Cinema Tuesdays Review

"Overture, Light the Lights…"
By Nathan Cone

Classic cartoon lovers have many reasons to rejoice this holiday season. Warner Bros. has been steadily churning out multi-disc DVD editions of many of its current holdings, including the complete "Wacky Races," "The Flintstones," "Jonny Quest," and the crème de la crème, the "Looney Tunes: Golden Collection Volume Two," and "Tom and Jerry: Spotlight Collection." Between these two sets, you will find 100 of the funniest, most creative, most entertaining cartoons ever made, along with plenty of supplemental material.

Last year's "Looney Tunes: Golden Collection" set included many favorite Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and Porky Pig cartoons, while throwing in a healthy dose of other "all stars" like Foghorn Leghorn and the Tasmanian Devil. This time around, Bugs rightly gets the first disc of this four-disc set to himself again, but special attention is given on disc two to Wile E. Coyote's relentless pursuit of the Road Runner. Another disc includes several of Warner Bros. best one-off cartoons, such as "One Froggy Evening" and "The Three Little Bops," a jazzy take on the Three Little Pigs, featuring Stan Freberg's first title card acknowledgement on a Looney Tune or Merrie Melody cartoon. Also included in the set is the immortal "What's Opera, Doc," starring Bugs Bunny as Brunhilde and Elmer Fudd as Siegfried.

An animator once said, "If Disney cartoons were like classical music, then Warner Bros. cartoons were like jazz." It's an apt description; there's a sense of anarchy and wild abandon that pervades the Looney Tunes. Anything can and does happen. Unlike Disney's characters, the Looney Tunes stock characters routinely address the audience. They stomp, they chase, they threaten, and sometimes they tell jokes that only adults will really get. In fact, as animator Chuck Jones explains on one of the DVD set's many interview segments, the Looney Tunes creators weren't making these shorts for kids. They were designed to play before the main feature at the movie-house, not on television on Saturday mornings, even though that's where they ended up (to our benefit).

The extras included on the "Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Volume Two" aren't quite as good as last year's set, but they are impressive, nonetheless. Well over half of the 60 shorts included on this set feature audio commentaries by animators or cartoon historians. From those Saturday morning telecasts, there's a complete collection of "Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Show" intros - the one where Bugs and Daffy sing, "Overture, light the lights/This is it, the night of nights." There are documentaries on the making of the cartoons, and some odd short films, including the 1950 Oscar-winning public health PSA film "So Much For So Little," which I swear I saw on television even as late as the early 1980s.

Wrapping up the discussion of this Looney Tunes set, let me pause to sing the praises of one oft-overlooked character I love, Claude Cat. Two of this neurotic feline's shorts are included on the set: "Cheese Chasers" and "Mouse Wreckers." In both shorts, poor Claude is tormented by mice Hubie and Bertie, and driven to gulp down copious amounts of Nerve Tonic. I always found Claude to be the most "cat like" of all the Looney Tunes cats, and perhaps I even identified with the poor guy a little. Claude also has some of the best facial expressions and double takes of any of the Looney Tunes stock characters.

But amid the praise of Warner Bros. output, let us note that per capita, MGM won more Oscars for its Tom & Jerry shorts than Warner Bros. did for its cartoons. Granted, there were only 114 Tom & Jerry shorts produced by MGM compared to hundreds of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts at Warner Bros., but of those 114, seven Tom & Jerry shorts won Oscars, and all are included on the "Tom and Jerry Spotlight Collection."

You can't get any simpler than the plot of most Tom & Jerry shorts: cat versus mouse. In fact, directors William Hanna and Joe Barbera had a hard time convincing their colleagues the first T&J short, "Puss Gets the Boot," would be any good. It turned out to be a hit, but even then, studio bosses did not want any more cartoons featuring "that cat and mouse." Thankfully, Hanna and Barbera didn't listen.

Forty T&J shorts are included on the two-disc "Tom and Jerry Spotlight Collection." They range from the most base of shorts, like "Kitty Foiled," which is just one long chase sequence, to the sublime, such as the icy "Mice Follies," or the Oscar-winning "The Cat Concerto," featuring Tom's performance of Liszt's "Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2." Thanks to that cartoon, to this day, I keep expecting two repeats of Liszt's final phrase each time I hear the piece played on a CD or in concert.

"Texas Tom" is one of the funniest shorts on the set, as Tom tries to woo a pretty cowgirl (or is it a cowkitty?) by singing "If You're Ever Down in Texas, Look Me Up." But Jerry, who's operating a record player behind Tom's back, has some ideas of his own.

Also of note on this set are three cartoons presented for the first time on home video in their original Cinemascope format of 2.35:1. These are "Touché Pussy Cat," "The Flying Sorceress," and "Blue Cat Blues." Seeing these un-cropped images is a revelation for those of us who grew up with them on television.

Extras included on the two-disc set are not as extensive as on the "Looney Tunes" collection, but they are uniformly entertaining and informative. Two short film clips from "Anchors Aweigh" and "Dangerous When Wet" show Tom & Jerry guest-starring with Gene Kelly and Esther Williams, and there are two short documentaries, one about the MGM orchestra, and another that tells the story of "How Bill and Joe Met Tom and Jerry." This is a wonderful documentary, featuring lively interviews with Joseph Barbera and William Hanna, who passed away in 2001.

One final note: both of these sets are billed as including "uncut" versions of the cartoons. But some copies of the T&J set were produced with censored versions of three shorts. Warner Bros. has acknowledged this defect, and offers replacement discs through the mail to consumers who may have received the error discs. Simply call Warner Home Video at 1-800-553-6937 to arrange for a replacement disc.

Both of these sets, the "Tom and Jerry Spotlight Collection," and the "Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume Two," are welcome additions to the collection of anyone with a decent funny bone. These sets will give you a workout, and keep you in so many stitches your friends will think Tom himself hit you over the head with a frying pan.

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