WB Archive Collection: Discs On Demand!

[Randall]

I thought that the Batman TV show was the final piece of my DREAM collection that I had been missing. But... I'd forgotten about

THE SUPER GLOBETROTTERS!!!!!!!!!

http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/news/Super- ... ries/20429

This is just too amazing.

[gaastra]

Groovey!

[gaastra]

Young Justice season 2 blu-ray

http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/news/Young- ... on-2/20420

[Ben]

That's the thing with "dream collections", though...they're never complete!

[gaastra]

Gumball vol 4.

http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/news/Amazin ... me-4/20452

[droosan]

I'm a big fan of The Amazing World of Gumball .. but not so much of WBHV's tendency to put the series on DVD in bite-size chunks.

It's slightly dishonest of them to claim the disc contains "twelve episodes," too .. when it's actually six half-hour episodes, with two stories in each.



Here's hoping this will end up like Scooby Doo! Mystery Incorporated and The Looney Tunes Show (they were also initially offered 'piecemeal', and then later collected into season boxed sets .. though, season 2 of LTS is not yet out on DVD either).

And hey: maybe do the same for Chowder. And The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack. And seasons 2+ of Dexter's Laboratory. And The Smurfs. And ..

[gaastra]

We get another set. This time it's the not that great Dumb and Dumber cartoon. Still no yogi's treasure hunt or mighty orbots.

http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/news/Dumb-D ... ries/20644

[gaastra]

Road Rovers!

http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/news/Road-R ... ries/20721

Also not a WA release but PUPPY POWER! (really!)

http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/news/Scooby ... on-1/20722

[Randall]

Wow, a KidsWB show I have no memory of.

I do remember Scrappy. Despite that, I might have to pick up that Scooby set.

[Ben]

The Scrappy episodes were always mixed in with the regular Scooby shows here in the UK, so they're a part of Scooby for me. Since I have the original Scooby shows (and the selection of the New Movies that they put out ages ago) then I'd likely pick this up at some point.

[gaastra]

Wow, a KidsWB show I have no memory of.

Think bucky o hare meets ninja turtles with dogs. It was fun but dumb. Not the best 90s show and not as good as other turtles knock offs but had some good episodes.

Here is the intro.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_w47z99R10

[Randall]

Speaking of scraping the bottom of the barrel...

http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/news/Tom-Je ... tion/20732

Actually, I've always wanted to see these. It'll be great having them in a set.

[Ben]

Oh, wow...yes!

Okay, a bit of an overkill reaction for what these are, but they're a missing part of the T&J puzzle on disc and I've made mention of them in every review I've done for the theatrical cartoons. At least two of them (Mouse Into Space and especially The Tom & Jerry Cartoon Kit) are actually good cartoons (not particularly great T&J cartoons but good all the same), while the handful of other ones I've seen (and had on VHS at one point) will just be nice to, um, have on the shelves. An interesting experiment in handing a glitzy Hollywood franchise to a European experimentor, these have been a long time coming and will be very welcome...for what they are.

[GeorgeC]

Speaking of scraping the bottom of the barrel...

http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/news/Tom-Je ... tion/20732

Actually, I've always wanted to see these. It'll be great having them in a set.

Yes, they are pretty much the bottom of the barrel as far as the Tom & Jerry Theatrical Shorts are concerned! I personally wouldn't buy them... I saw them on TV enough times growing up and they always struck me as being particularly lousy! I wasn't even 10 the first time I saw these and I knew something was wrong with them!

There's a reason why the Golden Age of Hollywood Animation ends in the mid-1950s. Most of the theatrical shorts and feature films immediately after that period are not very good! There were good animated TV series in the 1960s but the theatrical shorts took a huge dive in quality in the 1960s... The Deitch T & J series is a very good example of what I don't like about post-/mid-1950s Hollywood animation: low budget that shows, bad animation, canned soundtracks that sound like they're playing off a scratched record, and dull stories. The worst of the original MGM/H-B T & J series is better than anything I saw from the Deitch-helmed shorts.

You want to see what an Iron Curtain animated short looks like? Look at the Deitch T & J series! They were made in Czechoslovakia!

Even the MGM executives saw how bad these shorts were and gave Chuck Jones much higher budgets for his Tom & Jerry series... The original MGM/H-B T & J shorts won more Academy Awards than any other animated series during the 40's and 50's that I can think of so I guess they wanted to get some of the prestige the series had back before they shut it down for good. Of course, Chuck Jones forget he was making T & J shorts and his series was more like his old Roadrunner/Wile E. Coyote shorts at Warner Bros! Even Chuck Jones admitted that before he died.

As far as I know, the Deitch T&J series has never been offered as complete set on home video. The last I remember seeing any of these shorts on home video was an old laserdisc that had a few of the shorts on them. I think it was a film that used to circulate around film festivals. I think it was a mix of the classic MGM-HB T & J shorts and the Deitch series. There's really nothing else left from the Tom & Jerry theatrical shorts for WB to release on home video other than remastered reissues on Blu-ray if they ever finish them... They still haven't gotten to the other MGM stuff that never got released on DVD, period! What's been released on DVD and Blu ray is a small fraction of what was actually made between the 1930s and 1960s. Granted, not all the films are great -- most of what was really good has gotten a release on home video at one point or another -- but there's still a lot of great short films that haven't been available on home video, if ever released in any format, for decades!

[EricJ]

You want to see what an Iron Curtain animated short looks like? Look at the Deitch T & J series! They were made in Czechoslovakia!

I HAVE seen Iron Curtain animated shorts (no, I don't mean Zagreb/Professor Balthazar, I mean we had one station that once tried showing the Russian Bluejay cartoons when I was growing up), and yes, the Dietch T&J's DO look like that.