DVD Review: Saturday Cartoons 1960's Vol. 1
Warner Bros. Porky Pig, Atom Ant, Quick Draw McGraw, Jetsons
May 25, 2009
Top Cat. The Jetsons. Quick Draw McGraw. Magilla Gorilla. The Hillbilly Bears. Ricochet Rabbit.
Do these names conjure memories of sitting in front of a monstrous wood-paneled TV set on Saturday morning, still wearing your PJ's and digging into a bowl of Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs, while Mom did the ironing and your sister played Meet the Beatles on her record player?
If so, Warner Home Video's Saturday Morning Cartoons 1960's Volume 1 is for you. Featuring 2 discs of restored cartoons, this DVD collection is – as a discreet note on the cover says – "intended for the Adult Collector and is Not Suitable For Children."
No, it's not because these 40-something toons depicted Breezly committing indecent acts on Sneezly (although some would argue that he should have). These shows were meant for a generation that thought Vietnam was a "police action" and a woman's place was in the home. And they probably won't appeal to kids raised on Dora the Explorer or Avatar: the Last Airbender.
Warner Home Video's Saturday Morning Cartoons 1960's Volume 1 Features The Flintstones, Porky Pig
The vast bulk of these cartoons are courtesy of Hanna-Barbera, the animation powerhouse that ruled the cartoon airwaves in the 60's and 70's. Cranking out a never-ending stream of cheaply made, crudely drawn animation that even managed to rip itself off (what was The Jetsons except a futuristic Flintstones?), Hanna-Barbera were the undisputed kings of Saturday morning.
While shows like The Herculoids and The Flintstones were groundbreaking for their time, many of these toons haven't aged well: the referential gags in Top Cat and Agent 000: Secret Squirrel aren't very funny when you don't know what they refer to (note to DreamWorks Animation: Shrek the Third will be even less funny in 2046 than it is now).
Even genuine classics like The Flintstones will annoy politically correct audiences, such as when Wilma worries that her new job will keep her from greeting Fred when he comes home from work, like every good wife should.
And, let's face it, the animation is crude by modern standards. Even when classic Looney Tunes characters like Porky Pig show up, they don't look good compared to what the Termite Terrace gang cranked out. That's not surprising, since Chuck Jones et al had a much larger budget to play with in their theatrical shorts. Sure, this stuff was impressive for the 1960's, but the state of the art has moved on since then, and the writing wasn't strong enough to compensate.
DVD Extras
Saturday Morning Wake Up Call is essentially an extended ad for the shows on this DVD set: kinda useless when you already own the thing, no?
In contrast, The Good, The Bad, and the El Kabong features animators and animation historians – such as Mark Evanier, Jerry Beck and Warner Bros' Paul Dini – discussing the story behind so many of these vintage cartoons.
Disc 2 features some bonus shorts featuring Quick Draw McGraw, Snooper & Blabber and Auggie Doggie. The featurette The Herculoids: First Family of Planet Quasar discusses Hanna-Barbera's first attempt to get into adventure cartoons (and a hella influence on He-Man and the Masters of the Universe!), while Monster Rock shows how the burgeoning youth culture, specifically Beatlemania, influenced Frankenstein Jr. and The Impossibles.
The Final Analysis
If you were a kid in the 1960's, then this DVD will be a blast from the past, reintroducing you to old friends. Be aware, though, that a lot of these cartoons haven't aged well: they're pretty crude compared to modern animation, the jokes are dated, and the writing isn't as snappy as it could have been. Even if you loved these cartoons the first time around, seeing them again may not be such a blissful experience once the nostalgia glow has worn off.
Saturday Morning Cartoons 1960's Volume 1 gets a 4/10.
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