character for producer Leon Schlesinger, who appears in the short. Back in Africa, “Porky in Egypt” (1938, Clampett) sees he and his camel go crazy from the heat.

Onto the first of four Freleng cartoons that deal with Sylvester and/or Tweety, “Back Alley Oproar” (1948) is a remake of Freleng’s “Notes to You” (1941) with Elmer, in place of Porky, wanting to go to sleep while Sylvester, in place of an unnamed cat, wants to sing the night away. Sylvester stands in for the Big Bad Wolf in “Little Red Rodent Hood” (1951) as a grandmother mouse tells her granddaughter a bedtime story. In “Canned Feud” (1951), Sylvester’s family leaves him behind as they go on vacation.He finds canned food but a mouse has the only can opener. Instead of sharing, Sylvester comes up with schemes to open the cans that are reminiscent of Wile E. Coyote in that they fail in funny ways.

Sylvester awakens Christmas morning to find Tweety “Gift Wrapped” (1952) for Granny and he wants the bird for himself. Tweety, appearing pink with large feet, takes on an unnamed cat in “Birdy and the Beast” (1944, Clampett). He goes back to battling Sylvester in a city park “Home, Tweet Home” (1950) with help from Granny and Hector the bulldog.

A pair of Jones’ Road Runner / Wile E. Coyote cartoons start with “Going! Going! Gosh!” (1952). It has great gags such as Coyote painting a picture of road to trick Road Runner, only to have the bird run into, a truck drive out of, and Wile to run into it only to have him break through and fall off a cliff. In “Zipping Along” (1953, Jones) concludes with a great sequence where Coyote rigs a doorway with explosives only to find himself needing to use it. Both cartoons feature grenade gags. Pepé Le Pew, another Jones creation, is a “Scent-imental Romeo” (1951) when Penelope Pussycat pretends to be a skunk in order to get food from the zoo keeper.

Robert McKimson created Foghorn Leghorn who appears in two cartoons in this set. There’s a case of confusion in “The Foghorn Leghorn” (1948) when Henery Hawk’s grandfather lies about Foghorn being a chicken after being embarrassed when Foghorn stops him from stealing a couple of hens. This causes Henery to think Barnyard Dawg might be a chicken. In “The High and the Flighty” (1956), salesman Daffy takes advantage of their adversarial relationship by selling practical jokes to both Foghorn and Barnyard, who soon figure out who the actual troublemaker is.

Speedy Gonzalez stars in a couple Oscar-nominated shorts. In “Tabasco Road” (1957, McKimson), Speedy strives to keep his drunken amigos, Pablo and Fernando, from a cat while cats chase after him in “Mexicali Shmoes” (1959, Freleng).

Disc 2 opens with more Bugs Bunny. Even though Elmer is not hunting but just seeking some “west and wewaxation,” he still finds “Wabbit Twouble” (1941, Clampett).” Then, Chuck Jones’ classic “The Hunting Trilogy” stars Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck trying to aim Elmer Fudd’s gun at the other. Moving through spring, fall, and winter, they argue over whether it’s rabbit season or duck season in “Rabbit Fire” (1951), whether Elmer should shoot now or wait until they get home in “Rabbit Seasoning” (1952), and wrap things up in “Duck! Rabbit, Duck!” (1953).

Nasty Canasta is a Chuck Jones villain that was inconsistently drawn in his three appearances. “Drip-Along Daffy” (1951) and his sidekick Porky come to Snake-Bite Center, a lawless western town that just lost sheriff and have to take on Nasty. “My Little Duckaroo” (1954) is a sequel with Daffy in the role of the Masked Avenger, a spoof of the Lone Ranger. In “Barbary-Coast Bunny” (1956), not only does Nasty look different, he sounds different as Daws Butler takes over for Mel Blanc.After Bugs finds a huge gold nugget, Nasty tricks him out of it, using it to build a saloon and gambling hall in San Francisco. Bugs comes for his revenge.

Based on Aesop’s fable, “Tortoise Beats Hare” (1941, Avery) starts a loose trilogy. When Bugs walks in on title card, he is outraged at the suggestion. He heads to Cecil Turtle’s house and challenges him to a race. After reviewing material from “Tortoise Beats Hare” (minus Cecil’s cheating), Bugs challenges him again in “Tortoise Wins by a Hare” (1943, Clampett), although Cecil wins thanks to a few dumb bunnies. “”Rabbit Transit” (1947, Freleng) is the third race between Bugs and Cecil, but is a reboot as there’s no mention of their previous meetings. Instead, Bugs gets upset by the idea by reading the fable and then issues the challenge.

