Big time Broadway musicals appear in a new boxed set – and Woody Woodpecker flies onto Blu-ray

By Jim Bray
February 25, 2026

If you're a fan of classic Broadway musicals that have been given the Hollywood treatment (for better or for worse), a nice boxed set from Warner Archives bundles six of them in one package.

And if that isn't enough, fans of the old Woody Woodpecker "Cartunes" also have a nice indulgence from Universal.

Let's start with the music. This new set brings together Guys and Dolls, Brigadoon, Damn Yankees, The Pajama Game, Gypsy and The Boy Friend, and all of them (well, with one possible exception) look really good in their Blu-ray incarnation.

I'm a good example of the target market for these movies (in fact, though it isn't in this package, my wife and I watched the 4K disc of My Fair Lady last night), and actually appeared in three of their stage versions, in amateur productions, when I was a nipper.

So, I dove into this set with an extra helping of gusto. And for the most part it's really great. They're apparently repackages of previous releases, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Guys and Dolls is the first disc in the package and it looks and sounds great. It's supposedly based on the work of Damon Runyan and tells the tale of a bunch of gamblers hoping that Nathan Detroit (Frank Sinatra) will set up the next "Oldest Established Permanent Floating Crap Game in New York" for them to play in. The movie has some great music by Frank Loesser, and a wonderful cast that also includes Marlon Brando, Jean Simmons and Vivian Blaine. Songs include "Luck Be a Lady," and "Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat."

Still, this was my least favourite musical in the set. Until I saw The Boy Friend…

We watched Brigadoon next, the Vincente Minnelli-directed Lerner and Loewe tale of two American hunters who get lost in the Scottish woods and stumble across the title village, which has a magical secret that threatens to upend the hunters' lives.

Starring Gene Kelly, Van Johnson and Cyd Charisse, it's a wonderful tale with wonderful tunes and the Blu-ray widescreen version looks and sounds great. I was a little disappointed in the movie itself, which truncates the original stage play and cuts some of its songs, but that isn't the disc's fault. Of the songs that remain are such classics as "Almost like Being in Love", "McConnachy Square", "Go Home with Bonnie Jean" and "The Heather on the Hill" (though there's no one named Heather that I remember…).

I love Brigadoon, which apparently was Lerner and Loewe's first big success. Of course, they'd go on later to make such other great musicals as Gigi, Paint your Wagon and, of course, My Fair Lady.

Damn Yankees is the story of a diehard Washington Senators fan who sells his soul to the devil (Ray Walston) to become a young baseball star and help the team beat the damn Yankees. And he does! It's based on a novel I read (well, the Reader's Digest version) when I was a kid, and besides being a good story it contains a few good tunes as well.

Among them are "Goodbye old girl", a bit of a bittersweet tear jerker, "Heart" (You gotta have heart!), "Shoeless Joe from Hannibal, Mo.", "Whatever Lola Wants" and more.

Naturally, the devil (Mr. Applegate, here) uses all his wiles, helped by his sidekick Lola (who also sold her soul) to ensure his client Joe doesn't have a chance to use the escape clause in his contract.

The Pajama Game stars Doris Day, John Raitt (Bonnie's dad) and Eddie Foy, Jr. The pajama game is how they describe their jobs – they work in a pajama factory – and since there's a bit of labour unrest, the boss brings in a new honcho to ride herd on the workers.

Naturally, things don't work out as planned and the new boss, who apparently isn't the same as the old boss (Sorry, Pete Townshend!) ends up falling in love with the head of the Grievance Committee (Day), causing other issues at the pajama factory.

Songs include "Hey There," (Rosemary Clooney did the definitive version, but it isn't this one), "Hernando's Hideway", and "Steam Heat".

Gypsy was a very wide screen version of the Broadway hit (I played three different shrubberies as an "up and coming extra" in the Ottawa Little Theatre production when I was about 18) about a stage mother who pushes her daughters (and anyone else she can find, apparently) into a life on the stage whether they want it or not. It's the era of burlesque and the result is the creation of Gypsy Rose Lee, a famous stripper who apparently was more into the "tease" part of striptease than the actual stripping.

