Freberg, Stan

Lady and the Tramp (50th Anniversary Edition)

It's still one of the sweetest kisses onscreen, up there with Bergman and Grant, Bogey and Bacall: the moment when pampered purebred Lady and streetwise mongrel Tramp, sharing a moonlit plate of spaghetti in an alley behind an Italian café, unknowingly slurp the same strand, and suddenly find their mouths meeting in surprise and tenderness. Ah, puppy love. Lady and the Tramp is a delight of animation and surprisingly deep character development, given that the stars are all dogs. Lady, an adorable Cocker Spaniel, feels neglected when her owners become distracted by the pending birth of a baby. But the last straw is clueless Aunt Sarah's appearance with her conniving Siamese cats (among Disney's most creatively evil villains), who wreak havoc on Lady's blissful home life. Soon Lady is off on an adventure in the streets, where the savvy Tramp takes her under his paw. The lessons of friendship and loyalty, of integrity--not to mention trusting in the kindness of strangers--ring true to delighted children and adults alike. And unlike many Disney films, there's no real violence, only challenges that smart dogs (including a tough-talking vamp named Peg, voiced sublimely by Peggy Lee, who also wrote the songs), banding together, can tackle. The animation is terrific; the scene where we first meet Tramp shows him rinsing off under a pipe, and his subsequent shaking-off of the water follows the detailed rippling up and down his back that any dog lover will recognize. And is there any song more romantic than "Bella Notte"? Bellissima! --A.T. Hurley

Walt Disney's LADY AND THE TRAMP, filled with memorable music and purebred fun, now shines like never before with an all-new digital restoration! Embark on a thrilling adventure with the most unforgettable characters: Lady, a lovingly pampered cocker spaniel; Tramp, a mutt from across the tracks with a heart of gold; Jock and Trusty, Lady's best friends; and Si and Am, two of the most devious cats to prowl across the screen. The happiest of endings takes place on a lovely bella notte as Lady learns what it means to be footloose and leash-free. Unleash all the fun and excitement in this 2-Disc Special Edition, including never-before-seen deleted scenes, 5.1 Disney Enhanced Home Theater Mix, all-new games, making-of secrets, and much more!

Tom and Jerry - Spotlight Collection

Tom and Jerry, the animation franchise, lasted six decades and saw several geniuses of the form--Chuck Jones, Tex Avery, and Friz Freleng--have a hand in updating and refreshing the series in later years. But Tom and Jerry: The Spotlight Collection, Premiere Volume celebrates the original mastery of producer-directors William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, who took the familiar cat-chases-mouse concept and slowly turned it into witty, unpredictable, and sometimes ironic entertainment. The Spotlight Collection offers 40 restored, remastered shorts beginning with 1943's handsome, Oscar-nominated "Yankee Doodle Mouse" and ending with the fantastic, widescreen 1956 "Blue Cat Blues," very similar to the exaggerated look and feel of former cartoonist-gagman Frank Tashlin's live-action comedies (Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?) from the same period.

What strikes one about every episode on these discs is the lavish care Hanna-Barbera paid to Tom and Jerry, not only drumming up new, sometimes exotic settings (such as the swashbuckling "The Two Mousketeers," or for the Old West adventure "Texas Tom") but also consistently turning out gorgeous and wildly creative backgrounds, where straight lines rarely exist and the palette of a night sky includes multiple, dreamy shades of blue and green. Technicolor and novel visual ideas (e.g., shooting a scene through the tunnel-like view of a hollowed-out bread loaf) are sometimes more pleasing than the combative relationship between the two leads. But their rivalry is often renewed in very interesting ways, such as the wonderful "Tom and Jerry in the Hollywood Bowl," in which the pair play competing conductors against a lovely backdrop of L.A. landmarks. Special features include the Anchors Aweigh dance sequence featuring Jerry and Gene Kelly, and a featurette, "How Bill and Joe Met Tom and Jerry." --Tom Keogh

The Tom-and-Jerry legacy chases through every nook and cranny of the classic animation pantheon, spanning six decades and several famous directors. Looney Tunes icons Friz Freleng, Tex Avery and Chuck Jones all played their part. But the enduring cat-and-mouse team was the brainchild of William Hanna and Joseph Barbera. Their first short Puss Gets the Boot (in which Tom was called Jasper) was released with little fanfare. Fellow animators did not consider a cat-pursuing-mouse scenario too exciting or original. But when unleashed on exhibitors and audiences, their hilariously diabolical rivalry delighted everyone. This 2-disc set of 40 restored and remastered shorts (along with fabulous celebratory bonuses) includes nine Academy Award nominees and seven winners. And with this in hand, you're a winner too!

