Maximizing Bugs Bunny

There are dozens of Looney Tunes DVDs and Blu-rays for sale. Warner Bros has released seven "Collections"; some are complete subsets of other sets and contain no new shorts. Unfortunately, Warner Bros hasn't provided a guide on how to maximize the Bugs Bunny for your buck. So, what's the best way to own all of the Looney Tunes shorts available on disc today?

With HBO removing classic cartoons it is more important than ever to own physical media!

2026 Update: Added Collector's Vault Volume 1 and Volume 2, which significantly reorganized the recommended purchasing order!

2025 Update: Added Collector's Choice Volume 3 and Volume 4.

2024 Update: Added Bugs Bunny 80th Anniversary Collection, Porky Pig 101, Collector's Choice Volume 1, and Volume 2. Additionally, the shorts under consideration was expanded from the 1002 shorts produced before 1969 to include the 32 shorts released as Merrie Melodies/Looney Tunes between 1979 and 2004.

Fortunately, Wikipedia editors have built episode lists! Episode lists for each DVD were scraped from Wikipedia and analyzed with Python. A CSV (tab-delimited) file containing the scraped content is available here with sample code at the end of this post.

The following were excluded from this review:

• DVDs that were only TV specials containing mixes of clips and not full shorts (e.g. Cupid Capers)
• DVD releases that were explicity subsets of larger collections ("and Friends", "Center Stage", "Showcase: Volume 1", "28 Cartoon Classics Premiere Edition", "All Stars", "Spotlight Collection", etc)
• "New" shows (Looney Tunes Reality Check, Taz-Mania, Webtoons, etc) not branded as Merrie Melodies or Looney Tunes
• TV Specials were excluded but are contained on many collections as bonus materials

Note: No attempt was made to catalog full vs wide screen shorts. Some, but not all, of the shorts in the Super Stars Collection were improperly cropped. Some, but not all, of the skewed episodes were fixed and rereleased in the Platinum Collection.

Summary

There are 766 unique shorts available on DVD or Blu-Ray (and a little over 250 that are not). The Golden Collection and 7 of the 8 DVDs from the Super Stars Collection have a combined 479 unique shorts, or 66% coverage. Adding the Collector's Choice results in 570 uniques for 79% coverage.

The Best of Warner Bros[^2], Spotlight Collection, Academy Awards Collection, and Unleashed discs contain no unique shorts.

DVDs Included in this Analysis

Dohtem provides a comprehensive history of Warner Bros release of Looney Tunes DVDs (and has organized the #FinishTheWabbit campaign).

Collection Comparison

From the table it is apparent the fastest way to build up unique Looney Tunes shorts is to start with the Golden Collectoion. The Golden Collection was targeted at collectors with lots of bonus features. The Spotlight Collection was released in tandem with the Golden Collection but was cheaper, aimed at families, and does not include any shorts not already on the Golden Collection. The Spotlight Collection is not worth buying.

A Venn diagram of the first three collections (Golden, Platinum, and Super Stars) shows the overlap between the collections. The Platinum Collection has significant short overlap with the Golden Collection; it only provides 32 new shorts. The Super Stars Collection, on the other hand, contains 102 shorts not in the Golden Collection.

Warner Bros included the following 15 shorts in all three collections:

• Gorilla My Dreams
• Birds Anonymous
• Rabbit Fire
• Tortoise Beats Hare
• Canary Row
• Broom-Stick Bunny
• Tweetie Pie
• Satan's Waitin'
• For Scent-imental Reasons
• Rabbit Seasoning
• Rabbit of Seville
• Long-Haired Hare
• High Diving Hare
• Gift Wrapped
• Bully for Bugs

A Note On the Super Stars Collection: Not all of the discs in the Super Stars Collection introduce new material when compared to the Golden Collection; all of the episodes on Feline Fwenzy and Wascally Wabbit (Europe-only release) are repeated in the Golden Collection.

The Collector's Choice series adds 91 unique shorts to the mix of the Golden & Super Stars Collections while adding 95 if combined with the Golden and Platinum series.

