‘Looney Tunes Platinum Collection Volume Two’

Warner Brothers has six volumes of Looney Tunes Golden Collection on DVD, and now they’ve started a “platinum” collection on Blu-Ray. Volume 2 of this Platinum Collection (also released, unnecessarily, in a DVD version without commentaries or the third disc of extras) features a somewhat random collection of 50 cartoons. Aside from the HD upgrade, what does this set offer fans?

1. Porky in Wackyland (1938). Porky Pig hunts the lost Do-Do through a mysterious landscape inspired by Salvador Dali in one of the most surreal cartoons ever made. Professional cartoonists voted it at #8 in the 1994 book The 50 Greatest Cartoons, and the Library of Congress put it on the National Film Registry. This black and white cartoon was remade in color as Dough for the Do-Do, which it would have been appropriate to include for comparison. Instead, it’s currently in Vol. 1 of Looney Tunes of Golden Collection.

2. 10 of the cartoons here weren’t included in the Golden Collection DVDs.

3. Rabbit Fire, Rabbit Seasoning and Duck, Rabbit! Duck!, referred to in the PR as Chuck Jones’ hunting trilogy, are the classics where Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck duel over whether it’s rabbit season or duck season before Elmer Fudd can shoot them. These are sublime on a level with the best Abbott & Costello routines, with gunfire.

4. Also included is the entire “Tortoise and Hare” trilogy, where Bugs is bested by Cecil Turtle, and all four cartoons with Beaky Buzzard (a-yup, a-yup, a-yup).

5. Disc 3 includes bonus material on various creators, plus miscellanous historical-interest cartoons. However, the real draw here (since Warners also owns the MGM library) is the inclusion of 11 MGM items by Tex Avery, including Red Hot Riding Hood, Swing Shift Cinderella, King-Size Canary and Symphony in Slang. It will have to do until they finally cough up a complete MGM Avery set.