Looney Tunes - The Spotlight Collection Vol. 1 (Premiere Edition)

They're the clown princes of animation. They're the international ambassadors of cartoon comedy. They're the fabulously funny friends you grew up with! And now 28 of the very best animated shorts starring the very wackiest Warner Bros. cartoon characters have been rounded up on DVD for the first time ever in The Looney Tunes Premiere Collection! Just barely contained in two special edition discs each specially selected short has been brilliantly restored and re-mastered to its original anvil-dropping laughter-inducing glory! Featuring some of the very earliest ground-breaking on-screen appearances of many all-time Looney Tunes favorites it's an unprecedented animation celebration for cartoon-lovers eager to re-live the heady hilarious golden age of Warner Bros. animation!Sparkling with one unforgettable landmark cartoon classic after another there's Bugs Bunny's monstrously merry encounter with the tennis-shoe clad creature of Hair-Raising Hare. Wile E. Coyote and Roadrunner racing to cartoon immortality in Fast and Furryous. Oscar-winning animated gems scenery-chewing Tazmanian Devils and much more! Plus a dazzling array of totally Looney DVD bonus features!Running Time: 207 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: CHILDREN/FAMILY UPC: 085392792726

Tom and Jerry - Whiskers Away Full 10 episode version

The ultimate cat and mouse chase travels around the world at a frantic pace in this 72-minute compilation of 10 Tom and Jerry cartoons. Whether on a cruise ship bound for Hawaii, in France during the era of the guillotine, or at a ranch deep in Texas, Tom the cat can be counted upon to pursue, and be outsmarted by, Jerry the mouse. Slapstick comedy reins as Tom and Jerry are repeatedly shot full of holes, conked over the head with frying pans, and even venture into flamenco guitar playing and dancing. Tom and Jerry cartoons appeal to all ages, but the prevalence of violence necessitates parental guidance for young children. --Tami Horiuchi

Catch everyone's favorite cat and mouse team as they race from one exciting adventure to another in this world-class collection of unforgettable episodes! From Italy to Texas and everywhere in between these 10 action-packed cartoons showcase the best traps and funniest escapes in animation history! Join the original Tom Cat and his pal Jerry Mouse for non-stop antics and one hilarious trip! Episode listing: "Cruise Cat" "Neopolitan Mouse" "Posse Cat" "The Two Mouseketeers" "Mucho Mouse" "Cat Fishin'" "Texas Tom" "Cat and the Mermouse" "Million Dollar Cat" "Tom and Jerry at The Hollywood Bowl"Running Time: 72 min.System Requirements: Running Time 75 MinFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: CHILDREN/FAMILY UPC: 012569571723

Looney Tunes - Golden Collection, Volume Three

RESTORED REMASTERED AND REE-DICULOUS: COMPLETELY UNCUT AND UNCENSORED LOONEY-NESS INCLUDING SOME HOME VIDEO DEBUTS! You know what you want. More three-day weekends. More ounces in a pound of chocolates. More Looney Tunes. Your wish is our command. Because in this 4-disc set are 60 more of the most looneytic Looney Tunes ever unleashed on rabbit duck pig or humanity. Indeed some have never before been on home video! Disc 1 features the tall gray and haresome one. Disc 2 lampoons Hollywood. Ham actor Porky Pig rules Disc 3. And Disc 4 has the duck and a cast of crazies. One thing: to watch these you must be as tall as this sign. Wrong disclaimer. Read the one in the box below. Got the idea? Now have fun. And pass the chocolates. Disclaimer Box Copy: The Looney Tunes Golden Collection Vol. 3 Is Intended for the Adult Collector and May Not Be Suitable for Children.Running Time: 442 min.System Requirements:Running Time 442 MinFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: CHILDREN/FAMILY Rating: NR UPC: 012569688902

Like the previous entries in the Looney Tunes Golden Collection series, volume 3 confirms how brilliant the Warner Bros. artists were and how durable their creations have proven. The set includes classics that every cartoon buff will recognize: "Duck! Rabbit! Duck!," "Robin Hood Daffy," "Birds Anonymous." Other selections are less familiar but significant in the development of the studio: "Sinkin' in the Bathtub," the first Looney Tune; "I Haven't Got a Hat," the earliest Warners cartoon viewers can watch for fun, rather than as an historic curiosity; "Porky's Romance," in which director Frank Tashlin introduced rapid cutting to cartoons. Some of the caricature films have aged less gracefully. Younger audiences will recognize the drawn versions of W.C. Fields, the Marx Brothers, Katharine Hepburn, and Charlie Chaplin. But will anyone under the age of 60 remember Edna Mae Oliver, George Arliss, or Ned Sparks?

