Looney Tunes - Golden Collection, Volume Three (2005)

Crazy Idjits

The Looney Tunes Golden Collection series has been a godsend for fans, but only serious collectors will probably be enthralled beyond this third volume. There are still plenty of classics herein, including some of my personal favorites that were not included in the first two sets, and that makes this third set worth the purchase. But the "greatest hits" strategy of the Golden Collection, with the cartoon shorts compiled categorically rather than chronologically, inevitably runs out of steam with most of the funniest shorts piled up in about the first one and a half volumes. In turn, even the second volume had a fair amount of less-than-classic filler, and here in the third volume there are many early-period and late-period items that are outside of the Warner Bros. golden age and offer diminishing returns for fans of the classics.

For instance, there is a serious problem with Disc 2, a collection of Hollywood parodies, most of which are so old and non-character-driven that it's a real struggle to figure out the point of the parodies and who's being caricatured. This third volume is also showing some strain with the bonus features, though there is some historical interest in documentaries about the Warner Bros. efforts in WWII and some ancient treasures from the vaults. But fortunately this set is saved by a smattering of all-time masterpieces that were not squeezed into the first two volumes, and one overall redeeming feature here is a disc devoted to Porky Pig, particularly his early starring runs in which the Warner Bros. team experimented with many of the forms later perfected with Bugs Bunny,

And finally, I'm throwing in my hat with fans who are sick to death of the politically correct warnings from Whoopi Goldberg about those old unfortunate racial caricatures. We all know those caricatures were ignorant and sometimes they added objectionable prejudice to the classic cartoons that we love. But we don't need Time Warner to tell us what to think, and these warnings are tailored for people who would never even watch these discs - either humorless thought police or bigots who are stupid enough to convert ancient stereotypes into modern hatred. Whoopi comes on automatically with her paternalistic warning in each of these discs, but within one second you can hit the Menu button and navigate to the cartoons themselves. And despite the aforementioned problems with compilation, there are still enough classics in this volume to help you ignore what modern producers think about your love of the best American humor and animation. [~doomsdayer520~] December 29, 2008

Looney Tunes - Golden Collection, Volume Three

They just don't make cartoons like these any more. I laugh out loud when I watch them and this Christmas I am giving them as gifts for posterity! December 13, 2008

Looney Tunes Golden Collection Vol 3

This is a great collection of Looney Tunes. Makes three of the five collections I own and a welcome addition. Recommend it highly. September 11, 2008

Looney Toons vol. 3

Got tired of getting up on Saturdays with wierd cartoons on my TV. Said to myself what ever happened to bugs and daffy, well I found them. June 29, 2008

Looney Tunes - Golden Collection, Volume Three

This is, easily, the weakest set of the first three volumes of Looney Tunes. There are still four discs with a total of 60 animated shorts. The first disc is titled Bugs Bunny classics & has 15 cartoons, almost all of them are classics. Like the first two volumes, the first disc, featuring Bugs Bunny, is the best disc of the set. Disc Two is titled Hollywood Caricatures & Parodies. IO was looking forward to this one but it turned out to be lame. It barely has any appearances by the classic Looney Tunes characters. Some of these are black & white, many of them coming from the thirties. The third disc is titled Porky & the Pigs is even less impressive than disc two. This disc has five or six cartoons in black & white that are, also, from the thirties. We do get to see the evolvement of Porky Pig through the first few cartoons. Discs two & three are probably important from a historical viewpoint &, though I'm a bit of a historical buff, I don't really need it. Don't get me wrong, there are some good cartoons on these two discs, most of them occurring near the end of each disc. There are even some characters that many fans will barely remember. Disc four in the first two volumes was the weakest but in this volume is the second best of the set. It's titled All-Star Cartoon Party & that's exactly what it is. The fifteen cartoons on this disc actually made me feel I was watching a TV version of Looney Tunes because it presented so many of the characters we've come to know; Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Tweety, Sylvester, Foghorn Leghorn, Speedy Gonzalez, Road Runner, Wile E. Coyote, Sam the Sheepdog &, the original incarnation of Coyote: Ralph Wolf. This disc also has a couple of other characters that we're familiar with.

This is a so-so collection of Looney Tunes but it doesn't compare very well to the first two volumes. As in the first two sets there are a ton of extras included in the collection; all feature the same introduction with Whoopi Goldberg. This set may be a little bit more for the historian but it's still enjoyable, nevertheless. I would suggest that the buyer waits until this set goes on sale, it's not worth the MSRP. June 20, 2008

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