Permit me to geek out for a minute, cartoon-style.
Go buy the Looney Tunes - Golden Collection, Volume Three today. Read on for a quickie review.
I'm going to assume you know the basics about this DVD release and are very familiar with some of the shorts. If not, you might still be curious to look at some of the restoration screen captures I made below...they speak for themselves, really.
The Good News
- Amazing restorations. See for yourself:
- Restored titles:
- All shorts are unedited/uncut
- The introductory video (with warning/disclaimer about inappropriate content) by Whoopi Goldberg is not overtly apologetic and (thankfully) can be skipped
- No DVNR on Falling Hare (as originally believed)
- Tweety is pinkish as he should be (not yellow) in Gruesome Twosome
- The DVD menus are much better than the last two volumes
- An unrestored, but with original titles and dialog ("Cawole Wombard"), A Wild Hare is sitting in the "What's Up, Doc?" documentary on Disc 2 (I think this must be the same print as seen on the Golden Age of Looney Tunes Volume 5 Laserdisc set)
The Bad News
- The SNAFU shorts are not restored
- Thad Komorowski is reporting some minor DVNR on Hare Force and Gruesome Twosome
- Occasionally I see a couple minor hiccups in the color restoration. Two examples are on Hare Force and Hare Restorer where colours jump about from one frame to the next. These incidents are few and only once in each of the two cartoons that I noticed.
- Some people find the color restoration on some shorts too saturated, particularly The Gruesome Twosome. This may be a matter of opinion but on this particular short, I happen to agree.
- The commentaries by John Kricfalusi tend to be overly fanboyish of Bob Clampett while disparaging of other directors. While I don't mind hearing differing viewpoints on the works of Jones and Freleng, John K's commentaries cross the line between "fan" and "zealot" several times. It's a shame too, because Kricfalusi's commentaries usually contain a lot of insight and information.
- Only two shorts had their titles restored. About 8 or 9 still show as Blue Ribbon releases.