The Woody Woodpecker and Friends Classic Cartoon Collection | Mel Blanc

The Woody Woodpecker and Friends Classic Cartoon Collection | Mel Blanc | Just like what I remembered!

DVDs:

The Woody Woodpeck...

	The Woody Woodpecker and Friends Classic Cartoon Collection Mel Blanc Universal Studios, 2007 average customer review:based on 53 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Relive all of the hilarious, crazy adventures of Woody Woodpecker, everyone's favorite wacky red-headed bird, in The Woody Woodpecker and Friends Classic Cartoon Collection! Created by renowned cartoonist Walter Lantz, these 75 original theatrical cartoons - all digitally remastered and completely uncut - showcase some of the wildest antics in animation history. Join Woody and his friends Chilly Willy, Andy Panda, Wally Walrus and Buzz Buzzard in hours of outrageous adventures. Featuring rare treasures from the Walter Lantz archive, including Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Cartune Classic and Swing Symphony cartoons, this side-splitting collection will keep fans laughing out loud time and time again!

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Collectors REJOICE!!!! / Parents BEWARE...

Let me start with my opinion and then move on to details; this is an ungodly great collection of animated shorts spanning the breadth of Walter Lantz's heyday. This collection contains 75 animated short in all their pristine, somewhat un-restored, original glory. Collectors can buy this without reservation based on the price, quality of the product and the sheer amount of unedited material.
As great as this collection is, I cannot caution parents more strongly about buying this for your kids, let alone letting them watch it without supervision. As stated in the amazon synopsis and on the box of the DVD set; much of this is entertainment originally intended for adults during the WWII era. Unless you have no qualms about your kids watching cartoons with racial and sexual bigotry, sexual suggestion, violence and vice, I highly suggest you pre-view this material prior to letting your kids watch.

With that said, lets move on to the details; first details for collectors/grownups and then more info to help parents out.

COLLECTORS

I'm going to try and not repeat much of what's been said in many of the good reviews here. My efforts will be more focused on the DVD quality and what you may or may not remember about "Woody Woodpecker and Friends" when compared to its contemporaries and why I think this is such a great collection.

-A WORD ABOUT "RESTORATION"
A few reviews here voice disappointment over shorts in this collection not being "restored" to their original brilliance. There has also been mention of some edge trimming of certain shorts but I have yet to notice them (I have no point of reference). Evidence of the sinister DVNR process is limited (certainly not as bad as appears in "Tex Avery's Droopy"). I would argue that these "un-restored" films are mostly in their "original brilliance". Upon release, none of these films were ever viewed without scratches, dust, hair and any number of flaws. The shorts in this collection appear to be from excellent master material; the color very vibrant, the pictures only mildly blemished, the sound deep and resonant (but not without flaw). My advice to Universal Studios; if the quality of all your master prints are this good, don't bother restoring them. This might be the reason this set is relatively inexpensive.

-FULL ANIMATION IS NOT ALWAYS GREAT ANIMATION.
Don't get me wrong; most of these shorts are very good animation. However, when compared to their contemporaries (Warner Brothers, MGM, Paramount/Fleischer, and Disney) Lantz's animation studio was a bit of a stepchild. The problems were not always animation technique or artistic prowess as much as animation style. Good animators are also good actors. Even with Mel Blanc doing the voice for the first 4 shorts, the character animation is lacking in expressiveness and refined, meaningful motion. As a result, the early shorts have jokes and gags that aren't quite as funny as they could be in the hands of great animators and writers. However, the early animators were technically very good, high quality artists. Other technical problems include fluctuations in coloring, continuity gaffes (things disappear, then reappear, etc.), and some strange voice-over anomalies (character voice changes or voices from nowhere). All that said I enjoy the older Lantz efforts for their sheer craziness and detailed drawing style.

-OLDER IS NOT ALWAYS BETTER (BUT SOMETIMES IT IS)
An actual high point of the Lantz studio brought Woody Woodpecker near par with the other studios. Late in the 1940s several Disney transplants upgraded the already good animation in Lantz's studio. However, you will notice a slight softening of Woody Woodpecker. He becomes more the vengeful foil rather than the zany antagonist. Despite the improvement in animation style, the stories themselves start to lose their crazy, comedic edge. However, if you like your cartoon stories more narrative based than sight-gag based, this is a good thing. As Woody moves into the 50s, he becomes a fairly passive (yet mischievous) character and the animation loses some of its wild pacing and expressiveness. All that said, I can't say any of them are really bad (actually, most of them are still pretty good).

