The Thad Review: “Looney Tunes Collector’s Choice” Vol. 4

Good news this November after all! Warner Archive Collection’s Looney Tunes Collector’s Choice Vol. 4 Blu-Ray will be available for all on Nov. 26th. (And for any stragglers, a multi-disc set with all four volumes goes on sale at the same time for a ridiculously low price.) It’s been a while since the last volume, so get a refresher here (vol. 1 link), here (vol. 2 link), and here (vol. 3 link).

A slightly different approach this time: this disc has a whopping 27 cartoons, with three of them newly (and beautifully) restored for this release: Holiday for Drumsticks, Muzzle Tough, and Peck Up Your Troubles. Most cartoons are still from that bounty of restored masters for Max that debuted in 2020, and while they don’t look as good as the three just personally supervised by Warner Archive head George Feltenstein, they all still look fine, save The Impatient Patient, which, like Daffy’s Southern Exposure on Vol. 2, looks far too overprocessed (were the camera negatives even used for these two?). Once again, Warner Archive did their best to disguise the problematic Adobe Suite errors in the opening and closing titles of those masters, though not perfectly (the “synthetic grain” applied to the titles to get rid of the “digital” look is a little overwhelming compared to the main cartoons, and Leghorn Swoggled now has a jump cut rather than a dissolve in the titles).

Two cartoons are listed as “bonus”, since they’ve appeared on disc before. But they’re reappearing for good reason. Lighter Than Hare and Stork Naked are presented correctly after being issued in claustrophobic cropped versions on DVD in 2010 (as a result of corporate policy and misinterpretation of Warner cartoon history). Fearless Leader Jerry Beck notes that these two (and most of the cartoons on the Looney Tunes Super Stars discs) were transferred from interpositives and not the original negatives, so they may look a bit worse for wear. Still, it’s hard to not appreciate that a very funny Freleng cartoon like Stork Naked (which was animated before the 1953 studio shutdown, so widescreen should have never been a factor in mastering) is now available in high-definition as intended.

Even four volumes in, there are plenty of beloved classics left in the Warner library. This disc almost acts as a retrospective of Friz Freleng, covering all eras of that born entertainer’s directorial career, and also one of both Daffy Duck and Sylvester, seen here in most of their incarnations and with most of their “pals”. But there are plenty of favorites from the other directors (including one that’s partly by Bob Clampett!) and characters too. Notes and commentary follow…

Along Came Daffy (1947, Friz Freleng)
Daffy as a salesduck up north, peddling cookbooks to a pair of starving Yosemite Sam twins.

A Bone for a Bone (1951, Freleng)
Layout man Hawley Pratt redesigns the Goofy Gophers for this delightful and underrated outing with the pair’s card game interrupted by a dopey dog. It’s easy to imagine the gags by Ben Hardaway (freelancing a story for just this cartoon) falling flat in, say, a contemporary Dick Lundy Lantz cartoon. But even something as protracted as the “arm” getting run over by a truck comes off flawless thanks to Freleng’s showmanship.

The Cagey Canary (1941, started by Tex Avery, finished by Bob Clampett)
Seeds of the Sylvester and Tweety formula sprout here with the nameless cat and canary, along with the “be quiet or else” standard that shaped so many rowdy domestic classics. There’s almost something suffocating about the influence Bob McKimson has over the animation (only Rod Scribner refuses to be tamed), an influence Clampett would eventually abate in his own cartoons.

D’ Fightin’ Ones (1961, Freleng)
Sylvester and an unnamed canine are fugitives from the dog pound, and must journey the countryside handcuffed together. Probably the last truly great Freleng cartoon, one that plays the racial tension of the 1958 Sidney Poitier/Tony Curtis movie of a similar name for laughs (“switchblade claw”).

Dangerous Dan McFoo (1939, Avery)
One of Avery’s best for Warners that introduces Arthur Q. Bryan to the world of animation. Some groundbreaking cutting and timing makes this quite a bit more interesting than Avery’s remake Shooting of Dan McGoo at MGM (only the window dressing of Red Hot Riding Hood saves it).

