I feel that of the classic cartoons, the Looney Tunes are stuck in a distantly odd place. They are still recognized and beloved, but they also haven’t been culturally relevant in the past few decades aside from the commercial/movie Space Jam. Warner Bros has tried and failed constantly to give new life to this series. Even when they succeed in making a good project, they either don’t care enough to market it or micromanage the good idea to mediocrity. Given the recent news around Coyote Vs Acme and how it’s going to be industrially shredded to save Warner Discovery some tax dollars (even though they would have gotten the same amount of money from selling it to another studio or streaming platform), it seems like the current status of these beloved characters isn’t going to change for the better anytime soon.
However, despite this, there has been one good consistency over the past couple of decades and that is the efforts to restore the classic shorts and make them easily available to the public. Ever since the release of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection back in 2003, many at Warner Bros have worked to clean up as many of these great shorts as possible so they can be preserved on home media for any fan. However, the timing of releases can be a bit slow since a good amount of work goes into restoring the shorts so a lack of sales decreases the possibility of completely new releases. This isn’t helped by how studios have focused on abandoning physical media as of late. Recently, however, a new series of Blu-Ray’s has started up called Collectors Choice which focuses on completely new shorts that have never gotten a proper release.
This is helmed by WB’s specialty division, Warner Archive Collection, which is in charge of releasing classic and cult films for the studio. This means that these are more for collectors and are made specifically with more die-hard fans in mind. Unlike prior releases of restored Looney Tunes shorts, however, there already exists a backlog of restored shorts that haven’t been on home media before. When HBO Max launched back in 2020, a large number of newly restored shorts were placed on the service. While a lot of them were taken off for reasons I still don’t understand (and will come back in March to replace the currently available ones I may add), other new shorts have also been released on TV or other streaming options. This means that these new Blu-rays can pull from the pre-existing log of restored shorts and preserve them on disc with only a couple of completely new restorations for each volume. As a result, not only does this further help preserve these cartoons in the uncertainty of the streaming age, but the production costs of these releases are likely lower, and consistent sales could mean the release of future volumes more often.
As of this article, 2 volumes have been released and a third is about to come out. The first was set as a test run to gauge if there was an audience for these new releases and it sold very well. This set was primarily focused on more recognizable Looney Tunes characters while the second had more of a variety between established stars and more obscure shorts. One of the most notable things about Volume 1 is the restoration of the short Beanstalk Bunny. A Bugs Bunny & Daffy Duck cartoon parodying Jack and the Beanstalk, this was one of the most sought-after shorts for restoration since it was long rumored that the original film reels were damaged. However, the people at Warner Archive were able to find the camera negatives thanks to the Library of Congress and the short has finally seen a restored release. The short itself is very funny including a bit where Bugs and Daffy are trapped in a glass case and the animation and music do great work showing the emotion and comedy of the scene without a spoken work.
Highlights from the first volume include two shorts featuring Chuck Jones’s Three Bears characters. These shorts were very much ahead of their time in portraying a dysfunctional family at a time when the nuclear family was the norm and are quite aggressive even compared to other Warner shorts. There is also Daffy Doodles which was the directorial debut of Robert McKimson. He was one of the longest-tenured directors at the studio and was there throughout its entire existence. While his untimely passing in the 70s and his catalog being more basic comedy resulted in him being less remembered than his contemporaries, his work in the 40s and early 50s is genuinely fantastic in terms of animation and comedic timing, showcased in this short. The second of the two Bugs Bunny cartoons on the disc, The Unruly Hare, is a very underrated short in my opinion, and one of only two Bugs cartoons directed by Frank Tashlin. Tashlin was notable for applying filmmaking techniques seen in live-action films and combining them with rapid animation and gags. He had a very long career spanning multiple studios and mediums including directing many live-action comedies that applied his traits from animation. As such, he is a very distinctive and underappreciated director, and a lot of what made him great is highlighted here.
