Collectors who already own the first two volumes of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection will notice a few changes in the packaging for Volume 3. While the DVD case itself replicates the folding cardboard and plastic disc trays of Volumes 1 and 2, the outer dust cover has been slightly modified in that there is no hole in the front which reveals the artwork on the outer face of the folding DVD case. Also, to quote the title character of Bob Clampett's The Hep Cat, "something new has been added" on the back cover; a disclaimer from Warner Home Video which reads that: "Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Volume 3, is intended for the adult collector and may not be suitable for children".

That disclaimer, along with the 3-minute video introduction by Whoopi Goldberg (that unfortunately has been replicated on all four discs), appears to be WHV's way of testing the waters to see what public reaction will be to their inclusion of cartoons that contain racial stereotypes, cartoon violence, and risque dialogue and situations.

Indeed this volume does include contain noticable racial gags (in the aforementioned Porky's Road Race) and violence (in A Gruesome Twosome). Definitely not for the kiddies; but then, they were never intended for kids.

The present volume contains a nice mixture of early cartoons and late, b&w and color, and one-shot cartoons vs. running series. Directors Robert McKimson and Frank Tashlin are well represented on this set, and Arthur Davis' only Bugs Bunny cartoon, Bowery Bugs has been thrown in for good measure.

Art Davis had started out as an inbetweener for the Fleischer Studio and their "Out of the Inkwell" series of shorts. During the 1930's he worked as an animator for Walter Lantz at Universal; and at the Charles Mintz Studio at Columbia Pictures, collaborating with Sid Marcus on the black and white "Scrappy" series. During the late 1930's He and Marcus co-directed two outstanding shorts for the Mintz Studio, Neighbors and The Little Match Girl. Davis migrated to Warner Bros. in the mid 1940's. Working first as an animator, he was promoted to the director's chair in 1946 after Robert Clampett had left the studio. Davis only directed a few films at Warner Bros. before leaving again for a short period. When he returned in the 1950's he became one of Friz Freleng's top animators.

Davis, like Robert McKimson (another animator-turned-director), inherited many of the staff from Clampett's former unit at the studio; and so his cartoons are close in style and frenetic pace to Clampett's. Bugs Bunny's design in Bowery Bugs is similar to that in the cartoons produced by the McKimson unit during the late 1940's, most likely utilizing the model sheets drawn by Jean Blanchard for that unit. Sid Marcus was eventually reunited with Davis at Warner Bros., and after Davis' unit at the studio folded he went to work for McKimson. Marcus contributed the story for Davis' 1949 Porky Pig cartoon, Bye, Bye Bluebeard.

McKimson had been one of Robert Clampett's top animators during the early 1940's. He had also, in 1942, drawn the model sheet for Bugs Bunny that defined his appearance for the next 20 years. McKimson's cartoons from the mid-to-late 1940's retain some of the energy and manic pacing of those directed by Clampett. McKimson's first cartoon featuring Bugs Bunny, Acrobatty Bunny, is certainly frenetic and boasts some impressive animation in the scenes where the lion chases Bugs around the big top. The Windblown Hare is a hilarious take on the the story of "Three Little Pigs". Bugs looks a little shorter and more well-nourished in this short as well as in Easter Yeggs and Rebel Rabbit; the latter featuring some interesting live-action footage.

McKimson has often been called an uninspired director by some critics, but he was capable of making some good cartoons. His strength was in characterization, but his later shorts suffered from slow pacing that often dulled the impact of gags. This is not the case with some of the Porky Pig/Daffy Duck shorts he directed during the mid-to-late 1940's. With witty repartee contributed by Warren Foster, Daffy Duck Slept Here is one of McKimson's best, and proof positive that he might have made a fine live-action director (as Frank Tashlin eventually became).

Henry Hawk was first featured in a 1942 short directed by Chuck Jones, The Squawkin' Hawk; but the character was soon abandoned and did not appear again until four years later in McKimson's Walky Talky Hawky. Although Henry Hawk was supposed to be the star of that cartoon, an incidental character who would soon be known to audiences as Foghorn Leghorn practically upstaged him.

