Looney Tunes Golden Collection

Original DVD cover for the first volume entitled "The Looney Tunes Golden Collection".

Looney Tunes Golden Collection is a yearly series of four-disc DVD box sets from Warner Bros.' home video unit Warner Home Video, each containing about 60 Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies animated shorts. The series started on October 28, 2003, and ended on October 21, 2008, spanning six volumes.

Background

The series began in October 2003, with Warner Bros. following the lead established by Disney's Walt Disney Treasures DVD box sets by releasing their own animation for the collector's market. Unlike most previous sets at the time, cartoons from the Associated Artists Productions, Sunset Productions, and post-1948 packages were included at once, due to the merger of Turner Entertainment merger with Time Warner, who originally held the rights to separate packages.

The majority of the cartoons included on the set are uncut, unedited, and digitally restored and remastered from the original successive Technicolor film negatives, or in the case of the black and white shorts, the original black and white negatives. However, some of the cartoons in these collections are derived from the Blue Ribbon reissues due to their original title negative being lost.

Beginning with Volume 3, a warning was printed on the packaging explaining that the collection is intended for adults and the content may not be suitable for children. Volume 3 had a special, skippable introduction by Whoopi Goldberg, who is a fan of the Warner Bros. cartoon shorts, explaining that the cartoons chosen are products of their time and may contain content that wouldn't be considered acceptable to modern viewers, mostly scenes featuring outdated racial and ethnic caricatures, but will be shown uncut because "...to censor them would be like saying [these prejudices] never existed...". Volumes 4 through 6 have a title card instead of a live introduction that explains the same points about how the cartoon shorts contain content that isn't considered "politically correct" by today's standards, but will be shown anyway for historic reasons.

The DVDs also feature several special features including interviews/documentaries of the people behind the cartoons such as Chuck Jones, Friz Freleng, Ben Hardaway, Cal Dalton, Bob Clampett, Tex Avery, Carl Stalling, and Mel Blanc, pencil tests, and audio commentaries by animation historians Jerry Beck, Michael Barrier, Greg Ford.

While each Golden Collection provides a healthy dose of Bugs Bunny cartoons (as well as Porky Pig), additional focal points have varied in each year's release. Volume 1 primarily focused on cartoons by directors Chuck Jones and Friz Freleng from the 1950s. Volume 2 paid tribute with Bob Clampett and Tex Avery shorts from the 1940s. Volume 2 is also more character-specific, with disc 2 focusing on Road Runner/Wile E. Coyote and disc 3 putting the spotlight on Tweety and Sylvester, as well as six additional cartoons featuring Porky and Daffy. Volume 3 paid a small tribute to often-overlooked animation director Frank Tashlin and cartoons featuring Hollywood caricatures. Volume 4 continues to honor to Frank Tashlin and Friz Freleng and features several Speedy Gonzales cartoons. Volume 5 pays another tribute to Bob Clampett, and is the first to feature an entire disc of black & white cartoons (mostly dedicated to Porky Pig). Volume 6 followed suit, except with Bosko, Buddy, and various Merrie Melodies from the early 1930s.

Along with the release of the Golden Collections, WB also released the Looney Tunes Spotlight Collection series, which packaged only half of the cartoons of the Golden Collection on two DVDs, which was aimed for the family-friendly market and as a budget option compared to the Golden Collection. The exception to this practice was in 2005, with Warner Home Video instead released the Looney Tunes Movie Collection, which featured two new-to-DVD features: The Bugs Bunny Road-Runner Movie and Bugs Bunny's 3rd Movie: 1001 Rabbit Tales.

Discontinuation

By the release of the fifth volume, sales of the collection had dwindled, making it harder to create the budget to restore the cartoons properly. According to Jerry Beck from an episode of the radio show Stu's Show, after the release of the fifth volume, the team was informed that said volume would be the last volume of the series. However, under heavy demand from the restoration team, the sixth volume was greenlit as the final volume.

The Golden Collection would ultimately be succeeded by the Looney Tunes Platinum Collection.

Reissues

A reissued boxed-set containing all of the volumes at once was released on December 27, 2011. Additionally, in early 2020, each volume was reissued separately in standard Amaray-style cases; the latter reissues continue to remain in print to this day.

Controversy

A handful of cartoons in the first two volumes, alongside a few of the bonus cartoons in the sixth volume, had digital video noise reduction applied to their restorations, which unintentionally erases or blurs some of the picture on certain scenes of the cartoons, which has caused controversy among some Looney Tunes collectors. The most recent collections, however, have largely abandoned such noise reduction.

Releases

Cover	Title	Released	Description
	Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 1	October 28, 2003	Contains a selection of cartoons from 1940 to 1959 including "Rabbit of Seville". It also contains a "prototype Bugs Bunny" cartoon, "Elmer's Candid Camera". Volume 1 contains 56 cartoons, all of which were in color. In total, counting "(Blooper) Bunny!", it has 57 cartoons.
	Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 2	November 2, 2004	Contains a broader selection of cartoons from 1936 to 1958 including shorts "What's Opera, Doc?" and "I Love to Singa". Volume 2 contains 60 cartoons: 58 in color and 2 in black & white. In total, counting bonus cartoons, there are 62 cartoons, 59 in color and 3 in black & white.
	Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 3	October 25, 2005	Contains an even broader selection of cartoons, mostly from 1935 to 1963 including such popular shorts as "Robin Hood Daffy", "Hillbilly Hare", and the Academy Award winner "Birds Anonymous". Additional features include three Private Snafu cartoons, a 1963 television show pilot entitled Philbert, and two Harman-Ising era shorts: "Sinkin' in the Bathtub", the first Looney Tunes short ever, and "It's Got Me Again!", the first WB cartoon nominated for an Academy Award. Volume 3 contains 60 cartoons: 42 color and 18 black & white. If counting bonus cartoons, there are 66 cartoons, 42 color and 24 black & white.
	Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 4	November 14, 2006	Contains selections ranging from 1936 to 1966. The set focuses not only on Bugs Bunny, but also on Speedy Gonzales and on obscure cats. There is also an entire disc dedicated to director Frank Tashlin. Volume 4 contains 60 cartoons: 52 color and 8 black & white. If counting bonus cartoons, there are 66 cartoons, 54 in color and 12 in black & white.
	Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 5	October 30, 2007	Disc One features Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, Disc Two features fairy tale parodies, Disc Three features the work of director Bob Clampett, and Disc Four features Porky Pig and other classics. special features include the 2000 PBS documentary "Chuck Jones: Extremes and In-Betweens, a Life in Animation." Volume 5 contains 60 cartoons: 41 color and 19 black & white. if counting bonus cartoons, there are 65 cartoons, 41 in color and 24 in black & white.
	Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 6	October 21, 2008	Disc One has the traditional variety of signature Looney Tunes All-Stars, Disc Two has wartime cartoons, Disc Three has Bosko, Buddy, and Foxy, and Disc Four has requested cartoons and one-shots. Special Features include a documentary profile of Mel Blanc, Commentaries by Greg Ford and others, some cartoons made by Freleng at MGM, and bonus cartoons such as "Hippety Hopper". In total, counting bonus cartoons, it has 76 cartoons: 51 color and 25 black & white.

See also

• Looney Tunes Spotlight Collection
• Looney Tunes Super Stars
• Looney Tunes Platinum Collection
• Looney Tunes Collector's Choice