Tex Avery Screwball Classics: Volume 3 Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		4.0

Tex Avery Screwball Classics: Volume 3 Blu-ray Movie Review

Long wait, wasn't it?

One of the most talented contributors to American animation's Golden Age, Frederick "Tex" Avery directed some of MGM and Warner Bros.' best-loved shorts and co/created many iconic characters including Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd Egghead, and Droopy while mutually influencing contemporaries like Tom and Jerry. Avery's work was known for its raucous energy and demolition of "the fourth wall", resulting in unpredictable six-minute powder kegs often aimed squarely at adult audiences. In early 2020, Warner Archive paid tribute to the late legend with Tex Avery Screwball Classics: Volume 1, the very first time Avery got a full HD release all to himself. Volume 2 followed later that year with another 21 uncut shorts, again largely culled from the best surviving source elements but with a few less-than-ideal video presentations affected by filtering and noise reduction. This third volume closes out Avery's remaining output from this period with 20 shorts of similar quality, splitting the difference with only a few trace visual speed bumps along the way. A bonus short from his earlier Merrie Melodies years is also included.

Please note that, while this set of shorts is presented in chronological order, Warner Archive went with a "pick and choose" approach for all three volumes unlike their classic Popeye collections. They're also not grouped together by category ("Screwy Squirrel", "Droopy"), but the descriptions below will let you know who's in each one.

• "Blitz Wolf" - Perhaps the main feature of Volume 3, this 1941 short adapts "Three Little Pigs" for WWII with The Wolf portraying everyone's least favorite Nazi dictator. Not surprisingly, he gets his ass kicked all the way to the hot place. Much like the other shorts in this collection, it's thankfully uncut from start to finish.

• "The Early Bird Dood It" - A worm, a bird, and a cat hunt each other, ending in a Russian nesting doll of brutality. A similar plot would be used four year later in the 1946 Chuck Jones short "Fair and Worm-er".

• "One Ham's Family" - Another trip into "Three Little Pigs" territory, this one's more of a holiday affair when mischievous little Junior gets the best of an invading Santa Claus played by The Wolf.

• "Happy Go Nutty" - The only Screwy Squirrel short in Volume 3 (and the second of his five adventures), this 1944 toon sees him outsmart a dim-witted guard dog after escaping from Moron Manor. Fun fact: Cartoon Network aired this short for 12 hours straight for April Fool's Day back in 1997.

• "Jerky Turkey" - A nice little diversion, this Thanksgiving-themed short -- which takes place in the year 1620 7⁄8 -- follows a dopey Pilgrim's failed turkey hunt before his last meal at Joe's restaurant.

• "The Shooting of Dan McGoo" - The first of several "Droopy and the Wolf" shorts (most of which co-star some version of "Red Hot Riding Hood"), this one's a loose retelling of Avery's own 1939 Warner Bros. cartoon, "Dangerous Dan McFoo". Needless to say, Droopy saves the girl and gets a smooch for his efforts.

• "Swing Shift Cinderella" - No Droopy this time, but The Wolf and Red (voiced by Sara Berner with Imogene Lynn doing the singing, as usual) return for a twisted take on the Cinderella story, which includes a Fairy Godmother who's got her eyes on our horny hero. Sadly, no one escapes unscathed.

• "Wild and Woolfy" - One of the few Droopy shorts where he's voice by Avery himself (rather than Bill Thompson), this Western adventure concerns The Wolf's attempts to kidnap Red from the "Rig-R-Mortis" saloon.

• "Northwest Hounded Police" - This 1946 remake of Droopy's first short "Dumb-Hounded", released only three years earlier, stars the hound as Sgt. McPoodle as he doggedly pursues The Wolf around the globe.

• "Slap Happy Lion" - Told in flashback by a circus-dwelling mouse, this 1947 short details the legacy of a jungle-ruling lion whose fear of rodents leads to a nervous breakdown. Plenty of great visual gags here, including a series of mighty roars that makes all sorts of wild animals flee in terror from our once-great hero.

• "King-Size Canary" - A homeless and hungry alley cat breaks into a suburban home, where a bottle of "Jumbo Gro" turns a scrawny bird into a king-sized meal. Eventually, their game of one-upmanship leads to a kaiju-like showdown on the city streets. A personal favorite and one of the best-remembered of Avery's shorts.

• "What Price Fleadom" - This emotional tale of a dim-witted dog and his flea companion gets pretty dark near the climax (think "Blue Cat Clues" from Tom and Jerry), but luckily ends on a sweet note.

• "Little 'Tinker" - Another sweet story, this 1948 short follows a lovelorn skunk who just can't seem to attract a mate, even after he performs as a wafer-thin crooner clearly modeled after Frank Sinatra.

• "Señor Droopy" - The fourth of Droopy's many shorts (and the first to use his own title card), this bullfighting adventure ends with a memorable live-action sequence starring Spanish actress and singer Lina Romay (below).

• "Cock-a-Doodle Dog" - After a rowdy night on the town, Spike the bulldog does Road Runner-like battle with an annoying rooster who just might have the most annoying voice in the world.

• "Rock-a-Bye Bear" - This thinly-veiled homage to the classic Tom and Jerry short "Quiet Please" finds Spike house-sitting for a hibernating bear while another job candidate waits in the wings.

