WB Archive Collection: Discs On Demand!

[gaastra]

http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/news/Amazin ... ries/17107

Chan clan is next!

[Randall]

That one, I'm not so excited about, based on the single episode I've seen. But good to see it coming out anyhow. I certainly would be willing to review it and give it a looksie.

[Ben]

I'd have loved to review the Chan Clan. Sure, I know it's probably awful, but I love the Chans (have all the Fox sets and the TCM collection, though not the Chanthology since it's waay overpriced, might get the UK edition that's going for peanuts), and the Warner Oland ones especially.

The BBC2 channel here in the 1980s used to be awesome come 6pm every weeknight. In the days of just three or four network channels, we used to have a two-hour kids block on the main BBC1 channel, where we'd get our fix of Scooby et al, and our localised British programming. That used to end at six, when the boring news came on...but wait!

Switch over to BBC2 and it was a film fan's heaven. Each day there would be a classic movie (Mondays was classic 50s sci-fi, for instance, Tuesday a Agatha Christie, Chan or Falcon whoodunnit, Wednesday a British comedy with Norman Wisdom or George Formby, etc), and then either a comedy two-reeler (Harold Lloyd, Laurel & Hardy, Leon Erroll) or a classic cartoon (Tex Avery or the black and white Popeyes)...this is basically where I got my movie education.

It was a fantastic two-hour block where I saw Invaders From Mars, Things To Come, When Worlds Collide, The Time Machine, etc, for the first time, as well as developing my love for those comedy and cartoon greats (I still have most of my taped recordings of those shorts too). Sorry...I've gone right off on a tangent, but that was also where I got my Chan fix every week.

It was great looking back through the recent Fox sets (I still have a few to do) but I'm up for anything Chan and, even though I know this must be terrible, it's pretty cool to original Number One Son Keye Luke provide the voice of the master detective, which makes for enough continuity in my books to add it to my Chan shelf!

Ah-so!

[EricJ]

It was great looking back through the recent Fox sets (I still have a few to do) but I'm up for anything Chan and, even though I know this must be terrible, it's pretty cool to original Number One Son Keye Luke provide the voice of the master detective, which makes for enough continuity in my books to add it to my Chan shelf!

I remember watching the show as a kid, and thinking H-B made up the idea of Charlie's fourteen kids, until I happened to rent "Charlie Chan at the Circus" years later, where we see them all...
(The cheap Sidney Toler Republic spinoffs couldn't use the Keye Luke #1 Son, and wrote in his dim #2 Son, and equally impulsive #1 teen Daughter. Now I just have to watch the show again and see whether they brought off their cartoon analogues.)

[Randall]

Here's our review of the under-rated Sealab 2020:

http://animatedviews.com/2012/sealab-20 ... te-series/

[gaastra]

http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/news/Shazam ... ries/17211

Captain marvel shazzam is next!

[Randall]

Shazam! A must purchase!! Hopefully we'll get the cartoons next.

[gaastra]

http://www.dvdaf.com/search.html?reldt= ... 2012-07-31

Heidi's Song cartoon is next. Looks like casper's first christmas is coming to dvd also! (the casper yogi bear crossover!)

[Ben]

Yes! Wow...never thought I would see the day. Don't know how I missed that announcement, but good to see they're using the very Disney-esque poster art for the front cover.

Now, this isn't the greatest animated feature in the world, but it's better than Charlotte's Web from the same studio, and in the times between middle and contemporary Disney, it was slim pickin's for musical animation fans who only had NIMH, Fantasia reissue and Heidi's Song to go on. I had the H'S soundtrack on tape (whoa, tape? What's that, Ben?) and played it all the time. It has some catchy stuff in it, and some decent voices.

Heidi was all over the place in Europe around that time. There was a German TV series that we got in the UK as a dubbed translation, that I think just about every kid of the era was glued to, especially for the nutty Grandfather. Heidi's Song kind of came and went without fanfare very quickly - I remember seeing more about the "coming release" than when it came out and instantly disappeared - and we couldn't ever find it on video.

Strange, because the animation isn't half bad (from memory) and I thought among the best that Hanna-Barbera did on a decent budget and without limited TV constraints. I really hope we get offered the DVD for review...I'm all over this one!

[EricJ]

Now, this isn't the greatest animated feature in the world, but it's better than Charlotte's Web from the same studio, and in the times between middle and contemporary Disney

Finally caught it on YouTube, and I....wouldn't say "better" than Charlotte's Web. (In fact, wasn't it Heidi that killed off H-B's feature rush?)
Charlotte felt like it stayed reasonably true to the book, but Heidi brought in a director who'd worked on the second Fritz the Cat movie, and you get this feeling somebody really doesn't know his kids' films--We go through Cuteness, there's a crazy Nightmare scene that's in there for some reason, and we get that bit with Sammy Davis Jr. because...I'm not sure why, think they felt it "had" to have a wiseguy animal scene in it, or they missed Paul Lynde as the rat from the last movie.

But yes, this was the time when anything that wasn't Disney was either making kiddie-fare from scratch, or some Weird Artist like Richard Williams (finally watching the cut Thief & Cobbler on Netflix ), and it's nice to see it unearthed, but only for historical value.

[Ben]

Heidi "killing off" HB's "feature rush" doesn't mean it was because it was a bad movie: the film just didn't get the kind of distribution that it would now (if you weren't Disney back then you were pretty limited in your distribution outlets, as Bluth found with NIMH).

Actually, I think HB put a hold on their feature plans because of other financial woes: with other companies coming into the TV area (Filmation, DIC, Ruby-Spears, etc) they didn't have the landscape to themselves, and properties from those other companies were proving more popular than the cute antics of Scooby-Doo and co, especially in terms of toys, naturally.

I think had Heidi been a bigger hit HB would have obviously gone on to produce more features - this was, as I understand it, a way to counter the decline in their TV animation output - but as I say it didn't get the distribution. A shame, really, since it was a pretty decent movie of the kind that Bluth would ironically make his own later in his career.

I'm holding off peeking at YouTube and looking forward to the DVD.

[gaastra]

Hannah Barbera christmas classics with caspers first christmas (the casper yogi bear crossover),town santa forgot, and a christmas story

http://www.wbshop.com/product/hannabarb ... ks&from=fn

Rankin-bass christmas classics!

http://www.wbshop.com/product/rankinbas ... ks&from=fn

Hiedi's song

http://www.wbshop.com/product/heidis+so ... ks&from=fn

[gaastra]

Heathcliff and dingbat.

http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/news/Heathc ... nced/17360

[Randall]

Heathcliff, and I think Heidi, reviews coming soon!

[gaastra]

Sky Commanders!

http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/news/Sky-Co ... nned/17408