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STUDIO: Warner Home Video
MSRP: $26.98
RATED: Not Rated
RUNNING TIME: 299 minutes
SPECIAL FEATURES:
Completely Bananas: The Magilla Gorilla Story featurette
Saturday Morning Wake-Up Calls
The Pitch
The major networks once showed cartoons on Saturday Morning. Cartoons that weren’t made in Korea.
The Humans
Mel Blanc, Daws Butler, Alan Reed, Don Messick, Gary Owens and Tim Matheson
The Nutshell
The majority of the release is Warner Brothers digging through the Hanna Barbara library. Sure, you get the random oddity such as Johnny Cypher or the Filmation Aquaman series crammed into the mix. Nostalgia will carry most animation fans through this set. But, if you’re old enough to remember some of these shows, then you’re probably shopping for Depends. Seriously, you’re old.
When Mr. Peevley turns around, that’s when we open the coats and flash him.
The Lowdown
Peter Potamus, Porky Pig, Augie Doggy, Quick Draw McGraw, George Jetson and many others are winging their way to your DVD player. It’s all comedy with talking animals and wacky guys from the future. There’s a lot of double-dips from the previous season releases of The Jetsons, Looney Tunes and the various Hanna Barbara shows. So, long-time fans will probably have seen half of this disc already.
Augie’s pirate radio station will probably lose less money than Pirate Radio did.
The
sole adventure series included in the release was Samson & Goliath. Samson is a normal teen that fights evil by turning into an adult. Quicker than you can say Billy Batson, Samson learned how to use his powers on his dogs. Clanging a pair of bracelets together turned his dog Goliath into a lion. The gang had such great adventures that they barely lasted a single season.
Nothing made Zorzak smile like dropping sulfuric acid on blind kids. Little bastards never saw it coming.
I wish that there was some over-arching point to the set. For the first thirty minutes, you feel like you’re getting taste of some Hanna Barbara retrospective. Then, they throw a Filmation show at you or some random oddity like the Space Kidettes. By the time, you polish off your second or third shot of Magilla Gorilla or Wally Gator…you’re left wanting more. Where are the other highlights of the 1960s?
Where is Johnny Quest or Wacky Races? While you get some quality episodes of The Jetsons or Tom and Jerry, there’s too much iffy material. The last disc stinks of some intern being forced to pick shows at random and find a way to pad the release. I understand that there is a need to generate further volumes of this series. But, you need to give the people a reason to watch. As it stands, this DVD plays like the Boomerang channel on a slow day.
The basis of all that I find funny in the world.
What pisses me off about this release is the lack of content listing. The last two volumes were a little easier to navigate since you had an idea of what’s coming up next. But, if you’re flying blind…how can you avoid some of the crappier shows? The A/V Quality is decent for older shows salvaged for a last-minute DVD debut. The Looney Tunes transfers look considerably better since Warner Brothers is using the Golden Collection transfers. The audio is a standard mono mix that supports the older shows rather well.
A porkpie hat makes all animals a little less threatening.
The Package
The
package includes a featurette about the creation of Magilla Gorilla. About two minutes in, you realize that Hanna Barbara made a career out of nothing. Pulling characters out of your ass in the 60s was as American as apple pie. Especially, if the new pie was called Apel Pie or App all pie. The point is that it’s the same cloned shit that made have their library for a couple of decades. There’s also a gallery of trailers for other older animated shows on Warner Brothers DVD.