It's Academy Award season again, and Warner Bros. has decided to commemorate the occasion by combining several of the classic cartoons they own the rights to - all of which included here were either nominated for or won one of the academy's prestigious awards. ***

Warner Bros has actually released two separate sets - this one, which features both the award winners and the nominees, and another separately-released set consisting of just the winners. If you're on a budget you may want to opt for the former set, but this one truly is the superior product, digging deeper into the Warner vaults and further exploring their classic pieces of animation. ***

Total, the set features 41 cartoons, spanning properties and creators including Warner Bros, MGM, Hanna-Barbera, Chuck Jones, and Max Fleischer. Characters featured in these cartoons include Tom, Jerry, Pepe Le Pew, Tweety, Sylvester, Bugs Bunny, Foghorn Leghorn, Droopy, Popeye, Speedy Gonzales, Porky Pig, and Superman. ***

While every cartoon included in this set is great, the main issue I have with the set is that, in a lot of cases, it's nothing we haven't seen before. Only about a quarter of these cartoons are new to the DVD format, and a very good chunk of the set is just reissues from the various Looney Tunes and Tom And Jerry box sets Warner Bros. has put out in recent years. Additionally, the Superman short featured here can be found on the four-disc collectors set of Superman: The Movie, along with a ton of the other Fleischer Superman Cartoons. If you don't already own any of these cartoons on another DVD set, this would make a good addition to your DVD collection. But if you've been buying earlier Warner Bros. collections, there's a good chance you've already got most of the highlights of the set. ---

Image And Sound:

The quality of the cartoons featured here is more-or-less identical to the quality seen in other Warner Bros. animation collections that have been released lately. If you've seen any of those other collections, you know what to expect here. The cartoons look better on DVD than on any VHS release or television airing, having gone through a remastering process. In the case of cartoons that have been in other Warner sets (Tom And Jerry, Looney Tunes), these appear to be the same remastering jobs.. Image quality is very good throughout with no serious flaws. Audio is equally terrific, with all the dialogue, sound effects, and music coming across loud and clear. ---

Sadly, not a whole lot to speak of. Select cartoons in the set feature optional commentaries, or in even fewer cases, an optional music-only track that showcases the score composed for the short. Two featurettes are included as well. The first featurette, Drawn For Glory: Animation's Triumph At The Oscars tells the story of the various animators involved in these shorts and their creations. It's a nice documentary that provides an insightful look behind the scenes of these classics. The other featurette included is What's Cookin', Doc? More a joke than anything else, this short follows Bugs Bunny at an Academy Awards ceremony fighting to win an Oscar for one of his cartoons. It will get more than a few laughs out of you, I guarantee it. I wish there was more bonus material, but seriously I'm grateful any bonuses were included at all. ---

Final Words: