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Woody Woodpecker and Friends Classic Cartoon Collection volume 2
DVD: 0 comments: 06/29/2008
A woodpecker, a penguin and a panda bear walk into a bar…
Woody Woodpecker doesn’t get much love these days. While his contemporaries like Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny, and the team of Tom & Jerry still retain a massive fanbase, Woody more or less fell into obscurity years ago. Once the re-runs of his old theatrical shorts finally left syndicated after-school programming that was it. Attempted revivals haven’t been successful. But with DVD, the woodpecker with the odd laugh gets a little due respect. And this, the second volume of an ongoing series collecting the classic animation shorts of Woody and several other Universal cartoon characters, is as good a place to start it as any, barring the first volume.
While not quite as engagingly funny as volume one, there’s still a good bit of funny stuff here. Spread out over three discs are 75 theatrical animated shorts; a full half or so devoted to Woody, while the other half spotlights Andy Panda, Chilly Willy, and various one-shots. There’s still a lot of charm to be found here, even though I preferred the earlier, crazier version of Woody. “Wrestling Wrecks” is a great little cartoon that plays up the popularity of professional wrestling in the day and spoofs it with aplomb. Granted, some of the shorts are near carbon copies of earlier Looney Tunes, but they still manage a laugh or two of their own in the process.
The prints look quite nice and while not as much was done with them as there was with, say, Warners’ Looney Tunes in terms of restoration, they come off quite gorgeous. Special features are derived from the Woody Woodpecker Show, including twelve segments from that television series, often showing creator Walter Lantz and company showing the goings-on of the business. More interesting though are two pilots for characters that never quite made it – Space Mouse and Sam ‘n Simian.
This set is a great addition to any animation collection, and hopefully Universal will continue on with the releases. Woody deserves to be rediscovered by a new generation, and these collections are the perfect way to do that.