Devil’s Feud Cake (1963, Freleng)
Miserable cutdown of the Yosemite Sam escapes Hell cheater story Freleng loved so much. He used it twice, before as an episode of The Bugs Bunny Show, and later as a segment of The Looney, Looney, Looney Bugs Bunny Movie, to much greater effect with 20 minutes at his disposal each time. The only saving grace is the ending (used in all three versions). “Ah’m stayin!’” Keith Scott notes that Jerry Hausner voices Bugs Bunny for just a couple of pickup lines in the dubbed Hare Lift footage, marking the first time someone other than Mel Blanc voiced the greatest cartoon character of all-time in an official cartoon (it was right after Mel’s auto accident, and many thought he wouldn’t make it).

Double Chaser (1942, Freleng)
Freleng and Mike Maltese prove they could probably do a funnier Tom & Jerry cartoon in their sleep with this entry, in which the mouse accidentally kills himself.

Double or Mutton (1955, Chuck Jones)
Another workday for Sam Sheepdog and Ralph Wolf (first identified as such here), which includes an unpersuasive Little Bo Peep outfit and a fast-acting hair tonic that doesn’t affect visibility.

Fox Pop (1942, Jones)
One of Jones’s first attempts at pure comedy, with a fox very mistaken about the intentions of a furrier advertisement. Later remade as a comic book story with the juvenile funnybooks interpretation of Bugs in the fox’s role.

Henhouse Henery (1949, Robert McKimson)
McKimson tries to maintain interest in Henery Hawk’s antics, but his heart is clearly in the continuing battle of Foghorn Leghorn and Barnyard Dawg, which reaches new violent extremes in a hysterically prolonged sequence with Foggy making a weapon in a woodshop. The beautiful new restoration highlights some truly putrid Dick Thomas backgrounds (arguably the worst art direction in a ‘40s Warner cartoon).

Holiday for Drumsticks (1949, Art Davis)
The last of Davis’ Daffys, and maybe the very best, which is saying something considering it’s holding its own brand of cynical evilness as a sequel to the Chuck Jones classic Tom Turk and Daffy. This time Daffy “saves” Tom Turk from becoming Thanksgiving dinner for feudin’ inbred hillbillies. A masterclass in animation acting through movement, particularly the opening and closing minutes by Emery Hawkins.

Hopalong Casualty (1960, Jones)
Overdue for release, this Road Runner-Coyote chase has arguably the last masterwork pratfall of the series: the Acme Earthquake Pills (animated by Ken Harris).

Hyde and Go Tweet (1960, Freleng)
Probably the most famous of all the Freleng Tweety and Sylvester cartoons, it’s baffling it took a quarter of a century for a restored release. You know it: the ultimate entry in Freleng’s Jekyll and Hyde subseries with a nightmarish version of Tweety that’s become the stuff of character design legend. “I’ve got a choice?”

The Impatient Patient (1942, Norm McCabe)
Another “Jerkyll” cartoon, and the other ‘safe’ Daffy cartoon from Norm McCabe (the third, The Daffy Duckaroo, remains at large), which ends with Daffy beating an infant. I trolled historian Greg Ford at Film Forum in NYC years ago asking him which of the McCabe cartoons were his favorites. His response: “The one with ‘Chloe’.”

Leghorn Swoggled (1951, McKimson)
Henery is almost phased out of his own series by this point, but not before he barters with Barnyard Dawg, a cat, and mouse in his pursuit of Foghorn Leghorn. Adapted the following year as a kiddie Capitol Record, Henery Hawk’s Chicken Hunt.

Meatless Flyday (1944, Freleng)
Oddball entry with an obnoxious spider (voiced by Cy Kendall, not Tex Avery, identified in studio documentation found by Keith Scott) pursuing a fly in vain. Freleng shows way more interest in the pursuer and makes the pursued a bland entity, a trap he’d fall into too often in his later Sylvester and Tweety cartoons.

Mouse-Warming (1952, Jones)
Claude Cat tries to catch a teenaged mouse pining for his new neighbor sweetie. For as cutesy as it is, Jones still gets in some great poses of his beloved neurotic feline (and a few erection jokes with the boy mouse’s hair). Though laid out by Robert Gribbroek, the opening titles were designed by Maurice Noble (beginning his long stint as one of Jones’s closest collaborators).