-TEX AVERY SHORTS ARE A BARGAIN AT ANY PRICE
Is there an animation fan that does not go nuts over Tex Avery cartoons? In this collection we get 4 of them; "The Legend of Rockabye Point", "I'm Cold", "Crazy Mixed up Pup" and "Sh-h-h-h-h-h". "Crazy Mixed-up Pup" might be one of Tex's best. Add this to the "Droopy" and "Looney Tunes" collections and Tex Avery's catalogue starts to fill out. The MGM library (Turner?) really needs to get moving!

-THEY ARE UNCUT (AND IN ORDER)
These shorts are obviously (mostly?) uncut. Based on the amount of bigotry in some of these films, it is clear little if anything was left out. As far as I know, most of these shorts were cut or not shown at all for television. So you can stop your griping (if you ever did); all the violence, sex and ugliness of the 30s, 40s and 50s is here to view. Sometimes this is great. Sometimes it's downright embarrassing. No matter how you feel about "questionable" content, the choice of what we show our kids has been given to us; REJOICE!!

The perfect segue to....

PARENTS

Outside the normal cartoon violence you can expect in any animated short made before 1965, most of the cartoons in this collection are fairly kid-safe. If you have trouble with your kids seeing cartoon violence, don't even bother buying this. However, if you are still inclined to let your kids watch, in a vast collection as this, a significant number of shorts contain sexually suggestive or bigoted material that an animation fan like me will not let my kids see for good reason. Let me reiterate; kids were usually not the intended audience.

I have devised a little guide to help parents decide if this is a collection they would share with their kids or at least help parents be more selective when watching with their kids. Again, my advice is this; view them before showing to your kids.

LEGEND:
SEX (could include any/combinations of the following); Alluring walks, Full body engorgements, Shapely women in very tight and revealing clothing, Men and women dramatically swooning for each other, men ogling curvy women.

BIGOTRY; Stereotypes of many races and cultures (mostly African descent, some Asian, Native American, Middle-Eastern and Appalachian American), Natives as sub-humans, the term "China-boy", Blacks in roles of servitude, segregation, African American stereotypical language.

VICE; Depictions of inebriation, Drug references, Smoking and Gambling.

DISC ONE;
VICE; 1, 24. SEX; 1, 3, 14,15. BIGOTRY; 3, 12, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25.

DISC TWO;
VICE; 4, 7, 18. SEX; 12, 23, 24. BIGOTRY; 16, 22, 23, 24.

DISC THREE;
VICE; 13, 16, 21, 22, 24. SEX; 12, 14, 22. BIGOTRY; 14, 21, 22, 23, 24.

Please keep in mind that this is just a guide (and I can't guarantee I caught all the "Smoking" episodes). This looks like an overwhelming amount of "questionable" material. To be fair, much of it is what I consider "mild" or fairly innocent; that's my opinion. However, this guide is here to help you decide for yourself. You will notice that 19 of the "offending" shorts are in the "20s" range (more than half). These are the added "Swing Symphonies" and "Cartune Classics" and not "Woody Woodpecker". These have what I think is the most offensive content and the ones I wont' let my kids watch for the most part.

SYNOPSIS
When you add it all up, this is a nearly perfect collection. The fact that I feel the need to warn parents serves notice to collectors that you can rejoice that these uncut shorts are available in such a huge collection. Though DVNR was used, it is rarely evident. The quality is not always perfect but still very good. Considering the nice packaging, price and the amount of uncut content, I have to give this collection 5 Stars. For parents, I can't recommend this as a gift for younger kids or as a "plug and play". If you care about what your kids see, you need to be a participant while they watch this. Sorry for the length. I hope you find this helpful.

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Just like what I remembered!

This dvd is terrific. I remember most of the cartoons on this dvd. I am satisfied and happy with it. Truly a classic addition to my collection. :D

woody woodpecker

excellent...recommend this for everyone. if you want to laugh then let this set do it for you. classic humor.