The producers have once again loaded the discs with supplemental material, including "Point Food Rationing," a unseen short explaining wartime ration books; a BBC documentary on Chuck Jones; and interstitial animated sequences for The Bugs Bunny Show. "Philbert" ranks as the oddest of the extras: an unsold (and leaden) pilot from 1963, featuring live actors and an animated title character. Whoopi Goldberg introduces the set, explaining that some of the ethnic gags would no longer be considered appropriate. But she correctly adds that to remove them would falsify both the history of animation and American popular culture. It all adds up to a set every cartoon fan will want. (Unrated, suitable for all ages: cartoon violence) --Charles Solomon

Stuart Little (Deluxe Edition)

The Little family adopts an adorably spunky boy named Stuart, who looks like a mouse. The older son is not sure about have a mouse as a brother, and the family cat is ploting to dispose of Stuart.
Genre: Feature Film Family
Rating: PG
Release Date: 30-JAN-2007
Media Type: DVD

This live-action version of E.B. White's novel doesn't have quite the magic of, say, Toy Story. Instead of entertainment the whole family can be enthralled with, Stuart Little is squarely aimed, and successfully so, at the 4- to 10-year-old watcher. Does this make it a bad family film? Not in the slightest. The gee-whiz visual effects (created by original Star Wars wizard John Dykstra) and the film's ebullient wholesomeness make this a welcome addition to the home library.

In E.B. White's world, it's hardly surprising that human parents would adopt "outside their species." The smooth-talking mouse Stuart (voiced by Michael J. Fox) seems the perfect new child for parents Geena Davis and Hugh Laurie, especially with an adorable wardrobe of very small sweaters and pants. Harder is fitting in with the Little's family cat, Snowbell (voiced by Nathan Lane, who also deftly voiced Timon in director Rob Minkoff's last feature, The Lion King). The simple story deals with Stuart trying to fit in with his new life, including big brother George (Jerry Maguire's scene-stealing Jonathan Lipnicki). And of course there's an adventure when Snowbell's schemes lead Stuart into true danger, in the form of the devious plans of an alley cat named Smokey (voiced by Chazz Palminteri). Brisk--85 minutes--amusing, and tolerably cute, Stuart Little stands tall. Two curios: The effects are so cleanly done that we could call Stuart the first successfully computer-animated actor, and the screenplay was cowritten by M. Night Shyamalan, who made bigger waves in 1999 writing and directing The Sixth Sense. --Doug Thomas

Looney Tunes - Golden Collection, Volume Four

Like previous installments, the Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Volume 4 mixes favorites from the Warner Bros. archives with relatively obscure older works. Chuck Jones' "Mississippi Hare" and Friz Freleng's "Sahara Hare" and "Knighty-Knight Bugs" (which won an Oscar) offer hilarious performances by Bugs. Two of Jones' earliest films, "The Night Watchman" and "Conrad the Sailor" prefigure his use of subtle expressions in his later cartoons. The disc of shorts by Frank Tashlin includes "Plane Daffy": pigeon see-duck-tress Hatta Mari anticipates Jayne Mansfield in such later Tashlin live-action comedies as Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?

Not all of these films have aged as gracefully. Younger viewers will probably not catch the references to Charlie McCarthy, Bill Robinson, and other old film and radio stars. The Speedy Gonzalez cartoons feature ethnic humor that seems embarrassing today; it's also crashingly unfunny. Each disc offers a disclaimer about stereotypes, noting, "they were wrong then and are wrong today."

The discs are loaded with extras that range from a partial set of storyboards for "Sahara Hare" to three of the "Private Snafu" shorts, which were made for the "Army-Navy Screen Magazine" during WW II. The oddest extra is the documentary Bugs Bunny Superstar, which infuriated many of the Warner Bros. artists when it was released in 1977. Much of its information should be taken with a grain of salt. (Unrated, suitable for ages 6 and older: cartoon violence, some ethnic stereotypes, mild risqué humor, alcohol & tobacco use) --Charles Solomon

A collection of well known Looney tunes cartoons featuring the animation of Tex Avery, Chuck Jones, Friz Freleng, and Robert McKimson.
Genre: Children's Video
Rating: NR
Release Date: 14-NOV-2006
Media Type: DVD