McKimson had a particular fondness for parodying popular television programs that aired during the 1950's. Three of them, The Honey-Mousers (based on the hit sitcom, The Honeymooners), Wideo Wabbit (a send-up of game shows) and The Mouse That Jack Built (a take on The Jack Benny Program) are featured on Disc 2. The first cartoon profits from the excellent story by Warren Foster and dead-on impersonations of Jackie Gleason, Art Carney, and Audrey Meadows (provided by Daws Butler and June Foray). The cartoon reportedly might never have seen the light of day had Gleason felt that the spoof was insulting, and had consequently withheld his approval for its release. The second cartoon features Bugs in a variety of impressions of everyone from Groucho Marx to Liberace to Art Carney. The third is remarkable in that the celebrities that are spoofed here (Jack Benny, Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, and Mary Livingstone) actually provided their own voices. Benny enjoyed making the cartoon so much, that he asked only for a print of his own instead of payment for his services. In the alternate audio program for this cartoon, the original music recording sessions include cues played by a violinist who is trying his damnedest to sound as bad as Jack Benny(!)

Disc 2 is devoted entirely to parodies of films and television, and to caricatures of popular celebrities of the 30's, 40's, and 50's. Tex Avery's Thugs With Dirty Mugs is a spoof of the 1938 Warner Bros. gangster film, Angels With Dirty Faces; and is executed with style and flair. Avery deftly parodies every gangster film convention (breaking the fourth wall in several instances). There are no voice credits for this cartoon, but I think it is safe to say that whoever provides the voice of Ed. G. Robbinsome (Mel Blanc?) has the characterization down pat. Friz Freleng's The CooCoo Nut Grove is a little more humorous than Frank Tashlin's The Woods Are Full Of Cuckoos; which unfortunately has not withstood the test of time, and which contains a number of contemporary pop-culture references that will be lost on all but die-hard subscribers to Turner Classic Movies. Freleng also offers viewers a spoof of Alfred Hitchcock Presents (with a bear filling in for the host) in The Last Hungry Cat, which features a nerve-wracked, chain-smoking Sylvester. Tashlin fares better with his wartime short, Swooner Crooner, which features caricatures of Frank Sinatra, Jimmy Durante, Al Jolson, Cab Calloway, and Bing Crosby. Some of the animation of the swooning hens was re-traced and used in the animated dream sequence for Two Guys From Texas (included in Volume 1). The premise in this short that anyone's crooning could cause one to become "fertile" is indeed a rib-tickler! Tashlin is given his own "Behind the Tunes" segment on Disc 3, and deservedly so.

The fertile mind of Chuck Jones bears fruit with two unusual Bugs Bunny cartoons from the early 1940's, Case of the Missing Hare and Wackiki Wabbit. Both utilize stylized, minimalist backgrounds (the colors of which are especially vibrant in their present transfers) and the latter has some truly surrealistic images; such as the roast chicken that comes back to life to wreak havoc on a pair of hapless castaways (the tall, thin one voiced by storyman Tedd Pierce). These cartoons, along with Jones' 1942 entry, The Dover Boys At Pimento University or The Rivals of Roquefort Hall, demonstrate Jones' willingness to explore new techniques in animation. Many critics credit the UPA studio with revolutionizing the animation industry during the 1950's with films like Gerald McBoing-Boing and The Tell-Tale Heart; but they tend to forget that Jones had made similarly-stylized films nearly a decade earlier. Jones actually directed the first theatrical short for the company that would soon evolve into United Productions of America; a 1944 pro-FDR cartoon entitled, Hell Bent for Election.

When Jones first moved into the director's chair in the late 1930's he was the only one at the Warner Bros. Studio that was trying to emulate the Disney style of animated shorts. His first cartoons are slow-paced, emphasize characterization, and are soft on gags. In addition, Jones favored lush backgrounds and modeling (facial shadows) on his characters. Jones' first starring characters were a mouse named Sniffles (voiced by Sara Berner) and Inki, a little African native boy. At one point Producer Leon Schlesinger took Jones aside and told him frankly that he had better start making cartoons that were actually funny, as his colleagues had been doing all along. Jones then made a conscious decision to break away from the inherently "cute" Disney style and move towards more gag-oriented cartoons. His 1938 Daffy Duck cartoon, Daffy Duck and the Dinosaur, definitely reflects the influence of Clampett and Avery, Jones' fellow directors in the seperate bugalow known affectionately as "Termite Terrace". While certain techniques like modeling are carried over from Jones' earlier films; the pacing is much more rapid at times (as when Daffy tries to outrun a rock shot at him by Casper Caveman), and the gags are funnier. The scene where Casper experiences the prolonged vibrating effects of bashing a boulder with a club anticipates Wile E. Coyote's similar fate after ingesting a full bottle of "earthquake pills".

