Tex Avery’s Droopy: The Complete Theatrical Collection

I love this droopy dvd. Came 2 days early. Thanks for bringing back some childhood memories.

I enjoyed Droopy, along with many other reshowings of movie cartoons on TV, during the '80s, and am now revisiting them with my son. Naturally, there are some racy themes that have to be explained, and some racially, ethnically, and sexually offensive scenes in them. As explained in the disclaimer screen at the beginning of the DVDs (it's a two-disc set), they were artifacts of their time, and left intact.The extreme slapstick laughs and implausibility of Droopy being everywhere at once, coupled with his (mostly) laid back demeanor, make for hours of fun. It wasn't till I watched this DVD set, however, that I could see how several jokes and gags were recycled across different cartoons. No less funny, however.One item to note: the two discs are not kept on separate leaves/pages, but one disc overlaps the other, kind of like a Venn diagram, if you imagine it like a figure 8 made of two overlapping circles. The bottom disc cannot be removed until the top disc is removed, so if you want to see Disc 2, you first have to remove Disc 1...take out Disc 2 to put in the player...then replace Disc 1 in the case. To put Disc 2 away in the case after viewing, you have to remove Disc 1, put Disc 2 back in the case, and then put Disc 1 back.Highly recommended. It's hard to beat this many laughs for so little money.

Thanks

This DVD has all the most popular & memorable Droopy cartoons. Some of them could be considered a wee bit "racy" for small children, but seeing as how I grew up watching these same cartoons on open air broadcast TV in the 60's & 70's, I think they're just fine. These are just as funny as they were when I was a kid, some of them more so, as I can understand more of the humor as an adult than I could as a kid. Tex Avery really was a pioneer in animation comedy, and set the standard for others to follow. I'd recommend this to anyone who enjoys cartoon comedy, you just can't go wrong with Droopy.

Tex Avery was a certifiable genius and this disc shows it. For fans that have been clambering for it, here it is! A complete collection of the sad sack dog and his complete lack of emotion that often results in hilarity. It's all here: the renowned visual gags, the tongues that stretch to carry an explosive away from the scene, the eyes that pop out of their sockets in amazement! The laughs are numerous and the animation is first class. This is the stuff you have been dreaming about and now it can be yours.

These might be Tex Avery's funniest cartoons. Completely crazy. I love these. Consistent laughs throughout.

Well, finally: Droopy on DVD. This set was released in 2007; here, in 2020, I'm only now catching up with it.These classic MGM cartoons, from 1948 until 1957 (when the studio shuttered its animation department) have been polished to a sparkling gleam, with audio in good enough condition to enjoy Scott Bradley's muscle-snapping music, performed by MGM's terrific orchestra. Twenty-four cartoons are split between two discs, with simple yet secure packaging, easy navigation, and three special features: "Droopy and Friends: A Laugh Back" (a documentary, with clipped interviews from four of today's animators); "Doggone Gags" (a collection of best gags, wall-to-wall); and an odd assortment of "Trailers," including advertisements for Hanna-Barbera's "Space Ghost" and the nearly forgotten "Wait Till Your Father Gets Home." (Nothing to do with Droopy, but there you are.) Unlike the Warner Bros. collections of classic Looney Tunes, no cartoons are presented with alternative tracks for commentaries or music only.For those unfamiliar with Droopy: he's a small, anthropomorphic hound with a voice (perfectly provided by radio's Bill Thompson) that sound like marbles in the mouth. The set shows his evolution, across nine years, from a basically passive critter to one who sometimes takes charge, at other times is fearful but prevails. The quintessence of Droopy, however, was distilled in his very first cartoons. He possesses a weird magic that guarantees he'll show up, inexplicably, a step ahead of a frenzied adversary (an unnamed wolf, an Irish bulldog named Spike, and another unnamed wolf whose voice, supplied by Daws Butler, was retrofitted two years later for Hanna-Barbera's Huckleberry Hound). The format of most of the cartoons resembles Chuck Jones's Road Runner and Coyote epics: a series of blackout gags in which a little fellow, magically defying the laws of physics (and danger), outwits a bigger enemy against whom everything backfires. Once the pattern is set, most of the humor evolves from how the writers (the best of whom was Heck Allen) would work variations on the theme.Most of the humor, that is—and now we come to the Avery touch. Though his name is little recognized, probably no American cartoonist did as much to create the style of zany, fast-paced, logic-defying comedy that we associate with Hollywood animation's Golden Age as Tex Avery. Before moving to MGM, his career began at Warner Bros., where he was present at the creation of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, and Elmer Fudd. His was the madcap style continued by Jones, Bob Clampett, Fritz Freling, and a host of others. Disney went in one direction: mostly gentle, whimsical, beautifully executed cartoons. Avery did everything that Disney didn't and wouldn't: he unleashed cartoons to go bananas. Violence? The more outrageous (and harmless), the better. Sex? Red-Hot Red (animated by Preston Blair) appears in two of this collection's cartoons. Pace? Nobody made cartoons that zipped by faster than Avery—any faster and the human eye couldn't have registered them—exquisitely halted to a standstill for an understatement. Gag takes: you can always spot Avery takes. Eyes literally pop out and roll across tables, mouths literally drop to the floor, character bodies stretch, disintegrate, fly apart, crackle like thunderbolts, you name it. A nice bonus: the last seven cartoons were made in Cinemascope (2.35.1).So why only (!) four stars? Several reasons. While this is indeed a complete set of Droopy, the title is slightly misleading: Tex Avery directed eighteen of the twenty four cartoons. The rest were directed by Dick Lundy or Michael Lah (one of Avery's animators), produced by Joe Barbara and Bill Hanna. The design of the 1955-57 cartoons tilted toward UPA's minimalism (which, in the '50s, was going great guns), the essence of Droopy shifted slightly, gags were repeated from earlier Averies, and the speed and gonzo takes were largely missing. They're funny—but Avery's are hilarious. Moreover, at this writing the set is available only on the second-hand market, where you'll have to pony up anywhere from $25 to $250 dollars for two discs that may or may not be in very good condition. Fortunately mine are, and I didn't pay two Cs for them.But—if this is your cup of comedy tea, buy it if you can. The very first Droopy, "Dumb Hounded," and its remake, "Northwest Hounded Police," are two of the funniest cartoons I've ever seen. There'll never be another Tex Avery: truly, one of a kind.

Most enjoyable!