The best collection of Looney Tunes on DVD is the Golden collection in 6 volumes with 4 discs in every volume. The Warner animated shorts were generally divided into two series, Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes, and films from both are included despite the title of the collection. The series run from 1930 to 1969 with a couple of late-comers 1987 and 1988.
The Golden collection is a good start, but there are many more, and most of them can be found on You Tube. In my search for completeness I am checking, in chronological of course, the once I haven’t seeen. The quality varies, low resolution, strange stretching of the image, sound track in Spanish or Italian, or no sound track at all, because someone own the music. And all the title searchers don’t result in a hit, at least not on the film. A search today that included “tweet” and “Looney Tunes” gave Justin Bieber as a result.
I try to watch at least one every day and I am using three books to keep track of my results:
Beck/Friedwald: Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies. A complete illustrated guide to the Warner Bros. Cartoons; Friedwald/Beck: The Warner Brothers Cartoons; and Lenburg: The encyclopedia of animated cartoons.
The latter book lists the titles according to the animated characters. These I have compleated:
Amos ‘n’ Andy (RKO)
Babbit and Costello (WB)
Beaky Buzzard (WB)
Beans (WB)
Charlie Dog (WB)
Chip an’ Dale (Disney)
Claude Cat (WB)
Donald Duck
Droopy (MGM)
Felix the Cat (RKO)
Figaro (Disney)
Foxy (WB)
George and Junior (MGM)
Goofy
Goofy Gophers (WB)
Goopy Geer (WB)
Ham and Ex (WB)
Hubie and Bertie (WB)
Little Cheezer (MGM)
Marc Antony (WB)
Mickey Mouse
Piggy (WB)
Pluto
Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy (Famous)
Ralph Phillips (WB)
Silly Symphonies
Sniffles (WB)
Spike and Tyke (MGM)
Superman (Fleischer)
Tex Avery cartoons (MGM)
Toonerville Trolley (RKO)
Two Curious Puppies (WB)
Warner Bros. Cartoon Specials
Watched today: LT: Road Runner and Coyote: “Fastest with the mostest” USA 1960 Jones
When Road Runnder and Coyote first appeared in 1949 they were Warner’s liveliest animated characters, and the first films were full of inventive situations. But the concept was very limited and by 1960 the routines have not only become repetitious, but also badly executed. The later films seem to rely on the Coyote falling down from even bigger heights. This one is actually more painfull than funny. I hope he gets the bird in the final film.
A couple of years ago I realised that most of the books I bought ended up on the shelves. So at one point, I told myself: Every new book you buy you have to start reading the same day. Today I have three dangerously high piles of book surrounding my bed and another in the bathroom. I try to read 1-4 pages in as many books as possible before sleep overtakes, but it was a long time since I managed to get to the bottom in even one pile. Now, this is not quite as mad as it sounds. I try to limit myself to one novel (at the moment Zola’s L’argent in Swedish) and one crime novel (Freeling: Love in Amsterdam) at one time (but I’m afraid I got stuck half-way through Austen: The annontated Pride and prejudice and I haven’t paid much attention lately to Weiss: Die Ästhetik des Widerstand, although I got to the beginning of the third volume).
No, most of the books are of a kind you wouldn’t want to read too much of at one go, diaries, poems and a lot of factual books, history and travel. On the downside, it takes forever to get through most of the books. On the up side, I will finish a new book every now and then.
Whenever I finish a book I will endeavor to share my thoughts, if any, in this blogg. To give you an idea what you can expect, here’s my list of “active” reading items:
Tarkovskij: Martyrologion
The autobiography of Mark Twain, volume 1
Churchill: The second world war: 1. The gathering storm (another 5 volumes)
Muller: Rembrandt
Kiehn: Broncho Billy and the Essanay Company
Brecht on art and politics
The developing child
Dumaux: King Baggot
Film Curatorship
Lines of resistance
Koszarski: Fort Lee
Koszarski: Hollywood on the Hudson
Spehr: The man who made movies
DK Human
Cavalcade of the 1920s and 1930s
DK: Animal life
The entertainers
A historical atlas of the Jewish people
Austen: Pride and prejudice
The television detectives’ omnibus
The crime lover’s casebook
Schnitzler: Art of love
Swedish reflections
The portable Hawthorne
Everyman: Mexico
Insight: Chicago
The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English language
Wonderful inventions
Rayadhyaksha/Willemen: Indian cinema
Finler: The Hollywood story
Clarke/Crisp: The history of dance
Brummer: Anders Zorn
Stowe: The annotated Uncle Tom’s cottage
The annotated Walden
The rest of the books are in Swedish
Om & till Povel
Blom: Evita, Cats, Fantomen och de andra
För hundra år sedan
Stern: Ett litet barns dagbok
Allhem: Östergötland
Göteborg förr och nu III
Göteborg förr och nu:VIII Östra Nordstaden i Göteborg (and several more volumes waiting)
Göteborgs Historiska Museum: Årstryck 1975
Lagercrantz: Strindberg
Om vi inte minns fel. Karl Gerahard 1891-1991
Jul i Göteborg
Wessberg: Västra Hisingen
Krogliv
Kullander: Sveriges järnvägs historia
Fröding: Det forna Göteborg
Zola: Pengar
Stenström: Örgryte genom tiderna I-III
Schånberg: Göteborg
Det glada Göteborg
Oxelqvist: Göteborg i dikten
Atlestam: Fullbokat
Efter hundra år
Seger i Europa
Göteborg: Kulturhistoriskt värdefull bebyggelse 1
Göteborgarnas hus
DK: Havet
Lavery: Skepp
Konsten under den italienska renässansen
Roosvald: Boken om bokmässan
Ramel: Lingonben
Gerhard: Oss greker emellan
Engström: Medan det jäser
Weiss: Motståndets estetik
Henrikson: Verskonstens ABC
Buongiorno italia, vol 2
Leonardo Konstnären
Timm: Dröm och förbannad verklighet
Odstedt: Dan Andersson – liv och diktning
Bernstein: Att uppleva musik
Kronologiska anteckningar om viktigare händelser i Göteborg
agoraspeaks 