Years upon years of waiting was worth it

In a home video market where theatrical cartoons are experiencing the red carpet treatment, this was bound to happen. Unfortunately, the only previous release of Woody Woodpecker on DVD was through Columbia House, and a fair amount of the cartoons were cut for television. Fortunately, this set's 75 cartoons are presented unedited, although it's worth noting that Toyland Premiere and Banquet Busters have the reissue opening titles instead of the original. This shouldn't detract from your enjoyment, though.

Since Woody cartoons (let alone the Lantz studio's output in general) have been all but neglected on home video up until now, this set also contains 30 non-Woody Lantz cartoons, five of which are from Universal's Oswald the Lucky Rabbit output (a character created by Walt Disney, whose company now owns the rights to the character). A fair amount of these cartoons are new to home video, including the aforementioned Oswald toons.

The video and audio quality is good, but not as spectacular as the Looney Tunes DVDs. One problem with a fair amount of the cartoons on the set is the soundtracks are very, very hissy. There are times when they literally sound like they were ripped from cassette tapes. The video can also sometimes vary in quality, from clear and colourful to reasonably scratchy. But there are never scenes where dialogue is inaudible, or the visuals look like overused stock footage. These video/audio issues shouldn't detract from your enjoyment if you just want the cartoons. Just don't go in expecting Looney Tunes-level restoration.

This set presents all of the 1940's cartoons, and some of the 1950's cartoons up until Termites from Mars. Something notable about most of the 1950's cartoons on the set is that Grace Stafford (who became Woody's voice starting in 1950) only supplies Woody's laugh; indeed, these shorts are almost completely bereft of dialogue. It's an interesting experiment to see cartoons that completely rely on visuals.

The Woody Woodpecker Show segments (as well as the complete episode) are interesting for their nostalgia value that many (including myself) have from watching the show in syndication. "Spook-a-Nanny", the full episode, is a rather surreal affair featuring almost all of Lantz's characters in one place. Before that segment, the cartoons "Under the Counter Spy" and "Playful Pelican" are shown. The former is included on Volume 2, and the latter will likely be released in the near future. The "Walter, Woody and the Wild World of Animation" feature was included on Universal's very first release of Woody cartoons on home video back in 1982, so it is great to have it for completion's sake. It features an in-joke where Woody expresses his embarrassment at being voiced by a woman, which is rather amusing.

This is a great release, for all its flaws. I will gladly buy all of these DVD sets, even the ones that feature non-stop Paul J. Smith mediocrity (i.e., all the Woody cartoons produced from 1956-1972).

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Rare Classics finally on DVD

This DVD is a great representation of the Walter Lantz Studio: in addition to Woody Woodpecker's best cartoons are the rarely seen surreal, black and white Oswald the Lucky Rabbit shorts from the 30's, the jazzy Swing Symphonies of the 40's, and four classic Tex Avery directed cartoons from the 50's. They are presented under their own theme heading in chronological order, uncensored, making it easier to see the progression of the characters and the studio as a whole.

In my opinion, the period between 1943 to 1948 represents the high point of quality at the Lantz Studio, and most of those cartoons are contained on this DVD. The Lantz cartoons vacillated between Disney cuteness (Andy Panda) and Warner Bros. rowdyism (Woody Woodpecker), but was neither as slick as Disney, nor as truly funny as the Looney Tunes. However, they are still quite good, even if they don't measure up to the best of those other two studios. If you love classic animated cartoons, then this set is a great bargain. Woody is at his anarchistic apex in the 40's cartoons, and it's a revelation if one has only seen the tamer, poorly animated Woody from the 50's. (Like The Simpsons today, a lot of cartoons from the 40's were not meant for small children. Some of the cartoons on this set contain ethnic humor, good ol' fun slapstick violence, "cheesecake" sexy girls, drinking and other sublime pleasures.)

While the selection of the cartoons is topnotch, the set is not perfect. Nearly half of the cartoons are slightly marred by the DVNR (digital video noise reduction) process, which "smears" the ink lines on the characters (apparently, the computer assumes the ink line to be scratches on the film and "erases" them). I've seen worse on other sets, but it's still noticeable here to those with a sharp eye. Some of the prints are high in contrast and the film grain is quite prominent. It's a shame Universal didn't do a proper restoration, as these cartoons would definitely benefit with their glorious full technicolor hues at their sharpest. Still, this set is the only way you can see the cartoons these days, so I highly recommend it.

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