UPDATE Jerry Beck, in comments: "For the record, the list of cartoons posted on TV SHOWS ON DVD today is (as far as I know) incorrect." The site has removed the list.
That wouldn't be the first time a mistaken list of contents has been posted on a company's website (which is where TVShowsOnDVD got the information). So we'll have to wait and see what the actual finalized contents are going to be.
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TV Shows On DVD has the list of shorts on the Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck single-disc releases. What condition some of these cartoons will be in -- particularly the few pre-1948 ones -- I don't know, but as promised there are no duplications with the Golden Collections. And there are some cartoons a lot of us have been waiting to get, including the unofficially banned-from-TV "Which is Witch?" and "Bushy Hare," and a few of the essential pre-1948 Daffy cartoons ("Ain't That Ducky," "Nasty Quacks," "Daffy Doodles" all have a strong claim to be in his top 10 adventures).
The Bugs disc also has five cartoons with Yosemite Sam, a character who didn't appear on the Golden Collections as much as he might have. Maybe if the disc sells well enough we'll someday get the great Bugs cartoons that are missing from this collection, like "Racketeer Rabbit." In the meantime, I'm looking forward to a decent copy of "Rabbit Every Monday," a very strange cartoon that feels -- except for the presence of Sam -- like it could have been made almost a decade earlier. It's long been a mystery who the writer of this cartoon was; there's no credit.
Much of the Daffy disc is Bob McKimson, and while the cartoons range from great (Daffy Doodles) to interesting but not quite there ("Quack Shot" is a very confused mix of the early "wacky" Daffy that McKimson never really gave up on, and the Daffy-as-failure gags that were in vogue by then) to cartoons written by the bane of a WB cartoon-watcher's existence, Dave Detiege ("Good Noose").
By the way, watching "Good Noose" again, it seems to me that Bill Lava's composing mannerisms weren't as out of hand when he scored a McKimson cartoon. Maybe it's just that McKimson's cartoons were sort of old-fashioned and demanded more old-fashioned (and therefore tolerable) scoring.
Friz wrote Rabbit Every Monday himself. (Along with Stooge for a Mouse.)
ReplyDeleteWasn't Rabbit Every Monday done about the time Freleng dumped Pierce and grabbed Foster? Cal Howard returns for a cartoon about that point, too, so it's almost like there was a brief interim period.
ReplyDeleteFor the record, the list of cartoons posted on TV SHOWS ON DVD today is (as far as I know) incorrect.
ReplyDeleteI think it's weird that we got two back-to-back Charles Laughton parodies in a row in 1962.
ReplyDeleteThe music in "Good Noose" isn't "Mad as a Mars Hare" bad, but it's also nothing special or memorable. The beginning of the card trick scene is really the only part I like, and that melody doesn't last very long.
Bugs Hardaway also made a brief appearance at Warners at the time Cal Howard returned and the Freleng and McKimson units were (uncomfortably) switching story men.
ReplyDeleteThe Daffy-in-the-trunk gag from Good Noose also is pretty good (even if TV thinks it's unsafe for kids), but it also shows the weakness of Lava's music -- had the cartoon been made just a couple of months earlier, odds are Milt Franklyn would have done a much better job supporting the extended scene transitions.
No special features listed; however, the running time is listed as "Approx. 125 Min." which, generously assuming an average of 7.5 minutes per cartoon, still leaves over 12 minutes unaccounted for. Either there's something more than the 15 listed titles on each DVD, or by "approximate" they mean "wild-assed guess".
ReplyDeleteRegardless, since these are all new to DVD, I'll be getting them the day they're released.
I really hope The Bugs Bunny Show releases have special features. Looks like WHV dosen't want to appease classic cartoon fans.
ReplyDeleteOne question, does Rabbit Every Monday mark the last time a Warner cartoon does the audience member in silouette gag ?
ReplyDelete"Monday" feels to me like an Elmer Fudd cartoon with Sam inserted in. As the Warner Brothers cartoon guide points out, Sam was never really a hunter in his cartoons, so his role in this one feels a bit strange.
ReplyDelete(IIRC,Friz disliked Fudd so didn't use him that much.)
Another cartoon on the collection, "Lighter than Hare" gives a similar odd impression-it's essentially a Jones Marvin the Martian plot with Yosemite Sam (OF OUUUTER SPAAACE!).
And we get the last of 19th century composer Henry Russell's "Life on the Ocean Wave'=" for Good Noose's "title card music". A younger Henry Russell wrote "When I Yoo Hoo" and a handful of the John Seely library! [So I've read online.]
ReplyDeleteCharles Laughton: parodied TWICE, then died back in 1962.[BTW "Shiskabugs" was released 48 years ago today, on my 2nd birthday, and I'm now 50, in '62]
It's clear that Mel Blanc voiced these two caricatures but then I'll get someone saying "Oh no, Steve, Charles did those but the stench of these offed him" ha ha.:)
One by Art Davis that I hope will see DVD or Blu-Ray release is 1948's "A Hick, A Slick, and a Chick", a personal favorite. Only one of those LaserDiscs [WAY too elaborate and costly for OUR family!!] had it and no DVD did.