The new Collector's Vault release complicates the set comparisons! The visualization below takes some getting used to, but is packed with information. Let's use the Golden Collection as an example - it is the top row and has 377 total shorts (right hand graph). Starting from the left hand side of the plot, the Golden Collection has 17 shorts of overlap with the Super Stars Collection. The Golden, Super Stars, and Platinum collection have 15 shorts of overlap, etc. Reading from near the center of the plot, the Golden Collection has 202 unique shorts amongst these releases.

Some more standard Venn diagrams to view the Vault overlaps:

Standalone Disc Comparisons

Due to the nature of Venn diagrams, it is not easy to show how 11 releases interact. The Venn diagrams below have the Golden & Super Stars Collections or the Golden, Platinum, and Super Stars Collections grouped as one set to show how the standalone discs add to the unique episode count.

Adding the Essentials

What happens to the unique episode count if the Essential Bugs Bunny and the Essential Daffy Duck are added?

Note that adding the Platinum Collection to this diagram does not affect how many episodes are added!

Bugs Bunny 80th Anniversary Collection

The Bugs Bunny 80th Anniversary Collection adds 31 unique episodes that all feature Bugs Bunny.

Recommended Purchasing Order

The fastest way to get the most Looney Tunes shorts is to purchase the Golden Collection.

1. Looney Tunes: Golden Collection Vols 1-6

If there is only one spot on the shelf (or budget) for a Looney Tunes collection, it should be filled with the Golden Collection . The Golden Collection contains 377 of the available 766 shorts (49%) as well as numerous commentaries and bonus features. The Golden Collection is truly the best bang-for-the-buck when it comes to collecting Looney Tunes - unfortunately this is known by the crooks who are selling fakes.

2. Looney Tunes Super Stars Collection

After owning the Golden Collection, more unique shorts are added by the Super Stars Collection than any other set. However, Feline Fwenzy adds no new shorts and can be ignored. Owning both the Golden and Super Stars Collections results in 479 unique shorts (63%).

3. Looney Tunes Collector's Choice Vols 1-4

The Collector's Choice volumes are largely comprised of shorts that have not been previously released on disc and add an additional 91 unique episodes to the Golden & Super Stars sets (74%).

4. Porky Pig 101

If you are a fan of black and white cartoons featuring Porky Pig, Porky Pig 101 is a great fourth purchase and will add 64 new episodes to the Golden and Super Stars Collections (83%).

5. Looney Tunes Collector's Vault Vols 1-2

The Collector's Vault adds 49 new shorts, for a grand total of 634 unique shorts (89%).

6. Bugs Bunny 80th Anniversary Collection

Before the release of the Collector's Choice, the Bugs Bunny 80th Anniversary Collection was the natural next purchase. The set adds 31 unique shorts all containing Bugs Bunny (93%).

7. Looney Tunes: Platinum Collection Vols 1-3

There are significant diminishing returns once the above discs are owned. The Platinum Collection features some full frame fixes from the Super Stars Collection and adds an additional 25 unique shorts to the queue (96%). The DVD variants of the Platinum Collection volumes are missing the third special features disc, but many of the special features overlap with the Golden Collection. Owning the Golden, Super Stars, and Platinum Collection provides a full superset of the Looney Tunes episodes on Academy Awards Collection.

8. Looney Tunes Mouse Chronicles: Chuck Jones Collection

The Looney Tunes Mouse Chronicles contains 21 unique shorts (70% of the shorts in the set), but many of them don't feature the "usual gang". Adding the Mouse Chronicles brings the episode coverage to a significant 99%.

9. The Essential Daffy Duck

Although Bugs is superior to Daffy, the Essential Daffy Duck adds four unique shorts to Bugs Bunny's two. Adding this set to the collection increases the episode coverage to 99.7%.

10. The Essential Bugs Bunny

The Essential Bugs Bunny set adds two remaining shorts for a total of 100% of shorts available on disc.

But That's Not All Folks!

