Looney Tunes Platinum Collection

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Cover for the Looney Tunes Complete Platinum Collection.

The Looney Tunes Platinum Collection is a series of Blu-ray and DVD home video sets containing the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons, succeeding the Looney Tunes Golden Collection series. They are released by Warner Home Video, spanning three volumes from November 15, 2011 to August 12, 2014. Each volume contains 50 shorts split amongst two discs. While the Blu-ray releases had a third disc containing bonus features, the DVD versions only have two discs and thus lack bonus features.

The series ended after the third volume due to low home video release sales. Many of the shorts on the Platinum Collection were repurposed from previous DVD releases, and Volume 3 only had four shorts that were newly restored. As a result, all future Looney Tunes releases onward would be through the Warner Archive. However, a compilation of all three volumes was released to United States markets as a DVD exclusive on April 11, 2023.

The series was succeeded by the Looney Tunes Collector's Choice series, with the first volume released on May 30, 2023.

Releases

Volume 1

Volume 1 was announced for Blu-ray in July 21, 2011, via a panel moderated by animation historian Jerry Beck at the 2011 San Diego Comic Con.[1] It was released on November 15, 2011 for Blu-ray, while DVD version was released on July 3, 2012.

Volume 1 contains fifty-nine cartoons; twenty-five per disc, and nine on the third disc (Blu-ray exclusive).

Featured cartoons:

Discs

Volume 2

Volume 2 was announced for Blu-ray in August 1, 2012,[2] and released on October 16, 2012 for Blu-ray and DVD.

Unlike Volume 1, which was released in a digibook, Volume 2 was released in a standard 1 movie case.

Featured cartoons:

Discs

  • Disc 1 is an all-star disc containing five Bugs Bunny cartoons, four Daffy Duck cartoons, three Porky Pig cartoons, and some featuring Sylvester, Tweety, the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote, Pepé Le Pew, Foghorn Leghorn, and Speedy Gonzales.
  • Disc 3 only includes Tex Avery and Friz Freleng-related content such as their MGM cartoons like The Captains and the Kids and Avery's one-shot shorts, in addition to the Private Snafu and Mr. Hook propaganda cartoons.

Volume 3

Volume 3, the third volume of the series, was announced on July 9, 2014, released on August 12 for Blu-ray and DVD.[3] Unlike the previous two volumes, it is the only set to not have a third disc for the Blu-ray release.

According to Jerry Beck on Stu's Show, it was the last volume of the series due to the low sales of the second volume in 2012, and the lack of budget for Warner Bros. to remaster more cartoons.[4]

Featured cartoons:

Discs

  • Disc 2 contains cartoons that are academy award-winning shorts or fan-favorites, such as those starring Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Sylvester and Tweety, Speedy Gonzales, Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote, and one Foghorn Leghorn short. The remaining shorts are Friz Freleng's Rhapsody in Rivet, and Chuck Jones' musical-themed shorts, High Note and Nelly's Folly.

Behind the scenes

  • Despite most of these newer restorations of the WB cartoons on this collection correcting the problem of DVNR (digital video noise reduction) — which earlier restorations from the late 1990s/early 2000s had — a handful of cartoons on Volume 1 relied heavy use of noise reduction; unintentionally erasing and/or blurring some of the picture on certain scenes even more so than previous restorations, which caused controversy among some fans. The most recent collections, however, largely abandoned such noise reduction.

References