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"PEANUTS 1970’s COLLECTION: VOL. 1" DVD Review by Kevin Carr MOVIE: ***1/2 (out of 5 stars) DVD EXPERIENCE: ** (out of 5 stars) Not Rated Available on DVD October 20 Official Kids WB site Studio: Warner Bros. Back to DVD Review Home |  |
For the past couple years, Warner Bros. has been offering the public a steady stream of Peanuts releases. For someone like myself, who is in his 30s and spent plenty of evenings in the 70s and 80s watching the television specials during the holidays, this is a real treat.
After packaging the television specials according to their holiday tie-ins, as was done with previous releases that compiled “The Great Pumpkin” with the Christmas and Thanksgiving specials, the studio is now remastering the entire Peanuts cartoon canon and releasing them in chronological order.
We’ve already gotten the complete 1960s Collection, which is when it all started. Now, we have “Peanuts 1970’s Collection Vol. 1,” which features the specials in their heyday. This two-disc set includes six of the TV specials, two of which have never been on DVD before.
We’ve all seen “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving” and “It’s the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown,” which are both included in the collection and have seen release many times before. However, for the true Peanuts fan, it’s the new-to-DVD releases of “Play It Again, Charlie Brown,” which features a frustrated Schroeder who tries to reconcile his love for Beethoven during a rock and roll performance at school, and the Snoopy-centric “It’s a Mystery, Charlie Brown,” which sees the loveable beagle searching for Woodstock’s lost nest.
Additional specials included in this release are “You’re Not Elected, Charlie Brown” which sees our favorite blockhead running for Student Body president, and “There’s No Time for Love, Charlie Brown,” in which Charlie Brown finds his own admirers in Peppermint Patty and Marcie.
There is one bonus video called “Woodstock: Creating Snoopy’s Sidekick” which chronicles the evolution of Woodstock from a bit player in the comic strip to a featured performer in the specials. Also available in the set is a coupon code which will allow you to download music from iTunes for “Charlie Brown’s Holiday Hits.”
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"PLASTIC MAN: THE COMPLETE COLLECTION" DVD Review by Kevin Carr MOVIE: ***1/2 (out of 5 stars) DVD EXPERIENCE: *** (out of 5 stars) Not Rated Studio: Warner Bros. Available on DVD October 20 Official Kids WB site Back to DVD Review Home |  |
No matter how awesome superhero animation gets in the modern day, I will always consider the 1970s and the 1980s to be its glory days. Sure, the SuperFriends are corny as all get-out now, but I loved the show growing up. Even today as I show my kids “The Justice League,” they keep asking me where Gleek is.
Well, there may be no Gleek in the original “Plastic Man” cartoons, but they were still a blast. Now, “Plastic Man: The Complete Collection” is available on DVD. The series, which includes 35 episodes on four discs, follows the stretchable Plastic Man superhero as he fights crime in his Plastijet with his girlfriend Penny and sidekick Hula Hula.
What makes the “Plastic Man” cartoon so endearing for me, even today, is its whimsical nature. The 70s and 80s Saturday morning cartoons made all the superheroes somewhat silly, which was recently spoofed by a brilliant “Saturday Morning Watchmen” video on the internet. Now, the modern Justice League and X-Men are more serious.
But Plastic Man has always been somewhat silly. He’s never been the ultra-serious hero, even in his early comic book days. So while the animation style may still feel very 1980, the characters don’t seem that out of place. Add to the fact that you have such goofy sidekicks as the pretty girl Penny who is only interested in dating Plas and the bumbling Hula Hula (whom you’ll never see in a modern cartoon), and you have a pretty funny program.
While Plas and his gang fight crime in the form of evil villains like a week man, a giant clam and a disco mummy, these “Plastic Man” cartoons remind me more of the spirit of “The Tick” than the modern Justice League, and that’s a lot of fun.
The “Plastic Man: The Complete Collection” DVD set comes with a “Plas-tastic Retrospective” featurette as well as the original unaired pilot episode to the series. It’s a must-have for any Plastic Man fanatic.
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"SATURDAY MORNING CARTOONS: 1960s & 1970s VOLUME 2" DVD Review by Kevin Carr MOVIE: **** (out of 5 stars) DVD EXPERIENCE: *** (out of 5 stars) Not Rated Available on DVD October 27 Official Kids WB site Studio: Warner Bros. Back to DVD Review Home |  |
As awesome as 24-hour cartoon networks are in the modern age, I feel that my kids have lost something special with the demise of the Saturday morning cartoon block. I remember what it was like as a kid to wake up at 6 a.m. each Saturday, pour a huge bowl of sugar cereal and watch five or six hours straight of cartoons.
Kids nowadays can do this any time of day by simply turning on any of the dozen or so children’s networks on cable. I feel that looking back on Saturday morning cartoons makes me like a decrepit old man looking back on the glory days of Vaudeville.
Warner Bros. has taken their shot at trying to recapture the magic of Saturday morning on DVD. They have released their second volume of “Saturday Morning Cartoons” for both the 1960s and the 1970s.
Each DVD set contains the same deal: two discs that compile some of the most memorable and most forgotten cartoons of the eras. However, instead of just running a handful of cartoons together, they edit the shows into a cartoon block, almost commercial free.
The cartoons themselves are not just included. We also have interstitials and introductions features characters like Porky Pig and Quick Draw McGraw announcing the starting line-up. There are 12 shows on each of the two discs per set, offering a variety of programming that I watched when I was a kid.
Both the 1960s and the 1970s cartoon blocks include the “Saturday Morning Wake-up Call,” which gives a preview of the cartoons coming up in the show. These were some of the most exciting parts of the show because it brought back memories of watching these shows on TV and how the networks teased the episodes that would be coming up.
The 1960s series include Looney Tunes, The Jetsons, Auggie Doggie, Quick Draw McGraw, Snooper and Blabber, The Space Kidettes, Samson and Goliath, Gulliver’s Travels, Wally Gator, Touche Turtle, Lippy the Lion and Hardy Har Har, Peter Potamus, Yippy Yappy and Yahooey, Atom Ant, Precious Pup, Droopy Dog, Magilla Gorilla, Hush Hush, Ricochet Rabbit and the Hill Billy Bears.
The 1960s special feature video in “Completely Bananas: The Magilla Gorilla Story,” which explains how the character of Yogi Bear was tweaked to get a new Hanna-Barbera hero.
The 1970s series include The Hair Bear Bunch, Gilligan’s Island, The Sea Lab Team, The Chan Clan, Yogi Bear and Friends, Batman, Shazzan, Looney Tunes, Tom & Jerry, Grape Ape, The Banana Splits, The Butler Family, Danger Island, The Arabian Nights, the Three Musketeers and Inch-High Private Eye.
The 1970s special feature video is “The Power of Shazzan,” which tells the story of how teenage detectives in The Arabian Nights were used as a template for Scooby-Doo.
