Looney Tunes Collectors Vault Volume 3 Review

Welp, here’s more. We are hit with yet another showing from Warner Archive in their continual Looney Tunes releases. After hundreds of shorts were restored in the lead-up to the launch of HBO Max at the start of the decade, longtime animation historian and restoration leader Jerry Beck helped launched a new line of Blu-rays from Warner’s collectors label, Warner Archive, to allow access to these new prints on home media under the name Collectors Choice. After four releases, a new subseries was launched with a second disc to allow shorts that have been on DVD before to be presented in high definition for the first time. We are now on volume 3 of the Collectors Vault series and the 7^th release of this kind in general and it doesn’t seem to be stopping yet. At this point, the archive of remaining Warner shorts to go through is quite thin. Nearly 100 shorts remain from most of the studio’s history and only a couple from the golden period of the lineup. As a result, the restrictions have been loosened regarding less pc material given that these are releases aimed more at the adult collector. The previous volume had a few of these shorts, but volume 3 has made this a specific highlight.

This release has 5 shorts restored specifically for it and all of them have some baggage attached. 4 of them are shorts involving Native American stereotypes, while the last features the first Looney Tunes character, Bosko, whose whole character is a bit problematic. Two of the shorts, A Feather in His Hare and Horse Hare, are Bugs Bunny shorts and some of the very last left featuring the character. Most LT releases over the years have focused on getting Bugs cartoons restored above most and we really only have a few shorts of his left to go. As such, we really are hitting those that have been pulled from wider distribution due to their content and would only get restored for a release like this. The other two, Nothing But the Tooth and Slightly Daffy, feature Porky with the latter also having Daffy.

The Bugs cartoons here are relatively solid. A Feather in His Hare is one of the last remaining shorts made by director Chuck Jones during his strong period in the mid to late 40s and has good timing and jokes. It’s nothing special, but it is a Bugs short made during his heyday as a cartoon star, so it is one of the overall highlights on the disc by that virtue. Horse Hare is weaker, but does have better comedic instincts and art direction compared to similar Bugs cartoons of the early 60s. The odd thing about that one, though, is that Sam plays a white man allied with attacking natives named “Renegade Sam”. While Sam did end up being a versatile character compared to his cowboy origins and could play any sort of role, there are limits and its odd seeing a character who was once a cowboy in this type of role. Honestly, Bugs would fit better in the native role and Sam and a frustrated army man. Of course, that would run against the stereotypes of the time, so no dice. I mean, Tweety once played a Confederate and Sylvester a Union solider so biases of the time were sort of baked into some of these shorts.

The Porky cartoons are also quite interesting. Nothing But the Tooth is the last cartoon from short-time director Arthur Davis that needed a restored release. These Blu-Rays have done a good job highlighting his work, and it will probably be the only time a director has his entire filmography available on home media. Other directors have numerous shorts that will probably remain off-limits in spite of the loosened restrictions. It is animated with the same rapid-fire humor and rubbery flexibility Davis’s other cartoons have. It involves Porky who, hearing about gold in California, rushes off to get there only to run into a diminutive native who chases after him. While the picture is extremely well done, there is an odd bit in the audio where a word is clearly cut off at the end of a sentence, and that is a bit frustrating. It isn’t a huge deal, but considering how it’s been less than 6 months since the last release, I would have been ok with a small delay to iron out any smaller issues.

As for Slightly Daffy, it might be one of the most bizarre cartoons in the entire Warner Bros. catalog. It is a remake of a black-and-white Bob Clampett cartoon named Scalp Trouble involving General Daffy Duck and Porky fighting natives at an army base. While there have been remakes before and other shorts that reused older footage, this is a case where most of the cartoon is traced-over animation from another director. The cartoon was made in 1944, and it makes sense that cost-cutting measures would result in a short like this given that World War II was going on. Still, it results in a very strange cartoon that has old-style designs and animation being mixed with new backgrounds and different voice work. The animation in the black-and-white shorts was already a bit more limited and choppy, so redrawing them makes some of it look even more uncanny and stilted. Given that WB had done a good job across the board with animation quality within their mid-tier budgets, especially in the 40s, a short like this in the same era is fascinating to watch by comparison despite its objective quality.

The last of the restored shorts is Sinkin’ in the Bathtub, the first-ever Looney Tunes short. This comes from the era of the first studio leaders Hugh Harman and Rudy Ising. To keep things short, they were former animators of Disney who left him before he made Mickey, to develop their own cartoons with a focus on innovating with dialogue by focusing on songs. They never really escaped the Disney-imitator feeling in their work, though, even after they left to work at MGM. I certainly assumed that we wouldn’t get shorts from this era on a release like this either. Not really due to their content, but more that they exist in such a different place in style and execution compared to the rest of the studio’s filmography. Honestly, an isolated collection would serve them better. Still, it is nice to have them on here, and Sinkin’ is honestly one of the best restoration works yet for any LT short period. The fact that the original camera negatives of a short that’s a few years shy of being 100 is still in really good condition and that we are able to get such a clear and clean print of the short after so long is a testament to Warner’s archival work, especially compared to other studios. As much as Disney likes to prop him up, they do consider the classic shorts with Mickey as sort of an afterthought and have basically been reusing very old restorations from decades ago for their releases.

