Saturday Morning Cartoons 1970’s Volume 1
You’re going to need a really big bowl of sugary cereal for this
Tags: Misc DVD 2009 Categories: DVD/TV Reviews, Reviews
Posted by Daniel "monk" Pelfrey on Jun 1st, 2009
A quick look at Saturday morning cartoons now and I see that most appear to be based on a toy line or are co-produced with videogames. It seems that this once sacred time for kids has devolved into extended marketing. No longer do we get pure entertainment, things need to be tied in to other products and cross promoted. Don’t get me wrong, I know there were toys based on many of the cartoons here, but that wasn’t the emphasis.
Now Warner Brothers has gathered a selection of shorts and episodes from various television programs that it has produced over the years. Well, mostly Hanna Barbera (Warners bought out the company several years ago). Saturday Morning Cartoons 1970’s Volume 1 is a nice sampler of a bygone era when children’s entertainment was just that – entertainment.
As a nostalgic trip down cartoon lane, this collection works very well. Unfortunately it isn’t organized very well. There is nothing on the case listing what is on the discs, and the menu layout is needlessly cumbersome. For those interested, here is what is included on Saturday Morning Cartoons 1970’s Volume 1
Disc One
The Jetsons episode “The Space Car”
The Batman/Tarzan Adventure Hour featuring the Batman episode “The Pest” and Tarzan in “Tarzan and the Colossus of Zome”
Hong Kong Phooey in “Car Thieves” and “ZooStory”
Goober and the Ghost Chasers episode “Assignment Ahaab Apparition”
Speed Buggy in “Speed Buggy Went That-A-Way”
Wheelie and the Chopper Bunch featuring the episode shrots “Double Cross Country” “The Infiltrator” and “The Stunt Show”
Disc Two
Yogi’s Gang episode “Greedy Gene”
Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan episode “Scotland Yard”
Roman Holidays episode “Double Date”
Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space episode “The Nemo’s A No No Affair”
The New Scooby Doo Movies episode “The Ghostly Creep From the Deep”
Funky Phantom episode “I’ll Haunt You Later”
All of these programs appear with their intro and outro segments.
All the special features are on the second disc, and consist of two short featurettes, both examining one of the series (Funky Phantom and Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan). These just spend a few minutes giving an overview of these two series in the place of the cartoon lineup. They are, however, far too short to be of any real substance. I wish some proper featurettes on the programs were presented here instead of the teasers that are less than 5 minutes each. Also, how did it get decided to examine Funky Phantom and not Speed Buggy? Oh well.
So is this a collection worth picking up? You get over 5 hours of cartoon fun for a list price of $25. You should be able to find it for much less than that. Some of these shows are available on DVD (Jetsons, Scooby Doo) while others are not. So it really comes down to nostalgia. That sense of nostalgia is very strong here, and this collection is a great visit down memory lane and a great way to introduce today’s younger (and more jaded) cartoon viewers to the simple pleasures of when cartoons were much more entertaining not simply marketing ploys.
| What Works | Score |
|---|---|
|
+ Some of these haven't been seen in years + Intro and outro segments to the various programs |
7.0 |
| What Doesn't | |
|
- Special features provide little context for the modern viewer - Some of this stuff has already been released - Warner Brothers wants us to pay how much? - Poorly designed menus and packaging |
|
| Under the Shrink-wrap | |
| If you remember waking up early on Saturday morning this is a collection you might want to check out. | |
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Tags: Misc DVD 2009
Posted by Daniel "monk" Pelfrey on Jun 1st, 2009 and is filed under DVD/TV Reviews, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