But what about Maximizing Bugs Bunny? If you only care about single character collections, here's how to go about it. Note that this is the optimal purchasing order and does not mean the character is not included in other releases - Warner Bros has introduced plenty of redundancies.

Bugs Bunny

Daffy Duck

Elmer Fudd

Foghorn Leghorn

Porky Pig

Road Runner

Sylvester

Tweety

Wile E. Coyote

Yosemite Sam

Pepe Le Pew

Speedy Gonzales

Marvin the Martian

Taz

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Python Example

import pandas as pd
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from matplotlib_venn import venn2, venn3

# Read in the raw data
raw = pd.read_csv('BugsBunny.csv',skiprows=1,delimiter='\t')

#
# Convert "Volume" Columns to Collection Sets
# 
# Note: sets are used to gain set operators for comparisons

# Build up Set of Super Star Episodes
superstarsS = set(raw["Hare Extraodinaire"].dropna().append(
            [raw["Frustrated Fowl"].dropna(),
             raw["Barnyard Bigmouth"].dropna(),
             raw["Feline Fwenzy"].dropna(),
             raw["Wascally Wabbit"].dropna(),
             raw["Supergenius Hijinks"].dropna(),
             raw["Zee Best of Zee Best"].dropna(),
             raw["Hilarious Ham"].dropna(),
             raw["Marsupial Mayhem"].dropna()],
            ignore_index=True))

# Build up Set of Platinum Episodes
platinumS = set(raw["Platinum Volume 1"].dropna().append(
            [raw["Platinum Volume 2"].dropna(),
             raw["Platinum Volume 3"].dropna()],
            ignore_index=True))

# Build up Set of Golden Collection Episodes
goldenS = set(raw["Golden Volume 1"].dropna().append(
            [raw["Golden Volume 2"].dropna(),
             raw["Golden Volume 3"].dropna(),
             raw["Golden Volume 4"].dropna(),
             raw["Golden Volume 5"].dropna(),
             raw["Golden Volume 6"].dropna()],
            ignore_index=True))

# Build up Set of Spotlight Episodes
spotlightS = set(raw["Spotlight Volume 1"].dropna().append(
            [raw["Spotlight Volume 2"].dropna(),
             raw["Spotlight Volume 4"].dropna(),
             raw["Spotlight Volume 5"].dropna(),
             raw["Spotlight Volume 6"].dropna(),
             raw["Spotlight Volume 7"].dropna(),
             raw["Spotlight Volume 8"].dropna()],
            ignore_index=True))
#
# Make Standalone Sets
#

academyS = set(raw["Academy Awards Collection"].dropna())
essentialbugsS = set(raw["The Essential Bugs Bunny"].dropna())
essentialdaffyS = set(raw["The Essential Daffy Duck"].dropna())
mouseS = set(raw["Looney Tunes Mouse Chronicles"].dropna())
showcaseS = set(raw["Showcase Volume 1"].dropna())
unleashedS = set(raw["Looney Tunes Unleashed"].dropna())
warnerS = set(raw["Best of Warner Brothers"].dropna())

#
# Make Comparisons!
#

# Find # uniques in Super Stars Series
print('Super Star Uniques')
print(len(superstarsS - platinumS - goldenS - spotlightS - academyS - essentialbugsS - essentialdaffyS - mouseS - showcaseS - unleashedS - warnerS))

# Find Unique Episode in Warner Bros Collection
warnerS - unleashedS - showcaseS - mouseS - essentialdaffyS - essentialbugsS - academyS - superstarsS - platinumS - goldenS - spotlightS

# Print the Episodes shared between the three collections
for s in superstarsS & goldenS & platinumS:
    print('* %s' % s)

# Make a Venn for the collections
venn3([goldenS, platinumS, superstarsS], set_labels=('Golden','Platinum','Super Stars'))

# Venn of the collections and the "Essentials"
venn3([platinumS | superstarsS | goldenS, essentialbugsS, essentialdaffyS], set_labels=('Golden, Platinum, & Super Stars','Bugs','Daffy'))