‘Looney Tunes Musical Masterpieces’ DVD Gathers Your Favorites

Warner Brothers has just released a new collection of what are likely 18 of your favorite Looney Tunes cartoons, collected in a DVD called Looney Tunes Musical Masterpieces.

It’s more than a few of our generation whose classical music knowledge started with “What’s Opera, Doc?” and “Rabbit of Seville.” This DVD is a chance to introduce your kids to two hours of that same experience. One of my favorite jokes is in “Rhapsody Rabbit,” which involves primarily Franz Liszt’s “Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2.” Bugs Bunny’s piano concert is interrupted by a ringing telephone, which he answers, “Eh, what’s up doc? Who? Franz Liszt? Never heard of him. Wrong number.”

The included shorts are:

1. Corny Concerto
2. Rabbit of Seville
3. One Froggy Evening
4. Rhapsody Rabbit
5. What’s Opera, Doc?
6. Hillbilly Hare
7. Pizzicato Pussycat
8. Nelly’s Folly
9. I Love to Singa
10. Page Miss Glory
11. Katnip Kollege
12. High Note
13. Pigs in a Polka
14. Three Little Bops
15. Rhapsody in Rivets
16. Back Alley Oproar
17. Holiday for Shoestrings
18. Lights Fantastic

Those of you who already own Looney Tunes DVDs, specifically the Golden Collection and Platinum Collection, will see that you already own these musical shorts scattered across those volumes. Some fans have commented that this makes the Musical Masterpieces DVD not worth owning. I suspect these people are not parents of young children.

I do own the larger Collection sets, but to my kids (ages 6 and 9), who love those, this still might as well be a completely new DVD. It’s all of these musically focused pieces together, rather than scattered across seven separate discs, which has a different feel. If you consume your cartoons differently, you may not feel the same way.

These are great shorts to watch with your kids—they’re not only a musical education, but also an occasional history lesson, as these cartoons were made largely in the 1940s and 1950s. (Though none are the 1940s war-related cartoons.) You’ll be even more amused today than you were as a child by the depiction of 2056 (which would be 101 years after the cartoon was made) in “One Froggy Evening.”

Also note that if you’ve been waiting to replace your old VHS also named Musical Masterpieces, this DVD is not identical to that release. It contains many of the same songs, and those that aren’t are available in the aforementioned Collections sets, with the exception of the 1941 short “Notes to You.”

Looney Tunes Musical Masterpieces is available now and retails for $19.97. (As of this writing, it is available on Amazon for $12.84). Kill the waaaaaabbit!

GeekMom was provided this DVD for review.