Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 2

Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 2 is a DVD box set that was released by Warner Home Video on November 2, 2004. It contains 60 Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons and numerous supplements.

Related releases
As with Volume 1, the individual discs were released separately in Regions 2 and 4: In Region 1, discs 3 and 4 were also released separately as the more family-friendly Looney Tunes Spotlight Collection: Volume 2.
 * Disc 1: Best of Bugs Bunny - Volume 2
 * Disc 2: Best of Road Runner
 * Disc 3: Best of Tweety and Sylvester
 * Disc 4: All-Stars - Volume 3

Disc #1: Bugs Bunny Masterpieces

 * All cartoons on this disc star Bugs Bunny.

(*): The original ending title sequence has been restored for this release, replacing the Blue Ribbon reissue titles. (**): Public domain cartoon.

Audio bonuses

 * Music-only audio tracks on Hyde and Hare
 * Music-and-effects-only audio track on Broom-Stick Bunny, Bunny Hugged, Baby Buggy Bunny
 * Audio commentaries
 * Bill Meléndez on The Big Snooze
 * June Foray on Broom-Stick Bunny
 * Greg Ford on Bugs Bunny Rides Again, The Heckling Hare
 * Jerry Beck on Gorilla My Dreams
 * Michael Barrier on Tortoise Beats Hare, Slick Hare
 * Chuck Jones on Tortoise Beats Hare

From the Vaults

 * The Bugs Bunny/Looney Tunes 50th Anniversary Special: Part 1
 * The Bugs Bunny Show: Do or Diet bridging sequences; No Business Like Slow Business audio recording sessions with Mel Blanc

Behind-the-Tunes

 * A Conversation With Tex Avery

Disc #2: Road Runner and Friends

 * All cartoons on this disc are directed by Chuck Jones.

(*): The original ending title sequence has been restored for this release, replacing the Blue Ribbon reissue titles. (**): Public domain cartoon.

Audio bonuses

 * Music-only audio tracks on Guided Muscle, Gee Whiz-z-z-z-z-z-z There They Go-Go-Go!, Scrambled Aches, Zoom and Bored
 * Music-and-effects-only audio track on A Bear for Punishment
 * Audio commentaries
 * Michael Barrier on Beep, Beep, The Dover Boys at Pimento University or 'The Rivals of Roquefort Hall', A Bear for Punishment
 * Greg Ford on Stop! Look! And Hasten!, Whoa Be-Gone!, Mouse Wreckers

From the Vaults

 * Adventures of the Road-Runner 1962 television pilot
 * The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Show opening title sequence

Behind-the-Tunes

 * Crash! Bang! Boom!: The Wild Sounds of Treg Brown

Disc #3: Tweety and Sylvester and Friends
(*): The original ending title sequence has been restored for this release, replacing the Blue Ribbon reissue titles. (**): The original opening and ending title sequences have been restored for this release, replacing the Blue Ribbon reissue titles. (***): Original flag cue restored (#): Original ending title card has been restored, replacing the Merrie Melodies 1959-1960 season ending title card.

Audio commentaries

 * Greg Ford on Ain't She Tweet, Tweetie Pie
 * Michael Barrier on Kitty Kornered, Baby Bottleneck, Porky in Wackyland
 * Jerry Beck and Martha Sigall on Old Glory
 * John Kricfalusi on The Great Piggy Bank Robbery

From the Vaults

 * Bonus cartoon: Daffy Duck for President (An all-new Daffy Duck cartoon released to tie in with the 2004 Election)
 * The Bugs Bunny/Looney Tunes 50th Anniversary Special: Part 2
 * The Porky Pig Show opening title sequence
 * The Bugs Bunny & Tweety Show 1988 and 1992 opening title sequences

Behind-the-Tunes

 * The Man From Wackyland: The Art of Bob Clampett

Disc #4: Looney Tunes All-Stars: On Stage and Screen
(*): The original opening and ending title sequences have been restored for this release, replacing the Blue Ribbon reissue titles. (**): Footage featuring a caricature of Alexander Woollcott, cut from the Blue Ribbon reissue after Woollcott died, has been restored for this release. (***): Combines live-action with animation. (#): Public domain cartoon.

