Cartoon Crack-Ups

You know, there are literally thousands of these old cartoons laying around on TV studio bathroom floors. Some can be found behind the dumpsters, while yet others are being used as ashtrays by the kitchen staff. All they need is someone to love them again to get dusted off, hosed down or industrially acid-bathed and transferred to DVD.

In this here (horribly misnamed) collection of seven cartoons, we truly get to see the very dregs of the TV studio bathrooms and cooks’ change room. How these particular episodes have been carefully culled from the myriad existing episodes and deemed worthy for transfer to DVD is anyone’s guess. Personally, I think if they’re going to start just transferring any old thing to DVD it’s going to be a long and widespread collection as they mix characters and events, inevitably with doubling up.

There are seven episodes of varying length here but I was struggling to find the ‘crack-up’ part of the cartoons. ‘Cartoon Wry-grins’ may have been a better title. Maybe ’Cartoon Blank-faced, Slack-jaweds’ could have worked. These cartoons all come from the world of the Hanna-Barbera Studios whilst it was still in its infancy. The youngest cartoon here was created in 1970 and that’s still older than I am (heading into my pre-mid thirties). I was disappointed, after having recently enjoyed the restored efforts of the Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes to find I couldn’t raise more than a faint disbelief and mild frown. Crack-ups nothin’, this is shameless cashing in on a current craze. The fact the disc is made by the Cartoon Network is a bit of a giveaway too. Not only will they charge you to watch them on air, now you can pay more good money to have these old chestnuts on DVD. Bleurgh, is what I say.

The animation isn’t anything spectacular by a long shot and is produced much more cheaply than the quality efforts of the older Warner Bros. factory. Storylines border on pitiful and the whole thing just smacks of the cash register.

Let’s have a look at what we get and you tell me...

• The Flintstones: The Swimming Pool. This 1960 25:20 cartoon is among the very first Flintstones cartoons ever produced. The animation is okay, but not by a long shot the best. The character models haven’t yet evolved to the state they would stay in by the end of the series (although this is not uncommon in animation series' that go beyond, say, three seasons). The only extra feature on the disc is the partial original of the pilot upon which this episode was based (but I’ll come to that in due course).
• The Jetsons: A Date With Jet Screamer. The only decent thing here is the creation of the classic tune Eep-Okk-Ork-Ah-Ah (Means I Love You) so brilliantly covered years later by the Violent Femmes on the Saturday Morning: Cartoons’ Greatest Hits CD. 1962, 24:37
• Scooby-Doo: Where Are You? Jeepers, It’s The Creeper. God knows how the hell this series ever bled 21:02 out of these crummy storylines. (Nice one guys, this one also shows up on Scooby Doo’s Greatest Mysteries)
• Huckleberry Hound: Spud Dud. Hold on for a thrilling 6:59 from 1960. I think I hear wheels coming off…
• Yogi Bear: Bear-Faced Disguise. 1960, 6:59. Feeling a trend here? Clatter, rattle…
• Pixie and Dixie: Heavens to Jinxy. The less said about these irritating little bastards the better. 1959.
• Top Cat: Maharajah of Pookajee. As if to compensate, we get another long boat to fill out the fleet. 24:41 from 1961. Nothing had changed from my childhood in watching the opening titles of this one… except me.

Look, these are alright if you’re into this sort of olden torture, but for my money, I don’t think so. Too eclectic a collection with too little on offer. I don’t really remember laughing all that much as a kid anyway… more like a stone-faced watching of the pretty colours and cartoon characters whipping back and forth.

The Looney Tunes have a certain presence, even in their youth, but these just look like they’ve been stamped out of the sausage machine originally and regurgitated onto DVD now to try and wring those last few bloody coins out of the franchise. Maybe the kids will dig this, but I found it as dull as childhood Sunday mornings in church.

Fair enough they’ve done a little restoration here, although nothing spectacular. The colours are all bright and cheerful with even saturation but a few film artefacts linger about. Cel artefacts are another matter. These are burned into the original film stock and are nearly impossible to remove unless one has oodles of time and wads of cash. And let’s face it, the studios aren’t going to go to such trouble for such throwaway titles as these. Some parts of the film footage are appallingly coated in cel crap too, due to the constant re-use of things like walk cycles. (In animation of old, vast libraries held much of the work from previous episodes and a librarian would find a piece to suit a particular episode from existing stock. This saved money for these TV studio animations). So don’t be surprised when you see the shit that has accumulated in some of this footage. Eurgh.

It’s a 4:3 delivery, naturally, but is quite watchable visually speaking. Content wise… I’ll get back to you.

Stand back folks! It’s blistering Dolby Digital mono! Woo. It sounds okay but, again, no expense has been catered for here in producing this cheapo crud from the vault. One thing I have to mention though is the addition of canned laughter. Unheard of for animation but for good old Hanna-Barbera. Yes folks, the show’s just not funny but let’s try and convince people it is. Let’s pretend there’s a studio audience watching the animation fly from the animator’s lightboxes LIVE! They’ll buy that… won’t they?

Talk about embarrassing.

One lonely and pathetic extra is granted us in the original pilot episode of The Flagstones. Yes, they had a name change before hitting prime time as The Flintstones. This scratchy, dirty, grimy, faded, unfunny, dog-eared, film artefact collecting, mouldy, dusty, shit-scarred piece of crap runs for a generous 1:48. I’m betting the film just disintegrated on them by that stage.

Thanks for nothing. This doesn’t even have kitsch value.

Like old cartoons? You must or you wouldn’t still be reading (unless your one of the growing army of three Jules’ fans visiting DVDnet). Check out the Looney Tunes stuff long before considering this. It’s fairly shameless, the cartoons are not from the characters’ peak popularity periods and in some cases are jaw-hanging-so-long-it-starts-to-ache bad.

It stinks.