Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Looney Tunes Mouse Chronicles: The Chuck Jones Collection

A week from today, according to Amazon, there will be a new Looney Tunes DVD collection hitting the market. This one is titled The Looney Tunes Mouse Chronicles: The Chuck Jones Collection. The release date is August 28. The project will feature 2 discs of 19 cartoons directed by Chuck Jones...and all the cartoons in some shape, fashion, or form deal with mice characters. There are 11 bonus cartoons, also showcasing mice as the lead characters, and the bulk of those cartoons are directed by Friz Freleng. Seldom mentioned director, Alex Lovy, is represented by the short, "Merlin the Magic Mouse", while Tex Avery has a lone cartoon as well. Robert McKimson has two cartoons and Chuck Jones is represented with a cartoon amongst the 11 bonus offerings. This leaves the remaining 6 bonus cartoons under the direction of Friz Freleng. You can pre-order the DVD now when you visit Amazon. Some of the more well-known mice characters appearing in the cartoons, the ones that are well known to fans of Warner Brothers cartoons, are Hubie and Bertie, Sniffles, and Speedy Gonzales.

Monday, August 13, 2012

The always entertaining Stan Freberg...

I came across this literally minutes ago. I was doing a You Tube search of Stan Freberg and this was among the most recent uploads...a PBS special from 1982, according to the video's uploader. In the closing credits in Part 3 it states that the special has a 1980 copyright and so more than likely this was written as a response to Jimmy Carter's time in the White House.

In this special, Freberg shines the spotlight on the Federal budget being 600 billion dollars and the jokes and songs are aimed at the economy. Aside from it starring Freberg, the main reason I uploaded it is to make the comparison between the early '80s and 2012.   



Pay close attention to the lyrics in the songs...quite a few lyrics foreshadow the future. In comparison to 2012 it's amusing that it's been the Democrats in Congress that have racked up the debt and there's not been any real budget to speak of since Obama took office in 2009. He delivered a laughable budget proposal that his own party rejected for being too expensive...but that bit of information was swept under the rug nearly a year ago to where hardly anyone remembers it.

Stan Freberg puts everything into this special...music, songs, jokes, and an overall big production.

Parts 2 and 3 are located below...