• "Little Johnny Jet" - First released on Warner Archive's Blu-ray edition of The Naked Spur last month, this charming tale of a little jet and his family is one of my favorites from the director.

• "Billy Boy" - The first of these shorts to take a strong visual departure from previous Avery cartoons (and also not photographed on nitrate, which adds to the differences), this 1954 short stars a Southern version of The Wolf -- now a slow-talking farmer with a distinctive slouching walk -- as he cares for a hungry goat.

• "Deputy Droopy" - Easily the least essential short in this collection, this one's basically a shot-for-shot remake of "Rock-a-Bye Bear" with a new cast. Not sure why the didn't break these two up on different collections.

• "Cellbound" - This enjoyable adventure follows the visually redesigned Spike on his Shawshank Redemption-style escape from prison, only to be trapped in a TV and forced to entertain the warden with a one-man show.

Tex Avery Screwball Classics: Volume 3 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

After a bit of backlash for the visual presentation of Volume 2 -- which arrived during a perfect storm of unfortunate circumstances, including but not limited to temporary staff shake-ups at the company and, of course, the COVID-19 pandemic -- Warner Archive seems to have rebounded nicely for this third volume, which serves up at least 95% of its material in tip-top shape. Unfortunately, it's worst stretch is during the opening few minutes of the very first cartoon, Blitz Wolf, which was quite clearly taken from inferior source elements with muddy colors, soft edges, and an overall unimpressive appearance that really feels more like standard definition. Once that clears up right at the 1:52 mark, it's a night-and day difference and most of this collection maintains a high speed with outstanding color saturation, fine detail, and lustrous grain levels that support the natural texture and appearance of nitrate film. As usual, the cartoons are clean as a whistle but not overly scrubbed, retaining stray brush strokes and scrubby paint lines that give them their polished but clearly hand-made charm. While the appearance of the last three cartoons (during Avery's less impressive mid-1950s output) doesn't sparkle in quite the same way, this is more a byproduct of his animation team's more outline-heavy style and the fact that nitrate film was no longer regularly used during that era.

Save for some cartoons being sourced from different elements, perhaps the only outlier in this collection is "Northwest Hounded Police"; this short suffers from moderate noise reduction and light sharpening that makes the end product look more like upscaled standard definition. It's noticeable in motion as well as on the screenshots in this review (#20 and 21, for those keeping score at home) but, unlike the cartoons featured on Volume 2, the problem starts and ends here. On the whole, this is a terrific-looking collection that, like most of Tex Avery's other shorts restored by Warner Archive, have been carefully scanned in 4K and treated to extensive manual cleanup. If you're interested in a more detailed discussion of this release's construction and restoration, take a gander at this write-up by animation historian Jerry Beck, who assembled the disc with re-instated Warner Archive head honcho George Feltenstein.

SIDE NOTE: On the more historically anal side of things, a few opening titles are sourced from re-issue prints but, since they've been seen that way for decades, it's no real cause for concern. (The only real goof is that the opening credits of "Billy Boy" recycles music heard in "Cock-a-Doodle Dog", although it's not exactly worth a recall.)

Tex Avery Screwball Classics: Volume 3 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Just like the first two volumes, these DTS-HD 2.0 (Mono) Master Audio tracks have been culled from different source materials but sound clean and crisp overall. (Going further, the optical audio tracks for some were chosen from multiple surviving options on a case-by-case basis.) Tex Avery shorts are no stranger to volume variances -- during which time dialogue and music cues push and pull against one other violently -- but both elements are completely intelligible throughout. Even at its highest levels, the one-channel audio rarely sounds clipped or strained within the boundaries of normal dynamic range. No major signs of hiss, distortion, or audio sync discrepancies were heard along the way, aside from brief and unavoidable source material issues related to original recording quality.

Optional English (SDH) subtitles are included during all 20 shorts with no sync issues. Annoyingly, they continue WAC's recent habit of adding lower-case sound effects with no punctuation ("clang clang"), which just looks wrong.

Tex Avery Screwball Classics: Volume 3 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This one-disc release arrives in a standard keepcase with cover artwork similar to previous volumes; no inserts are included, but an episode list is printed on the back. There's only one bonus feature, but at least it fits in nicely.

• The Crackpot Quail (7:40) - This 1941 Merrie Melodies short, directed by Avery during the final year of his tenure at Warner Bros., follows an inept but lovable hunting dog as he tries to catch a quail... but mostly just runs into trees. It hasn't been seen on digital home video since the The Golden Age of Looney Tunes, Volume 1 (released all the way back in 1991) and is now lovingly restored to match the other Avery shorts. The original 1941 soundtrack is also heard here for the first time, which makes use of a very particular sound effect that apparently didn't pass rigid Hays Code rules back then -- read more about that here.

Tex Avery Screwball Classics: Volume 3 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Warner Archive's Tex Avery Screwball Classics, Volume 3 marks a nice rebound from the somewhat fumbled second volume, at least from a technical perspective: under the circumstances these shorts look outstanding, and they fact that they're all presented uncut is another cause for celebration. As for the actual content, these 20 cartoons offer a satisfying mixture of personal favorites with only a few "repeats" that are mostly due to their order of presentation. Highly Recommended to classic animation fans, especially those who already own the first two volumes.