By the 1950's Jones' unit at Warner Bros. had been turning out some wonderfully funny cartoons. The Road-Runner series began picking up steam with 1952's Beep-Beep; and reached it's pinnacle with There They Go-Go-Go. By 1963, however, the cartoons began to show signs of slowing down. To Beep or Not to Beep was co-directed by Jones' longtime layout artist, Maurice Noble (which accounts for the many scenes done in long-shot) and was written by John Dunn--who had been hired away from the Disney studios as a replacement for Michael Maltese and Warren Foster. The gags in this cartoon are a little more prolonged, but still come across. We also learn at the end of the cartoon that Wile E. Coyote has begun to contract with a different bidder, namely the "Road-Runner Manufacturing Company". This was also the first Road-Runner cartoon to be scored by Bill Lava. The ultimate change in the series (unfortunately) would come just two years later, when direction of the series would fall into the less-than-capable hands of former animator Rudy Larriva.

The final, and in my opinion the funniest, installment of Jones' Bugs-Daffy-Elmer "trilogy", Duck! Rabbit, Duck! is included on Disc 1. The writing by Michael Maltese is sublime as always, and the final gag with Elmer chasing a baseball through the snow never fails to floor me! No Barking marks the first appearance of the rambunctious puppy (marvelously animated and characterized) who becomes a major annoyance to Claude Cat. The cartoon also features a cameo by Tweety, which may have been done as an in-house gag between the Jones and Freleng units. Robin Hood Daffy is yet another delightful send-up of the Robin Hood legend (the previous two being Robinhood Makes Good and Rabbit Hood). This short features a wonderful score by Milt Franklyn that can be heard to good effect in the recording session that comprises the alternate audio program.

I have to say at this juncture that I totally disagree with John Kricfalusi's statement (in one of his audio commentaries for a Robert Clampett cartoon) that Friz Freleng is a "boring" director, and that his adulation of Clampett borders on the fanatical. Freleng's style may not have been as wacky and frenetic as Clampett's; but he was wonderfully funny in his own way. In my previous review of LTGC2 I mentioned how Greg Ford has likened Freleng to the great live-action comedy director, Ernst Lubitsch, and I am still inclined to agree. Like Frank Tashlin, Freleng understood cinematic technique and was adept at establishing the mood of a cartoon; a shining example being his 1957 Academy Award-winning Sylvester and Tweety cartoon, Birds Anonymous. This cartoon is memorable for its Hitchcockian opening sequence with a stark use of shadows, camera angles and ominous underscoring. Freleng also understood more than anyone else at the studio (save perhaps Carl Stalling) the ability of music to accentuate gags and develop mood in a cartoon. His 1943 Oscar-nominated masterpiece (one of several that utilize a piece of classical music as a point of departure), Pigs in a Polka is as close to perfection as one could hope for with its close synchronization of music and action and razor-sharp timing.
The timing of gags in one (possibly the funniest) of the three "official" biographies of Bugs Bunny produced at the studio, A Hare Grows in Manhattan, is also superb. The Wabbit Who Came to Supper features the earlier, rotund version of Elmer Fudd that was modeled after voice actor Arthur Q. Bryan; while in the later Hare Do, Fudd has slimmed down considerably. Both cartoons are hysterical; watch for the "Hopalong Shapiero" marquee gag in the latter.

Two wartime-themed cartoons by Robert Clampett round out this collection; Falling Hare and Draftee Daffy. In the former cartoon Bugs Bunny is particularly aggressive (perhaps more so than in Tortise Wins by a Hare). The gremlin featured here (and modeled after Clampett himself) consistantly gets the better of Bugs; which seems just a tad uncharacteristic. One usually expects Bugs to emerge victorious in his cartoons; and one therefore cannot help but feel let down when watching this one, as funny as it is. In the latter cartoon Daffy Duck tries vainly to escape being served an induction letter from "the little man from the draft board". Daffy's double-takes and lightning-bolt exits make anything Tex Avery was doing at MGM during this period seem tame by comparison. The breakneck pace of the cartoon is simply astounding; and Daffy is spastic to the extreme. What incredible mood-swings this little black duck has! This cartoon is one of Clampett's finest; and having seen it again, minted like a new penny, I can understand to some degree John K's constant fawning over his hero.

