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STUDIO: Warner Home Video
MSRP: $26.98
RATED: Not Rated
RUNNING TIME: 308 minutes
SPECIAL FEATURES:
Bonus Cartoons
Featurettes
The Pitch
Let’s take an eclectic sampling of shows that Warner Brothers owns and then sell it to nostalgic baby boomers.
The Humans
Mel Blanc, June Foray, Stan Freberg and a galaxy of underpaid voice actors
The Nutshell
Warner Brothers/Hanna Barbara has this amazing vault of classic cartoons that they’ve collected over the past decades. You’ll get to see some of the highlights such as The Jetsons, Top Cat and Space Ghost on display here. Then, there’s the forgettable offerings such as Marine Boy and Winsome Witch. Most of the shows can be seen ad nauseum in syndication. But, this release offers up a fine primer in what worked in 1960s mainstream animation.
All George could think about was how much he hated Jane. The constant spending, the constant back-talk and the constant re-programming of Rosie. Her end was coming.
The Lowdown
Saturday Morning Cartoons – 1960s: Volume 1 starts with a disclaimer that talks about how the best materials were salvaged to make the disc. There’s some digital noise and some dirt on the various prints. But, the video shimmer that has plagued a lot of recent animation DVDs from Warner Brothers is long since gone. It’s kind of sad when a 40 year old cartoon can look better than something like Tiny Toon Adventures. Hell, just check out some of the screen shots.
By the power of ALEX TOTH!
The
first disc starts with a quick one-two punch of Top Cat and Atom Ant. The rest of the first disc is a quick blast through C-list characters before we hit old favorites like Porky Pig and The Flintstones. There’s not enough material here to judge an entire series, but it’s enough to raise an interest. That’s the kind of DVD that’s missing from a lot of companies. There’s backlogs of material from every studio out there that goes sight unseen because they don’t know how to present it. Quick jaunts of material like this catch the attention of kids, adults and animation fans alike.
Plus, there’s the sheer freaky nature of a lot of this older material. So much of was either trippy outer space work or the Hanna/Barbara team shamelessly ripping off past successes. You’ll come to see the latter more in the next volume that covers the material from the 1970s. What we have here is so far ranging that you can’t really peg it. There’s slapstick, there’s high-adventure, there’s western comedy, there’s talking animals and never the twain shall meet.
The Flintstone line continued long into the 1960s.
Unless it’s on the Laff-A-Lympics, but that was a decade off. Not every kid is going to like this stuff. Hell, there’s a disclaimer on the back of the box declaring that this set is only for the adult collector. I find that to be kind of a con since there’s no animated series that isn’t for kids. Well, unless you count Hentai. But, I believe that all animation requires a plot. Back to what I was saying, saying a cartoon isn’t for a kid is a joke. This is the perfect chance to have a bunch of varied shows to sit down with a child and judge their response.
JAPAN!
The
DVD has decent A/V Quality for a classic release. Naturally, Warner Brothers puts a disclaimer before the start of the program that explains how the best materials were salvaged to make the disc and that the quality might shift. But, there’s only a minimal amount of dirt on the various cartoons. Hell, it looks a lot better than some of the recent animation that WB put out on DVD. Therefore, it shouldn’t be a problem.
The Package
The
DVD
release comes packed with some featurettes that cover the various impacts that each series made. There’s a quickie about how Alex Toth and Space Ghost started the rise of the modern adventure cartoon. There’s another one about the rise of rock with cartoons such as Frankenstein Jr. and The Impossibles. Plus, there’s a look at Quick-Draw McGraw that really doesn’t do anything. Still, it’s a fun time with a few bonus cartoons that allows for up to six hours of entertainment. I’d recommend it for a purchase.