There is the elephant in the room, though, about Bosko and what he is supposed to be. While the creators did play coy about it and even called him an ink spot, there’s no dancing around the fact that he is supposed to be a little black kid. However, the shorts at Warner’s featuring him don’t really play into any of the stereotypes of the time and, while still feeling like a Mickey clone, has a more balanced cartoon personality. Ironically, after Harman and Ising left Warners for MGM due to budget clashes, Bosko would be completely redesigned to look more like a realistic black human with a lot more stereotypes in the cartoon stories and in his dialect. This factor of Bosko, while not as bad as it could have been at least in the Looney Tunes shorts, is why he hasn’t been on a home media release in years. It does tell me that these releases are both being allowed to dig into the stuff once considered off limits and will continue to showcase a wider variety of Warner animation history and not just the popular stuff.

As for the rest of Disc One, we really have hit the completionist row of shorts. Not that this is a bad selection, but we have mostly gone through the remaining classics and underrated gems and are left with mostly odd and lesser-known shorts. 10 of these are from the 30s, which is a far more formative period of the studio that more resembles attempts to mimic Disney. Director Friz Freleng gets most of the focus with a couple of his very early 30s shorts and four Tweety shorts from the mid to late 50s. These aren’t bad shorts, but they do blend together a bit and worked better on other releases where they were spread out a bit with a variety of other stuff. This also applies in a way to the character shorts. Most of the remaining shorts are from the later period of the studio, and while the showing isn’t terrible here, it is reaching for the less desired ones. Feather Bluster, the sole Foghorn short here, is a clip show, which, while understandable in terms of creation given budget restraints by the late 50s and how shorts were only meant to be viewed in theaters beforehand, doesn’t make it interesting to view on its own compared to other cartoons on the disc.

Lady Play Your Mandolin is the other Harman-Ising cartoon on the disc and is the first Merrie Melodies cartoon. The Looney Tunes shorts, as seen with Sinkin’, started more earnestly as showcases of Warner songs. It was later decided to allow Looney Tunes to be more gag and character-centric while the musical focus would be relegated to a new second series. This short also features a new character named Foxy. He was even more of a blatant Mickey ripoff than Bosko (looking nearly identical aside from the pointed ears, slightly longer nose, and a long bushy tail), and Walt reportedly called Harman and Ising to politely stop it given how many lower-budget animation studios were doing the same thing in making mouse ripoffs. I guess imitation of popular things has always been a Hollywood mentality.

Other cartoons include Dog Gone Modern, the second ever short directed by Chuck Jones. It highlights how he focused on slow and detailed animation at first, with cutesy characters getting into drawn-out situations. It is impressive for an early directorial work, but a far cry from what he would turn his body of work into. Strangely enough, the two dogs in this short, called The Curious Puppies, would be a reoccurring duo of characters Jones held onto for the first period of his career. They don’t have much personality, and their shorts really do feel more like excuses to show off animation. There is also Don’t Look Now, the only Tex Avery short on the disc which, while more indicative of the cuter, Disney-copying shorts, still has dashes of Avery’s streetwise and subversive sense of humor that helped pave the distinctive direction of the Warner shorts. I also strangely remember watching this short years ago on TV when I was a kid, and this was during the time when LT shorts were not on TV as much.

Disc Two is far more focused on classic characters, and some of the best Warner shorts reside here. Ballot Box Bunny is one of the best Bugs and Sam shorts through its immaculate comedic timing, through a showcase of aggressive political campaigning between the two characters. A few shorts, Conrad the Sailor, Case of the Missing Hare, and My Favorite Duck, are early showcases of Chuck Jones’s development as a director. His early shorts like Dog Gone Modern, while well crafted, clashed with the house style of the studio, and Chuck struggled to find his voice as a creative until he started to focus more on mixing proper comedy to complement his high art efforts in shorts like these. It ended up being the step needed to get him on track to become the best director at the studio. Hollywood Daffy is an odd case where its director, Friz Freleng, ended up choosing not to direct it due to disliking the story, and his layout artist, Hawley Pratt, took over as the uncredited director. It’s strange how a short like this, which is mostly just typical, got Freleng to bail, given how he made much worse work before and after, but it may explain why he didn’t get many Daffy cartoons assigned to him after. Director Frank Tashlin gets a few of his one-shot cartoons highlighted, including Puss n’ Booty, the last ever black and white LT cartoon and a wonderful showcase of Tashin’s style of emulating live action filmmaking techniques to the point that it feels like a Hitchcock film. There are also some WWII themed shorts here in Daffy-The Commando and Herr Meets Hare as a result of the shifts in what shorts are open to release. Last to note is the short Rabbit’s Kin. One of the most iconic Bugs shorts, if only because of the one-off antagonist Pete Puma played by Stan Freberg. While some characters like Marvin or Taz only appeared in a few cartoons, Pete is only in this one. Yet, he left such an impression that he is seen as someone as beloved and iconic as some of the more relevant toons and has shown up in many revivals and reboots for the series.

Overall, this is a very interesting and well put together set. It’s been over 3 and a half years since these releases began, and we really are closer than ever to having almost all the shorts on home media in some form. Given the state of streaming and the limited accessibility of the shorts outside of Tubi and a couple of TV channels, this is warranted. I will say, this isn’t quite my favorite overall lineup of shorts. I do feel they went with a few too many similar cartoons for disc one (we have two separate bug-centric cartoons from Freleng). While we have to pick and choose from a smaller and less compelling pool of shorts, I do feel there are still plenty of diverse options to choose from. Throwing in another Avery cartoon or another early 40s short would have helped balance things out a bit better. Odd as it may seem, there are other shorts from the periods represented here that I wanted to see more on disc before some of the ones present here. Still, as a Looney Tunes fanatic, I always excitedly embrace these releases and will continue to do so as long as they keep getting released. It really does feel wonderful to still get releases like these even after all this time and with how small the value of home media is now. It goes to show that passionate support and love for certain things can keep things going.