Overview
The Golden Collection series was launched in the aftermath of the success of the Walt Disney Treasures series that itself collected archived Disney material.
These collections were made possible after the merger of Time Warner (which owned the color cartoons released from 8/1/1948 onward, as well as the black-and-white Looney Tunes, the post-Harman/Ising black-and-white Merrie Melodies, and the first H/I Merrie Melodies entry: Lady, Play Your Mandolin!) and Turner Broadcasting System (which owned the color cartoons released prior to 8/1/1948, and the remaining Harman/Ising Merrie Melodies; most of these cartoons had been released as part of The Golden Age of Looney Tunes laserdisc series), along with the subsequent transfer of video rights to the Turner library from MGM Home Entertainment to Warner Home Video.
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 (altered from their original versions with their revised front-and-end credit sequences), as the original titles for these cartoons are presumably lost. Where the original titles, instead of the "Blue Ribbon" titles, still exist, Warner has taken the "Blue Ribbon" titles out.
A handful of cartoons in the first two collections and the bonus cartoons on vol 6. have digital video noise reduction (or DVNR) artifacting. The noise reduction process sometimes unintentionally erases or blurs some of the picture on certain scenes of the cartoons, which has caused controversy among some Looney Tunes fans. The most recent collections, however, lack such artifacting. Since August 2007, Warner Bros. Home Video has been quietly reissuing copies of the fourth disc of Volume 2 that lacks artifacting and interlacing, because of numerous complaints by consumers.
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. This goes along with Whoopi Goldberg's filmed introduction in Volume 3 that explains the history of ethnic imagery that frequently appears in cartoons of the 1930s and 1940s. Beginning with Volume 4, a singular disclaimer text card similar to Goldberg's spoken disclaimer precedes each disc's main menu.
The DVDs also feature several special features including interviews/documentaries of the people behind the cartoons such as Friz Freleng, Bob Clampett, Tex Avery, Robert McKimson, Chuck Jones, musical conductor Carl Stalling, and voice-artist Mel Blanc, pencil tests, and audio commentaries by animation historians Jerry Beck, Michael Barrier, and Greg Ford, as well as current animators Paul Dini, Eric Goldberg, and John Kricfalusi. In addition to the appearances by the above mentioned there is interview footage of Stan Freberg, June Foray, Noel Blanc, Billy West, Keith Scott, Mark Evanier, Bob Bergen, Joe Alaskey, Bill Melendez, Willie Ito, Corny Cole, Peter Alvarez, and the children of the various directors: Robert McKimson, Jr., Ruth Clampett, Sybil Freleng, and Linda Jones. Audio footage of Mel Blanc in recording sessions is heard as a bonus feature on several of the discs as is an obscure audio clip of Arthur Q. Bryan rehearsing a line as Elmer Fudd in What's Opera, Doc?.
In some regions, such as Regions 2 and 4, each disc in each volume is packaged (or re-packaged) separately.
Read more about this topic: Looney Tunes Golden Collection