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dmanthecap
8: Great, I know you'll just love it.
6-7: Pretty good, but perhaps you'll disagree.
5: Okay, maybe you'll like it or maybe you won't even care.
1-4: Plain not good.
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Reviews
The Road Runner Show (1966)
Its what you expect...Sorta
You may be expecting three Road Runner cartoons a pop, or two and one other cartoon, but what you are really getting is one Road Runner, one Sylvester cartoon, and a third cartoon that could be anything, each episode goes like that.
It could be very disappointing if you're only there for the Road Runner, and if you dislike the Rudy Larriva directed ones, then it can be even more disappointing since you know thats all the Road Runner you'll get for the episode, but i understand why they limit it to just one Road Runner short a episode, after all with only 40 Road Runner shorts at the time, if you show three every episode the show isn't going to last very long.
The theme song by Barbara Cameron is just great, its super catchy, gets you in the mood, and fits the shorts, though you wouldn't think it would. If you haven't seen the show before you may know the theme better as that song from the film "The Shinning". The tune is so iconic that The Looney Tunes Show plays a short variant of the song during the tittle cards for their Road Runner Shorts, if you know anything thing about the show, (Besides the shorts in it) its the theme.
So what about The show it self? What do you expect me to say? Its Looney Tunes, obviously the three shorts of each episode are almost always great, your enjoyment of the show depends on if you like Looney Tunes, and while some episodes have some real stinkers (Like "The Jet Cage") its mostly classics. To give you a idea its mostly shorts directed by Chuck Jones, Friz Freleng, and Rudy Larriva, and sometimes Robert McKimson, there are other directers, but that's mostly what you get with these shorts.
One problem i have is the tittle cards, each short has its credits removed and replaced with one of three tittle card designs which shows nothing but the name of the short, for the shake of time, that's all well and good, but but many Road Runner Shorts have credits that are apart of the opening scene, leading to some jarring starts to these shorts, mostly with the Road Runner ones. It can also be annoying if you wanna know who made the cartoon since then you have to look it up your self, if you even can, keep in mind this show was made in the 60's after all.
But anyone can edit random Looney Tunes shorts together and call it a show, out side of theme, are you getting anything new here? Actually, yes, between the shorts of these funny little bumpers of Wile going after the Road Runner, none of it is reused footage, its all new, and the animation in these bumpers are much better than Larriva's shorts, mostly because the bumpers and eyecatches were directed by Robert McKimson, (Who also directed "Rushing Roulette" and "Sugar and Spies") he does a much better job, i dunno who wrote them though, who ever did had some funny gags, like Wile dresses up as a Road Runner. In fact one of these Bumpers seems to have inspired Jones himself, one bumper with Wile using a Tennis Racket and grenades to blow up the Road Runner plays out almost the same as a scene from 1979's "Soup or Sonic" directed by Chuck, though in Soup or Sonic the Road Runner doesn't really have to do anything to win. It makes me wonder why the intro is mostly made out of stock footage when they could have made it with new animation.
So you are getting mostly great cartoons, a catchy theme song, and some entertaining bumpers between shorts, i'd say thats not a bad deal indeed.
Ragtime Bear (1949)
The first Magoo short is also one of the best
(Well this review i wrote sucks, but not the short)
Have you ever heard of this character called Mr. Magoo? You likely here either because you know lot about him, or because you know nothing about em, well i'm here to tell you that his first appearance here is very entertaining.
Magoo in this short is very different from how we know him now, in that, he is very crotchety and angry, however, this doesn't take away from the cartoon, more so, it adds to it with jokes that wouldn't normally fit in other Magoo shorts.
The plot is as basic as you could get with a Magoo short, the nearsighted Mr. Magoo mistakes a wild animal for his nephew, Waldo, This plot would be used many many times after this, one time even with the same Bear, but that isn't problem, after all this is the first time this plot was used, and its done very well, the Bear in this cartoon is very enjoyable, and one s=could say that he is the actual star of this cartoon, he doesn't speak a word, he only appaered two times, he doesn't have a name, and yet he is one of the memorable characters from this series of shorts.
As for the humor, what you are getting here is far from gold, this isn't Bugs Bunny levels of comedy, however i do find this short pretty funny, theres an real charm to the timing animation of these gags, and the final scene is the best part of the short, also theres something shorta humorous about how harsh this short is to Waldo.
As for the animation? Its some of the nicest movements from UPA, its kind of a blend of the low budget stuff UPA is know for and high quality stuff studios like MGM were putting out, well this short animates nicely, i cannot say its the best looking of UPA, its not like Rooty Toot Toot levels are style, its just ok for the 40s, which is great for the 50s.
To be honest, i feel Magoo is sorta misunderstood as a character, what do i mean about this? Well, when most people say they hate Mr. Magoo, they seem to be talking about his TV show from the 60s, that (if you ask me) was 72% awful, likely because its the most well known thing to come outta Magoo, but a lot of those folks haven't seen any of his theatrical shorts, many of them are classics, and this is one of the greatest, it you wanna check out his shorts and see if their you'll thing, watch this and "When Magoo Flew" to give your self a idea.
Rushing Roulette (1965)
Good, yet flawed.
What you see before you is the second Road Runner cartoon directed by someone other then Chuck Jones, and the first ever with zero animation by Chuck either, ("The Wild Chase" was sorta a cheater, because it was like, 60% reused animation from other Road Runner shorts), as cool as this is, how does this cartoon fair against Chuck's? Well.. Not at all, any one of Chuck's Road Runner cartoons would blow this out of the water, but on its own? Its a pretty decent cartoon, seems McKimson's best cartoons from this era are his silent ones.
This short features some of (If not THE) best animation to come out of the DePatie-Freleng era of Looney Tunes, though there are some noticeable Sound/Animation mistakes here or there, and some of the gags (Namely the piano lessons scene, and the ending) have been done before countless times, also the scene with the giant rock and the truck started off good, and i like the idea of the gag, but the punch line isn't done very well.
Y'know the Road Runner takes on more of a Bugs Bunny type role in this short (as well as most of the others after this) because while he still acts like usual, he also out smarts Wile and does things to trick him, which is something that Chuck tried to do as little as possible, having Wile mostly lose to himself, that doesn't really bother me, in fact i think those are some of the funniest gags from this era of Road Runner, but i can see how a fan could be distraught about it.
The music in this cartoon is nothing to write home about, (Trust me, you'll soon find that when it come to Looney Tunes, Bill Lava has two modes, overly dramatic, and overly catchy, this one is not the catchy variety.) but at least its fully scored instead of just being a lotta stock music.
Over all this is a good to ok cartoon that i really enjoyed (Though if you know me, you'll know that i am easy to entertain, and i'm not sure if i can speak for most), McKimson would later go on to direct the much better Road Runner cartoon "Sugar and Spies", now that one, you really outta check out, these make me wish McKimson directed all of the Road Runner shorts during this time, Rudy Larriva just didn't do that good of a job in comparison, if you are a completionist, or you think 6/10 is a good score, i recommend you find it online or catch it on tv if you can, otherwise, just watch Sugar and Spies.