Art Davis is another underappreciated director given a spotlight on Volume 1 as well. He was not a director long and had far less of an impact compared to Bob Clampett or Frank Tashlin so he is in an odd spot in regards to the legacy of directors at the original Warner cartoon studio. But I feel that his cartons have a distinctive energy that the rest don’t capture. The animation is lively and rubbery which highlights sort of a mixture of Clampett’s wild energy and Tashlin’s focus on poses and rapid pacing. It helps that he was the one who inherited Bob’s unit when he left the studio in 1945 which helped give his shorts the traits that make them great. Like McKimson, he is more focused on broad comedy, but he does a good job with the character animation and timing. The people making the set stated that giving Davis more attention was a priority for the first volume since while he has had his cartoons restored and released before, he was brushed off compared to other directors.
Volume 2 is more varied with a good chunk of the shorts being one-offs, that being characters that only appeared in one short. Highlights here do include some popular characters such as the short Brother Brat. One of the most notable shorts to not get a restoration before and one of the last Porky Pig shorts to not get the treatment. It focuses on Porky having to babysit the baby of a World War II factory worker and it devolves into chaos due to the baby being an aggressive jerk including using a cat as a jump rope (it’s as funny as it sounds). Cross Country Detours is a short by Tex Avery who, while having made most of his best work at MGM, was formative in establishing the distinctive identity of the Warner shorts since he pioneered the more smart-alec and anti-Disney humor they are known for. This cartoon is part of his series of travelogue parodies that focus on a topic through the framework of a travelogue to showcase gags without having to worry about a story. This is arguably one of the best of these and is one of the longest shorts produced at the studio. Explaining the cartoon in detail though would be spoiling the jokes and frankly, it’s better to go in blind for shorts like these so I won’t discuss it any further. Another short of interest is Rabbit Rampage which is a sequel of sorts to the iconic short Duck Amuck featuring Bugs Bunny instead. While it isn’t the most iconic or funny short, it is an interesting piece both in terms of the short itself and how it was restored in the early 2000s and only showed up as a bonus feature on a later Golden Collection set. This means that this print has been sitting on the shelf for a proper release for almost 20 years.
These sets, particularly Volume 2, also allow for a unique look at established and iconic directors. Older Looney Tunes sets tended to focus on more iconic or culturally recognized shorts, so looking at an artist either earlier or later in their career here is interesting. The most notable example is Chuck Jones. Considered by most to be the most important director at the studio, his shorts elevated the Warner cartoons into the more modern and recognizable tropes and archetypes that made the characters stand out further. However, he also had an interesting start by trying to emulate a slower pseudo-Disney style at first and then transitioning towards shorts that had better comedic timing but emphasized experimental concepts or art direction. Shorts like Fair and Worm-er, a chase cartoon that has multiple characters chasing after each other, show early signs of Jones’ later works since this seems like an early spark towards the Road Runner cartoons. His softer design for characters and abstract art direction define this period and it’s interesting, to say the least. Many shorts on this release highlight this fascinating period where the tenants of directors like Jones were starting to form, but still had attributes of growing pains and experimentation. Alongside earlier shorts though, we also get some later ones. By the 60s, the decline in demand for animated shorts in theaters resulted in heavy budget cuts and many key people at the studio had left to new opportunities. As such, its interesting to see some of the cartoons that show how the directors coped with the environment of the time. Shorts like Hare-Breadth Hurry, where Bugs takes the place of the Road Runner, show efforts to experiment, but the combination of budget and burnout resulted in a short that’s more of an interesting curiosity than a classic of sorts.
In all, I’m really happy that these Blu-ray’s are being made. As someone who has collected so many cartoon DVDs, having a new series of releases to look forward to is something that I have missed. What’s better is that there are still plenty of already restored shorts ready for release and only a handful that need work. This means that consistent new volumes are very likely as long as support continues. There is the distinct possibility that Looney Tunes fans might have almost every cartoon from the Golden Age available to watch from the comfort of their homes. We will very likely get news on the next releases around the time Volume 3 comes. As a huge Looney Tunes fan, I hope we get as many new volumes as possible to continue to give old shorts new life and keep these characters visible at some level. Frankly, if Warner Bros won’t let even a completed movie featuring some of their most important and iconic characters see the light of day, I’ll take what I can get at this point.
