DVD Review: Saturday Cartoons 1970's Vol.1
Warner Home Video Brings Classic Hanna-Barbera DC Cartoons to DVD
May 26, 2009 Dominic von Riedemann
Josie and the Pussycats. The New Scooby-Doo Movies. The Funky Phantom. Hong Kong Phooey. The Batman/Tarzan Adventure Hour.
Do these names conjure memories of sitting in front of a monstrous wood-paneled TV set on Saturday morning, still wearing your Underoos and digging into a bowl of Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs, while Mom read The Female Eunuch and your sister played KISS Alive II on her 8-track?
If so, Warner Home Video's Saturday Morning Cartoons 1970'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."
That's not a reflection on the shows' content so much as the fact that kids probably won't appreciate these 30-year-old toons.
Saturday Morning Cartoons 1970's Volume 1 Features Josie and the Pussycats, Hong Kong Phooey, Yogi's Gang
By the early 1970's, Hanna-Barbera toon factory (and formula) was in full swing, selling between 6 and 7 shows a year to the networks. Many of these shows were blatant copies of previous H-B hits: What's New, Scooby-Doo begat Josie and the Pussycats begat Goober and the Ghost Chasers begat The Funky Phantom begat Charlie Chan and the Chan Clan . . . et cetera ad nauseum. There were long-haired crime-fighting teenagers galore, who played in rock bands on the side, and plenty of Shaft-influenced wah guitar on the soundtrack.
The concerns of the era affected the shows' content: Yogi's Gang battled consumerist and environmental foes like Mr. Smog, the Greedy Genie or Lotta Litter. Even venerable characters like Batman or Tarzan got involved, taking on evil scientists and industrialists in addition to their stock stable of villains.
Racial integration finally arrived in Toon Town when visible minorities like Valerie (Josie and the Pussycats) or Charlie Chan received equal billing with their white counterparts. The all-black Harlem Globetrotters guested on The New Scooby-Doo Movies, solving a case with the Mystery Inc. gang between slam-dunks.
However, some shows were still behind the times. With its unintentionally hilarious dialogue, use of stock footage and the incredibly obnoxious Bat-Mite (why the Dynamic Duo didn't just put him out our misery is one of the great mysteries of the universe), The New Adventures of Batman was far closer to the cheesy Adam West series than the Tim Burton-influenced Batman: TAS. And, with the episode "Space Car," The Jetsons still mined laughs from the classic "females trying to drive" gag bin.
While these cartoons aren't as blatantly out of step with modern sensibilities as those in the previous collection, Saturday Morning Cartoons 1960's Volume 1, the jokes and stories still won't fly with kids or people who like their plots airtight. Plot holes are everywhere and, while the referential humour wasn't as obvious, the laugh tracks were more obtrusive, as if Hanna and Barbera were standing behind audiences with a machine gun, saying "Laugh or I will shoot you."
DVD Extras
Solving Crimes the Chan Clan Way features Evanier, plus writers Eddie Carroll and Jamie Farr (AKA Corporal Maxwell Klinger from M*A*S*H), discussing how the show came together, and why Hanna-Barbera never called them again after the series tanked. The featurette Heavens to Betsy Ross does a similar take on The Funky Phantom.
There's also the ubiquitous Saturday Morning Wake Up Call, which is essentially an ad for cartoons you've already bought. Yep, you read that correctly.
The Final Analysis
While Hanna-Barbera's Trudeau-era output was a vast improvement over their 1960's shows, they still suffered from cheesy writing and cheap animation. They're more historical curiosities than something you'd want to use to entertain the kiddies with, unless it's for bonding time with Dear Old Dad. Then again, Dear Old Dad might discover that these great old shows aren't as great as he remembered them back in the day.
Saturday Morning Cartoons 1970's Volume 1 gets a 5/10.
Saturday Morning Cartoons 1970's Vol. 1
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