Finally, we come to the extra features in this volume. As I mentioned in Part One, the additional original recording sessions are a treat for the ears and most revealing as to the way Stalling and Franklyn approached cartoon scoring.

The audio commentries, on the other hand, are a mixed bag; ranging in quality from highly-informative (Mike Barrier, Eric Goldberg, Daniel Goldmark, Paul Dini, and Joe Dante) to entertaining (Greg Ford, June Foray, and Bill Melendez), to just plain rambling (John Kricfalusi, although some of his bantering with Eddie Fitzgerald had me in stitches).

The outtake bridging sequences for "The Honeymousers" episode of The Bugs Bunny Show are entertaining enough, but I wish that the sequences had been presented within the context of the cartoon shorts they introduce. This could have been achieved by creating an link to the sequences within the extra features menu. I'm hoping that the next volume of LTGC will include a reconstructed complete episode with the three cartoons for that episode presented within their proper context; and that the cartoons could also be presented in their original theatrical format for comparison purposes. This was touched upon in the last volume, in that the opening scenes of the three cartoons featured as part of an episode were presented (albeit in black and white) via a lap-dissolve segue from the bridging sequences. As much as I am against colorization, I nevertheless feel that the black and white sequences could have been colorized to match the surviving color footage. Color charts for some episodes still exist and could have been used as a reference when restoring these episodes.

A children's book written by Frank Tashlin is admirably transferred to the screen in Jones' adaptation of The Bear That Wasn't. This cartoon was actually produced by Jones' SIB Tower 12 production company that he started at MGM following his departure from Warner Bros. in the early 1960's. The animation staff at the MGM unit consisted largely of Jones' old cronies from Warner Bros., including Abe Levitow, Ken Harris, Lloyd Vaughn, Ben Washam and designer Maurice Noble. Together they produced a new series of theatrical Tom and Jerry cartoons for MGM during the mid-to-late 1960's, as well as title and bridging sequences for the Saturday morning Tom and Jerry Show which aired on CBS. The Jones production unit at MGM was also responsible for the Acadamy Award-winning adaptation of Norman Juster's The Dot and the Line and the classic TV special of Dr. Seuss', How The Grinch Stole Christmas.

I was pleased that WHV had included another voice recording session with Mel Blanc for a different episode of The Bugs Bunny Show, entitled, Ball-Point Puns. It certainly makes for fascinating listening and illustrates just how much effort Blanc put into his voice characterizations. Consummate professional that he was, Blanc just rolled with the punches--whether being asked to do another take or waiting for a truck outside the studio to drive past.

The documentaries featured in this set are also of great value to the collector. Chuck Amuck: The Movie is a wonderful video companion to Jones' book of the same title and makes its first appearance on DVD here. What's Up, Doc: A Salute to Bugs Bunny contains a very special treat for Looney Tunes fans everywhere: an archival, unedited print of Tex Avery's 1940 Bugs Bunny cartoon--the one that indelibly stamped Bugs' persona on the collective American consciousness, A Wild Hare. This print includes the rare original opening title card and music cues, as well as a spoken reference to Carole Lombard (who died in a plane crash in 1942) that was re-dubbed as "Barbara Stanwyck" for the subsequent "Blue Ribbon" re-issue. The print obviously has not yet undergone the same painstaking restoration as the other cartoons included in this volume; but I am hoping, nay, pleading that WHV will see fit to bring this seminal film back to its original luster as much as humanly possible for LTGC4.


My overall rating for this volume, then, with one star being the lowest and four the highest is:

Visual Quality: ***(*) with slight reservations about the Private SNAFU shorts
Audio Quality: ****
Extra Features: ***(*) with slight reservations about The Bugs Bunny Show bridging sequences
Commentaries ***(*) with strong reservations about John K's remarks on Friz Freleng
Packaging ***(*) with slight reservations about the "collectible" animation cel included. At least in this one the characters actually look like themselves; not cheap knock-offs, as with the one included in the Tom and Jerry Spotlight Collection, Vol. 2