It's a good cast, with Rosalind Russell as Mama Rose (though I would've loved to see Ethel Merman here!), Karl Malden as the poor schmuck who loves her, and Natalie Wood as the eventual Gypsy. Ann Jillian plays Baby June, Rose's preferred daughter, who would grow up to be actress June Havoc.

Songs include "Let me Entertain you" (ad nauseam), "Everything's Coming Up Roses" (or is it "Rose's"?),
"Small World" and others.

Then there's the Boy Friend, Ken Russell's strange adaptation of the musical play that originally put Julie Andrews on the Broadway map. It's been a long, long time since I saw the play (I was actually "the Boy Friend" in my high school's production when I was in grade 12) and this film doesn't really ring many bells in my memory.

Here's how Wikipedia describes the plot:

"In the late 1920s at the low-rent, provincial Theatre Royal in Portsmouth, Hampshire new assistant stage manager Polly Browne helps the company prepare for a Saturday matinée performance of The Boy Friend; there is only a small audience, and the show's star Rita Monroe is absent. Among the company are former American child dancer Tommy, and the handsome but distant Tony Brockhurst as the male lead. Learning that Monroe has broken her ankle, director Max Mandeville has Polly take her place as she knows the show by heart. The situation is further complicated by the arrival of Hollywood talkie director Mr. De Thrill, who is considering adapting The Boy Friend to film. The musical follows the romantic escapades of "Polly" after meeting the handsome "Tony" at a continental villa, both wealthy but pretending poverty to find true love; the events of the musical begin intertwining with backstage happenings.

That's not how I remember it, but this is Ken Russell – the man who brought his unusual tastes to such films as the Who's Tommy, The Devils, and Altered States.

Anyway, the films stars Twiggy, the famous British Supermodel, Christopher Gable, Tommy Tune, and a bunch of people I'd never heard of.

It appears not everyone liked the film, including Ken Russell. If you can believe Wikipedia: "Sandy Wilson (me again: he wrote the play) said in a 1994 interview that he disliked the film. "I recognise some of the tunes. If it made a star out of Twiggy, well... but she's faded out long since. To give Russell his due, it didn't belong on the screen at all.

Woody "Russell later wrote of the film in his 1994 memoirs The Lion Roars: Despite the big Busby Berkeley routines, the novelty value of the stage show, the great singing and dancing by the cast... plus the brilliant designs of Shirley Kingdon and Tony Walton, the film was a flop. The acting was too broad, the gags too laboured and the pacing too slow. I should have cut it during the script stage, but, determined to be faithful to the original show, I kept in everything!"

I wish Warners had included something other than The Boy Friend – maybe something like Bye, Bye Birdie (though that movie sucked compared to the play, too), but what can you do?

Video and audio on all movies are fine, though I thought Damn Yankees was a tad soft. And each Blu-ray comes with some reissued extras of varying quality and amount.

On the whole, this is a great set if you're a fan of the source material, and all are worthy Blu-ray examples.

Lantz-ing a boil?

The Woody Woodpecker and Friends Golden Age Collection is a classic time capsule and perhaps another example of the fact that you can never go home again.

I loved Woody when I was a kid and watched his show all the time. Here we get 25 of Walter Lantz's offerings plus some extras including some of the old featurettes Walter Lantz used to do himself where he introduces the audience to various animation techniques etc. I loved the Lantz stuff, as a budding movie buff, and really enjoyed seeing it again.

Alas, the Cartunes haven't aged as well. While the classic Looney Tunes stuff is often as good or better today than back in the day, Woody seems more like a time capsule from a mostly bygone age. And, like some other old series, there's some stuff here that's sure to set off the snowflakes.

Of course, that just makes it more worthwhile and worth watching!

One thing I liked in particular is that the Cartunes don't just feature Woody, but also some of the other Lantz characters from the series, such as Andy Panda, Chilly Willy, etc. The video quality is first rate, and the audio is better than I expected. Both combine to give new life to this old animation and I loved it. And the extras are "extra" special.

I'm really glad I got a chance to see this collection. As a long-time fan (Heck, my cell phone's ringtone is Woody's laugh!) it was a pleasure diving back into this stuff. And perhaps it's because I'm old and grey now that I didn't enjoy the toons as much as I did when I was a kid.

Whatever the answer, this is a very nice collection for old fans and it may even create some new ones.