Audio bonuses

 * Music-only audio tracks on Three Little Bops, One Froggy Evening, What's Opera, Doc?
 * Vocals-only audio tracks on Three Little Bops and What's Opera, Doc?
 * Audio commentaries
 * Greg Ford on Back Alley Oproar, Hollywood Steps Out, Show Biz Bugs
 * Michael Barrier on Book Revue, A Corny Concerto, One Froggy Evening
 * Jerry Beck and Stan Freberg on Three Little Bops
 * Daniel Goldmark on Rhapsody Rabbit and What's Opera, Doc?
 * Chuck Jones, Michael Maltese, and Maurice Noble on What's Opera, Doc?
 * Jerry Beck on You Ought to Be in Pictures

Behind-the-Tunes

 * Looney Tunes Go Hollywood
 * It Hopped One Night: A Look at One Froggy Evening
 * Wagnerian Wabbit: The Making of What's Opera, Doc?

From the Vaults

 * ''Orange Blossoms For Violet (1952)- short live movie with dubbed-animals only.
 * Academy Award-winning So Much for So Little (1949).
 * Sinkin' in the Bathtub - although stated in the DVD box as included in this section, this cartoon was not included. It appeared in the Looney Tunes Golden Collection, vol. 3, disc 2 (in the "Special Features" section). The 2009 UK edition deletes "Sinkin' in the Bathtub" from the DVD box, thus correcting the error.

Anomalies
Although all cartoons on The Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 2 are presented uncut, a handful of cartoons in this DVD set feature digital video noise reduction (or DVNR) applied artifacting: the noise reduction process unintentionally erases or blurs some of the scenes in the cartoons. This process has upset consumers and animation collectors; subsequent Looney Tunes DVDs lack such artifacting. Cartoons in the collection that have been afflicted with DVNR are Bob Clampett's The Big Snooze, Frank Tashlin's Have You Got Any Castles?, and Robert McKimson's Gorilla My Dreams.

Also controversial is the inclusion of interlaced copies of a handful of cartoons, most of which are present on the DVD in progressive scan. Many have raised concern over the process and have insisted that Warner Home Video encode the cartoons onto DVD in progressive scan only. The interlaced cartoons on this collection are Bob Clampett's A Corny Concerto and Book Revue, Tex Avery's I Love to Singa and Hollywood Steps Out, and Frank Tashlin's Have You Got Any Castles?. No interlacing is used for the cartoon shorts (but appears in the special features) in the PAL version of the collection. In 2007 Warner Home Video began a replacement disc program whereby consumers could replace their interlaced discs with new progressive scan ones.

Release and reception
Warner Home Video was not sure that Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 1 would sell well enough to justify a second release in the series. Prior to the release of the second volume, WHV's Vice President of Non-Theatrical Franchise Marketing announced, "We are extremely pleased with consumer response to last year's Volume One editions and we are delighted to release another installment of our most famous animated classics."

The first set in the Looney Tunes Golden Collection series had won the Classic Award at the Parents' Choice Awards, and the second release was also an award-winner. TVShowsOnDVD.com reported that the set won the award for "Best Animated Series" release at the 3rd Annual TV-DVD Conference. In The New York Sun, author and critic Gary Giddins complained that this set, like the first one, was skimpy with the black-and-white shorts, and seemed to avoid the more politically incorrect cartoons in the series. When his review was reprinted in the book, Natural Selection, Giddins noted that Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 3 made up for the latter shortcoming by including some of the racist caricature in the series, preceded by an explanatory introduction by Whoopi Goldberg.

In a review reprinted in Syracuse, New York's The Post-Standard, Randy Salas, a critic for the Minneapolis, St. Paul Star Tribune, called the second volume in the Looney Tunes Golden Collection series a "glorious release". Salas describes the main content of the set, highlighting contributions from Chuck Jones and Friz Freleng with particular emphasis on Jones' One Froggy Evening (1955). The extras highlighted in the review include commentary from music historian Daniel Goldmark, and interviews with Chuck Jones, who had died in 2002. The review summed up, "This is an essential set for any animation fan, and it might just convert many who are not." The reviewer concluded by pointing out that a 2-disc "Spotlight Collection" with selections from the 4-disc set was also available, but advised, "Skip it and go for the full course."