Ren & Stimpy - The Complete First and Second Seasons

The delirious animated series Ren and Stimpy makes its DVD debut in a three-disc set that features seasons 1 and 2, as well as a handful of extras to please its devoted fan base. The surreal adventures of short-tempered Chihuahua Ren and good-natured but simple cat Stimpson J. Cat caught on like a house afire with teen and college audiences during its 1991-96 run on Nickelodeon, despite regular battles between the network and creator John Kricfalusi (who also voiced Ren and several other characters) over allegedly objectionable content in certain episodes. The conflict eventually led to several episodes suffering edits, much to the chagrin of the show's creators and audience alike; the unedited versions of these episodes have become much sought-after and traded items among collectors. And while this set attempts to rectify that situation by presenting the show in its uncut form, die-hard fans should know that several episodes retain minor cuts; however, many others, most notably the pilot, "Big House Blues," and "Powdered Toastman" are presented in their original, uncut versions. Extras include commentaries on seven episodes by Kricfalusi and the show's creators, storyboard galleries, a featurette, and the "banned" episode "Man's Best Friend." --Paul Gaita

Join Ren and Stimpy in their bizarre and gross world that features the oddly lovable duo in some outlandish situations coupled with hilarious jokes. THE REN AND STIMPY: THE COMPLETE FIRST AND SECOND SEASONS - UNCUT feature the guest voice of music star Frank Zappa and consist of amusing episodes combined with the gross-out humor that became popular when the show first premiered on Nickelodeon in 1991.

The Ren and Stimpy Show - Seasons Three and a Half-ish

Though the third season of John Kricfalusi's much-loved Ren and Stimpy animated series has been the subject of much controversy among devotees of the show and its creator, there is still enough cat/dog insanity to warrant viewing. Some fans' problems with the season revolve around the fact that Nickelodeon, which was airing the program, removed Kricfalusi and his Spumco team from the show's production and replaced them with Games Animation, which reproduced Ren and Stimpy's signature artwork, but without the absurd spark of the first and second seasons (at least by those fans' estimation). However, a perusal of the 29 episodes compiled on this three-disc set (which offers the entire third season and a smattering of the fourth, which concludes on the Season Five and Some More of Four set) does turn up some worthwhile episodes, most notably "Ren's Pecs" (Ren develops a rippling physique after injecting fat from Stimpy's posteior), "Jimminy Lummox" (Stimpy's conscience takes the form of a monstrous singing lout), "Powdered Toast Man vs. Waffle Woman" (no explanation needed there...), and the surreal "House of Next Tuesday" (R & S visit the title domicile to escape giant ants). All this, plus several visits to "Untamed World," appearances by the irascible Wilbur Cobb, Jerry the Bellybutton Elf (who resides inside Stimpy's navel)--and scads of commentary tracks, including eleven from Kricfalusi and his Spumco team, and two from Ren and Stimpy themselves. Though the loyal may be divided on these seasons, completists will want to add this round of lunacy to their DVD animation collections. -- Paul Gaita

Did you REALLY think you were safe from the insanity and stupidity of Ren and Stimpy? Well, the demented duo is back for more madness with their friends Powdered Toastman, Jimmy Lummox, Jerry the Bellybutton Elf, crazy Wilbur Cobb, deranged circus midgets, and more! From girl scouts to brain surgery, from prehistoric times to Washington, D.C., from inside Stimpy Bellybutton, to inside Ren's face, get ready for a whacked-out ride! Oh, joy of joys!

The Ren & Stimpy Show - Season Five and Some More of Four

The animated misadventures of Ren and Stimpy on Nickelodeon came to a close with its fifth season, the entire controversial collection of which is bundled together with the second half of season 4. Some fans of the series seem less than enthralled by the shows that are compiled here (as series creator John Kricfalusi and his Spumco team had been replaced by Games Animation), but there's still plenty of inspired insanity to be found; season 4 offers "My Shiny Friend" (Ren takes some extreme measures to cure Stimpy's TV addiction) and "Cheese Rush Days" (the boys head to the Blue Cheese Mountains to mine), while season 5 features "Stupid Sidekick Union" (Stimpy learns that his union is striking); "Reverend Jack Cheese" (the late Frank Gorshin lends his voice to a minister with a thing for meats and cheeses); "Wilderness Adventure," which includes the much-maligned George Liquor; and "Space Dogged" (a Russian cat/dog team--Ren and Stimpy lookalikes, natch--are being sent into space).

As with previous R&S DVD sets, the supplemental features are somewhat spare--Kricfalusi and members of Spumco and Games contribute commentaries, and there's a featurette on the show--and the episodes are indeed the edited versions, but the comments by the show's creative team are both entertaining and informative. And no matter what your opinion of these final episodes (before the show's revival as an Adult Party Cartoon on Spike TV), there's still plenty of stinky laughs to be had. --Paul Gaita

Join Ren and Stimpy in their bizarre and gross world that features the oddly lovable duo in some outlandish situations coupled with hilarious jokes. THE REN AND STIMPY SHOW: SEASONS FIVE & SOME MORE OF FOUR consists of amusing episodes combined with the gross-out humor that became popular when the show first premiered on Nickelodeon in 1991