starlac
11-21-2006, 10:13 AM
Sony Wonder recently released “Harvey Toons: The Complete Collection” onto DVD this month and I received my copy yesterday (I'll start adding the shorts to the database shorty). Thing is that they (Sony Wonder) have continuously neglected to state what was on said disc and wither it was actually complete or that they statement was just the work of their marketing department. Many (including animation historian Jerry Beck) pondered the contents of the discs; would it be complete, what would the quality be like and would it be worth buying?
Amazon listing it as having a runtime of 200 minutes didn't help matters, nor did another site stating that it contained all 315 shorts that Famous Studios made that came under the Harveytoon logo, so what do we really have here?
In some ways the fears of the fans (including mine) have been justified, indeed, this is not a ‘complete’ collection in the sense of the word as I understand it. In fact the discs contain 52 episodes of “The Harvey Toon Show” with some juggling to avoid repeating cartoons (one short ‘Party Smarty’ does repeat however). Most of these episodes consist of three shorts and a short clip of another. On the up hand that does mean the whole package has a run time of around 19 hours.
Anyone familiar with the original version of the show that aired should know what to expect. The shorts have had they opening titles cropped for time and any ending titles are completely absent, some will, of course, find this very annoying and will most likely boycott the product (can’t say I blame them). On the plus side, the original voice of Buzzy Crow has been restored in all its glory.
The four discs are both of the double-sided variety and are stored overlapping each other, which may hamper easy removal without getting fingerprints and other smudges on the surfaces. The box is open-air, meaning that it doesn’t snap shut, rather it opens like a book; be warned, you need to find somewhere to keep this away from dust etc.
The most annoying thing to me about this whole set is simple: nowhere is there a list of the contents (the individual shorts) either on the menus or even on the box (instead the producers have stuck two short comics on the inside of the box), this means you have two choices, make notes of what is on each disc or find someplace that has a list and copy that. This little oversight is quite bad as without a listing finding that specific short is going to be tricky.
The good news is that the product does contain 165 full shorts (minus full titles) and one short with its original ending chopped of; the cleanup is well done, the cartoons look nice and clean for the most part with no noticeable DVNR defects insofar as I’ve yet seen. Although the shorts are not listed in any menus, they do have there own chapter points so it is relatively easy to get to the short you want to watch; as long as you know which side of which disc it’s on.
So the collection presented here is hardly complete, the editing of the titles will annoy many who like their classic cartoons as intact as possible and the packaging and menus are ludicrously poor in there ease of use. This whole boxset seems to be something of a rushed job (ironic given that the set was delayed), but at a price tag of $25.54 for over a hundred classic shorts (that works out at about 15 cents a short), it’s a fairly cheap way of owning some of these classic Famous Studio cartoons.
Of course another question would be: do you really want so many Famous Studio, Novel/HarveyToon era, theatrical shorts?
Amazon listing it as having a runtime of 200 minutes didn't help matters, nor did another site stating that it contained all 315 shorts that Famous Studios made that came under the Harveytoon logo, so what do we really have here?
In some ways the fears of the fans (including mine) have been justified, indeed, this is not a ‘complete’ collection in the sense of the word as I understand it. In fact the discs contain 52 episodes of “The Harvey Toon Show” with some juggling to avoid repeating cartoons (one short ‘Party Smarty’ does repeat however). Most of these episodes consist of three shorts and a short clip of another. On the up hand that does mean the whole package has a run time of around 19 hours.
Anyone familiar with the original version of the show that aired should know what to expect. The shorts have had they opening titles cropped for time and any ending titles are completely absent, some will, of course, find this very annoying and will most likely boycott the product (can’t say I blame them). On the plus side, the original voice of Buzzy Crow has been restored in all its glory.
The four discs are both of the double-sided variety and are stored overlapping each other, which may hamper easy removal without getting fingerprints and other smudges on the surfaces. The box is open-air, meaning that it doesn’t snap shut, rather it opens like a book; be warned, you need to find somewhere to keep this away from dust etc.
The most annoying thing to me about this whole set is simple: nowhere is there a list of the contents (the individual shorts) either on the menus or even on the box (instead the producers have stuck two short comics on the inside of the box), this means you have two choices, make notes of what is on each disc or find someplace that has a list and copy that. This little oversight is quite bad as without a listing finding that specific short is going to be tricky.
The good news is that the product does contain 165 full shorts (minus full titles) and one short with its original ending chopped of; the cleanup is well done, the cartoons look nice and clean for the most part with no noticeable DVNR defects insofar as I’ve yet seen. Although the shorts are not listed in any menus, they do have there own chapter points so it is relatively easy to get to the short you want to watch; as long as you know which side of which disc it’s on.
So the collection presented here is hardly complete, the editing of the titles will annoy many who like their classic cartoons as intact as possible and the packaging and menus are ludicrously poor in there ease of use. This whole boxset seems to be something of a rushed job (ironic given that the set was delayed), but at a price tag of $25.54 for over a hundred classic shorts (that works out at about 15 cents a short), it’s a fairly cheap way of owning some of these classic Famous Studio cartoons.
Of course another question would be: do you really want so many Famous Studio, Novel/HarveyToon era, theatrical shorts?