The Mouse-Merized Cat (1946, McKimson)
The last of the Babbitt and Catstello cartoons, and easily the most forgotten and weakest (it has heavy competition), but the lively animation and reads from Mel Blanc and Tedd Pierce still make this fun.

Muscle Tussle (1953, McKimson)
Scrawny little ten-pound weakling Daffy versus a musclehead bully for his gal’s affections at the beach. This relatively witless entry has been a lifelong personal favorite of mine, as it and a few other McKimson cartoons (like Raw! Raw! Rooster!) taught me the valuable lesson that assholes will always be there to screw you out of what you love. “I only like ‘em if they’re tall, dark, and gruesome… like you!”

Muzzle Tough (1954, Freleng)
Due to their popularity and the need for them in the studio’s schedule, Freleng’s Sylvester and Tweety cartoons got a little too rote too fast. But a cartoon like this (with a titular pun that would make even the guys at Famous Studios groan) shows immense care in its craft, giving both characters and the supporting cast, Granny and Hector, plenty of funny business and acting to do. Gags include Sylvester being forced to move a piano out a six-story window by Tweety and Granny using a gun to foil the cat’s bearskin disguise.

Peck Up Your Troubles (1945, Freleng)
The notorious Sylvester cartoon with the non-descript woodpecker, the character producer Eddie Selzer inexplicably wanted paired with Sylvester instead of Tweety. Another one long overdue for restoration, as the circulating transfers obscured some exquisite art direction by Pratt and Paul Julian (the cartoon takes place during those AM hours where the sun is creeping up but the moon and stars are still visible). To answer the question, this is still the Blue Ribbon reissue.

Quack Shot (1954, McKimson)
Daffy does his best to murder duck hunter Elmer Fudd in this awkward entry written by animator Phil De Lara (who was already drawing far more pleasant Daffy and Elmer stories for Western Publishing). All the “woo-hooing” and gaudy Scribner animation can’t hide the fact that McKimson’s miserable prick vision of the duck long predated the days he chased Speedy.

Speaking of Speedy…

Road to Andalay (1964, Freleng)
So it’s come to this… One of the post-classic studio shorts has turned up in an official HD release. The animation is now limited and Speedy Gonzales is the star character to appease the international market (where he remains incredibly popular). Particularly violent with lots of bodily abuse to Sylvester and Malcom the Falcon. They’d only get increasingly worse. I suppose these have their place, but this collector’s choice for the place for these DePatie-Freleng/Format Films/Seven Arts shorts is the dumpster. At least make sure every 1930-1963 Warner cartoon is released in high-definition first.

The Sneezing Weasel (1938, Avery)
Another historic Avery cartoon, in which he introduces the concept of the comic villain in the titular character (which he voices himself), largely animated by Irv Spence.

Streamlined Greta Green (1937, Freleng)
The earliest cartoon in the program, one that illustrates how Freleng took Avery’s influence to heart with some speed and cutting he wouldn’t have thought to try a year earlier. Ironically, this living cars story, with its hotrod wannabe kid getting in a trainwreck, would actually get remade by Avery over a decade later at MGM as One Cab’s Family.

Bonus Cartoons:

Lighter Than Hare (1960, Freleng)
By 1960, the Bugs versus Sam dynamic was a well run dry, endearingly ridiculous as “Yosemite Sam of Outer Space” is.

Stork Naked (1955, Freleng)
The drunken stork returns, this time to deliver a bundle of joy to Daffy, who essentially spends the film trying to perform an abortion.

Regardless of whether or not the Collector’s Choice series in name will continue, producers George Feltenstein and Jerry Beck deserve a round of thanks for curating a fine set of nearly 100 restored Warner cartoons specifically for the target audience in such a short period of time and actually getting it out in a harsh, unforgiving market. Along with the new MeTV Toons network launched this year, collector’s really do have more choice than ever for where to get their classic animation fix. Keep it comin’!