Product Description

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!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5605 in DVD
• Released on: 2007-07-24
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Animated, Box set, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Full Screen, Subtitled, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, French, Spanish
• Number of discs: 3
• Running time: 535 minutes

Amazon.com
Walter Lantz produced cartoons for Universal for more than 40 years, from 1929 until 1972, but his studio's output remained the animated equivalent of "B" pictures. His cartoons broke no new ground in animation, story telling, or humor. This generous set includes the first 45 Woody Woodpecker cartoons, 10 "Cartune Classics," five "Swing Symphonies," and five shorts with Andy Panda, Chilly Willy, and Oswald Rabbit (a character originally created by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks). Woody Woodpecker made his debut in "Knock Knock" (1940) as a loony-bin zany, similar to the very early Bugs Bunny. But Woody never developed the kind of nuanced personality Bugs displays in later cartoons, despite the impressive array of animators and directors who passed through the studio. Tex Avery directed "The Legend of Rockabye Point" (1955), probably the funniest cartoon Lantz ever released, but he failed to make any lasting changes in the house style. Some cartoons are more interesting as historical documents than entertainment. In "Confidence" (1933), Oswald cures the effects of a spectre labeled "Depression" with a hypodermic needle full of confidence that he gets from Franklin Roosevelt. The "Swing Symphonies" and "Cartune Classics" feature performances by noteworthy jazz musicians, including Jack Teagarden in "The Pied Piper of Basin Street" (1945). But they lack the lavish beauty of Disney's "Silly Symphonies" and the rambunctious energy of the Fleischer jazz cartoons, their obvious models. "The Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company 'B'" (1941) earned Lantz his first Oscar nomination, but decades later, it's little more than a collection of spot gags featuring unflattering African-American stereotypes. (Unrated, suitable for ages 10 and older: violence, tobacco use, ethnic and racial stereotypes) --Charles Solomon

Customer Reviews

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

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.

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