Previously, I mentioned “earlier rabbits with similar trickster traits.” Those characters fall under the “proto-Bugs” designation. The first cartoon appearance is in “Porky’s Hare Hunt” (1938, dir. Ben Hardaway) where Porky and his dog are out hunting rabbit. Mel Blanc gave the character a laugh he repurposed two years later for Woody Woodpecker. In the third cartoon. Inexplicably skipping to the third appearance, “Hare-um Scare-um” (1939, dir. Hardaway and Cal Dalton) finds proto-Bugs looking different (and not just because this is in color). He is chased by a man who goes hunting because of high meat prices. Back to the second appearance, “Prest-O Change-O” (1939, Jones) finds proto-Bugs white again but he doesn’t speak. It is also the second appearance of the Two Curious Puppies, who find themselves within a magician’s house. The final appearance is “Elmer’s Candid Camera” (1940, Jones) where Elmer tries his hand at nature photography. Proto-Bugs has yet a different design and different voice too.

Beaky Buzzard appears in four cartoons. “Bugs Bunny Gets the Boid” (1942, Clampett) is the first appearance. He was based on Edgar Bergen’s Mortimer Snerd puppet and was voiced bu Kent Rogers. His mother sends her song in search of food, but Beaky is too scared. He eventually goes after Bugs. Clampett reworked the plot of “Boid” for “The Bashful Buzzard” (1945) with Beaky and his brothers going out for food again, but no Bugs this time. After Rogers’ death, Blanc took over the role in “The Lion’s Busy” (1950, Freleng). Sounding more like Cecil Turtle, the character is smarter, chasing after the Irish-sounding Leo the Lion who has reached his 10^th birthday, the year lions usually expire, which is why Beaky is after him. In “Strife with Father” (1950, McKimson), upper-crust sparrows, Gwendolyn and Monte, are mistakenly given a buzzard egg and raise Beaky, who is back to dumb, Snerd-sounding persona.

A. Flea (mostly voiced by voiced, for the most part, by Sara Berner) debuts in “An Itch in Time” (1943, Clampett) hoping to find a home on Elmer’s dog Willoughby, who has to avoid scratching so Elmer doesn’t get a bath. Blanc takes over the role in “A Horse Fly Fleas” (1947, McKimson). While looking for a home, A. Flea befriends a homeless horsefly and they have to compete against Indian fleas for a dog.

The main collection closes with a collection of one-offs. Avery spoofs Hollywood stars in “Hollywood Steps Out” (1941) and don’t blink or you will miss some. A bellhop at a country hotel dreams of meeting a beautiful woman in “Page Miss Glory” (1936, Avery). In “Rocket-bye Baby” (1956, Jones), an Earth baby and a Mars baby switch places and we see the Earth parents react. Created as WWII continued, “Russian Rhapsody” (1944, Clampett) is a wild cartoon that finds Adolph Hitler flying a bomber to Moscow only to have Russian gremlins foil his plans. “Dough Ray Me-ow” (1948, Davis) is a familiar story that finds Louis the parrot scheming to kill Heathcliff the cat for the inheritance.

Appearing to be the same A/V specs as the title’s previous Blu-ray release, the results are similar to Volume One. The video has been given a 1080p/MPEG-4 AVC encoded transfer in various aspect ratios. The colors appear in a wide variety of strong hues across the rainbow. The 50 cartoons are presented with varying degrees of film grain and minor marks on the image. Typically, the older the cartoon. The audio is available in is Dolby Digital Mono. The dialogue is clear and balanced well with the music and effects. Occasional hiss appears on some shorts. On the third disc, the cartoons have not been restored and exhibit more video and audio defects.

The Special Features are:

• Audio Commentaries: There are19 audio commentaries on Disc One by Michael Barrier; Eddie Fitzgerald, John Kricfalusi, and Kali Fontecchio; Greg Ford; Jerry Beck; Mark Kausler; and Constantine Nasr.There are 13 audio commentaries on Disc Two featuring Beck, Ford, Goldberg, Nasr as well as Kricfalusi and Bill Meléndez, Paul Dini, and Will Friedwald. The most notable track is Chuck Jones on “Tortoise Beats Hare”

• Alternate Audio Programs: On Disc 1, there are music-only tracks available for “Ali Baba Bunny”, “The High and the Flighty”, “Tabasco Road” and “Mexicali Shmoes” and music-and-effects tracks for “Scent-imental Romeo”. On Disc 2, there are music-only tracks available for “Rabbit Fire”, “Drip-Along Daffy”, “Barbary Coast Bunny”. Music and effects track available for “Duck! Rabbit, Duck!”

• Behind the Tunes are behind-the-scenes featurettes focused on specific cartoons, characters, or contributors
  • Man from Wackyland: The Art of Bob Clampett (D1, 21 min)
  • Bosko, Buddy, and the Best of Black and White (D1, 9 min) – Where it began.
  • Leon Schlesinger: The Merrie Cartoon Mogul (D1, HD, 20 min)
  • Forever Befuddled (D2, 3 min) – Odd that they let Maltin misspeak regarding Egghead and Elmer.
  • A-Hunting We Will Go: Chuck Jones’ Wabbit Season Twilogy (D2, 10 min)
  • Looney Tunes Goes Hollywood (D2, 9 min)
  • A Conversation with Tex Avery (D2, 7 min)
  • Looney Tunes Go to War! (D2, 10 min)

The third disc is all special features

• Documentaries about animators:
  • King-Size Comedy: Tex Avery and the Looney Tunes Revolution (2012, 42 min) and Tex Avery, The King of Cartoons (1988, 52 min) inevitably share similar stories.
  • Friz on Film (2006, 55 min)
  • ToonHeads: “The Lost Cartoons” (46 min) – an episode of the Cartoon Network series from 2000 focusing on rare early material, such as “Lady, Play Your Mandolin,” the first Merrie Melody short; Bugs, Porky, and Elmer selling war bonds; Bugs appearances in live-action films; and material repeated on this disc, such as “Bosko: The Talkink Kid” and and clips from Private Snafu and Mr. Hook cartoons.
• Real American Zero: The Adventures of Private Snafu (9 min) – Intended for army and navy bases to teach servicemen lessons.
• The World of Leon Schlesinger (49 min) features other work by the producer. Jerry Beck and Martha Sigall, who worked as an inker and painter for Leon Schlesinger Productions, provide an introduction
  • “Bosko the Talk-Ink Kid”
  • “Sinkin’ in the Bathtub”
  • “Crying for the Carolines”
  • “It’s Got Me Again!” with mice that look similar to their rival
  • Haunted Gold animated title sequence
  • Schlesinger Productions Christmas Party with optional commentary by Beck and Sigall
• Friz at MGM (44 min): five of the eight Captain and the Kids cartoons Freleng directed.
  • “Poultry Pirates”
  • “A Day at the Beach”
  • “The Captain’s Christmas”
  • “Seal Skinners”
  • “Mama’s New Hat”
• The Best of the Rest of Tex (84 min): Eleven of Avery’s cartoons from MGM
  • “Blitz Wolf”
  • “Red Hot Riding Hood”
  • “Screwball Squirrel”
  • “Swing Shift Cinderella”
  • “King-Size Canary”
  • “Bad Luck Blackie”
  • “Señor Droopy”
  • “Wags to Riches”
  • “Symphony in Slang”
  • “Magical Maestro”
  • “Rock-a-Bye Bear”
• Private Snafu cartoons (34 min): 8 out of the 25 released shorts
  • “Coming!! Snafu”
  • “Gripes”
  • “Spies”
  • “The Goldbrick”
  • “The Home Front”
  • “Rumors”
  • “Snafuperman”
  • “Censored”
• Mr. Hook cartoons (11 min): Made to suggest Navy members should buy war bonds. The three cartoons were the ones produced by Warner Bros. The first was made by Walter Lantz Productions.
  • “The Good Egg”
  • “The Return of Mr. Hook”
  • “Tokyo Woes”

Like the previous volume, Looney Tunes Platinum Collection Volume Two is an outstanding collection of cartoons and behind-the-scenes material from the Warner Bros. vault that no Looney Tunes fan should be without. Plus, this volume does a better job highlighting different contributors and goes deeper into the franchise’s history to offer rare treats.