Hanna
Barbera's Superstars 10
(1973, 1979, 1988, 1989/Huckleberry
Hound/Jetsons/Flintstones/Scooby-Doo/Top Cat/Yogi Bear/Warner Archive
Blu-ray Set)/Migration 4K
(2023/Universal 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray w/Blu-ray)/Wonka
4K (2023/Warner 4K Ultra
HD Blu-ray)
4K
Ultra HD Picture: B+ Picture: B- & C/B/X Sound: B-/B+/B+
Extras: C+/B-/C Main Programs: C+
PLEASE
NOTE:
The Hanna
Barbera Superstars 10
Blu-ray set is now only available from Warner Bros. through their
Warner Archive series and can be ordered from the link below.
Now
for the latest family/children-friendly releases...
Before
the straight-to-home-video market showed up and before cable and
satellite channels finally swamped the Big Three Networks, ABC, NBC
and CBS were buying specials to go with their new TV seasons and
beyond. Hanna Barbera were happy to supply them and the Hanna
Barbera's Superstars 10
Blu-ray set offers 12 of them, ten from the late 1980s as part of a
limited series and two earlier specials from the 1970s. This set
includes...
Yogi's
Great Escape
(1987)
Scooby-Doo
Meets the Boo Brothers
(1987)
The
Jetsons Meet the Flintstones
(1987)
Yogi
Bear and the Magical Flight of the Spruce Goose
(1987)
Top
Cat and the Beverly Hills Cats
(1988)
The
Good, the Bad, and Huckleberry Hound
(1988)
Rockin'
with Judy Jetson
(1988)
Scooby-Doo
and the Ghoul School
(1988)
Scooby-Doo!
and the Reluctant Werewolf
(1988)
and
Yogi
and the Invasion of the Space Bears
(1988)
These
are mostly made for young children, but they have their amusing,
charming, sweet, funny or unintentionally hilarious moments, so it is
worth a look and might also be nostalgia for some. They still pretty
much had all the original voice actors from the original hit TV shows
under contract and here, which is a plus. Most of the titles give
you an idea of pretty much of what you are going to get, but there
are a few notable things to say about a few of them.
The
Jetsons Meet the Flintstones
should have been an elaborate home run and big deal and though the
program is amusing and has some fun moments, it is too safe and
offers the most missed opportunities any Hanna-Barbera telefilm or
TV special ever had to even this day. By this time, the studio was
strictly catering to its youngest audience, but this would have been
more amazing had it happened in the mid-1970s or so. Top Cat and
his gang are highly underrated, so the fact that Top
Cat and the Beverly Hills Cats
even got made is a shock, but it is fun enough, though the original
show it is based on (The
Phil Silvers Show
aka You'll
Never Get Rich
with the legendary comedian as Sgt. Bilko, a show that hardly EVER
syndicated) is way too unknown for our own good.
The
biggest hit of the bunch, in time for the regressive pop music of the
1980s, was Rockin'
with Judy Jetson
as she suddenly becomes a pop star herself (and ironically,
demonstrating more talent than most of her real-life counterparts to
this day) and was a big hit on the home video market. A big later
success for the entire Jetsons
franchise, they never did a sequel, but it is amusing, sometimes
charming and holds up in interesting and weird ways as it has also
aged oddly. Also, some of it is a little more relevant today than
you might imagine.
No
matter, fans will be happy the special are here, even if they started
to be come repetitive and have overlap even then.
Extras
include the oldest specials, but Warner (who owns the company) has
plenty of other specials in the vault and I hope this is a success so
they'll make this into a multi-volume series. Along with the
complete Hanna Barbera series that have come to Blu-ray so far, it
would be a great idea.
Migration
4K
(2023) is the latest Illumination animated release, delivering more
of the same quality work we have seen before, but no new
breakthroughs visually either. The Mallard family (and they are
literally mallards) are going south for the winter to Jamaica, after
spending the summer in New York City, but it is just not going to be
as easy as that.
Kumail
Nanjiani, Elizabeth Banks, Keegan-Michael Key, Danny DeVito, Carol
Kane and Awkwafina lead a voice cast that has enough energy and
talent to stop the screenplay from sliding into formula, but not my
much. In fairness, I am not the audience for this one even less than
the Hanna-Barbera specials, but I still expected a little more here
just the same. For children, animation fans for the most curious
only.
Extras
are many and include Digital Code, plus...
FLY
HARD (MINI-MOVIE) - Chump sheds her tough-as-nails attitude,
risking her life to fly through a blizzard and the harrowing streets
of New York to return a prized possession to a kind woman from the
park.
TAKING
FLIGHT: THE MAKING OF ''MIGRATION'' is an original script so
brand-new characters and locations had to be developed, designed,
and animated from scratch! Here, filmmakers and crew break down
their process to show us what gives this film an entirely new look
and feel.
BUILD
YOUR OWN POP-UP BOOK - Daddy duck, Mack, likes to tell his two
little ducklings some... overly imaginative bedtime stories. In
this fun ''How To'' we'll show you how to create a pop-up book so
you can tell your very own bedtime stories!
CALLING
ALL BIRDS - They may not have cellphones, but you can call your
web-footed friends anytime you want! In this fun How To, we'll
teach you how to create and customize your very own set of colorful
bird whistles.
THE
MACK QUACK
THE
HERON HONK
THE
CHUMP CHIRP
BEST
NESTS - You don't have to fly south, or anywhere, to find a perfect
paradise for your feathered friends. Here we'll teach you how to
make the best nest for your pet ducks, or anyone flying by,
including a water feeder to keep them hydrated!
Paul
King's Wonka
4K
(2023) wan ts to be a prequel to the now-beloved Willy
Wonka & The Chocolate Factory
and is a 'never-say-musical' musical prequel to the Gene Wilder
classic, though they have cast Timothee Chalamet as the title
character, despite the fact he only looks so much like Wilder.
Anyhow, we are supposed to believe this is his origins story and how
he went from nothing to becoming a legend in chocolate.
Now
we did not necessarily need this tale and the screenplay is very
lackluster, but Chalamet is brave enough to do this and it does not
always feel or play like it is only aimed at young children, yet it
also is trying to be like more current fantasy genre films of the
last few decades when it did not have to be. It also is trying to be
British, but like Spielberg's Hook
and and some other films in the genre that are not Harry Potter or
King's own Paddington
films, it is just not British enough either.
Now
the money is on the screen and the cast is not bad, also including
Keegan-Michael Key (again), Olivia Coleman, Matt Lucas, Sally
Hawkins, Rowan Atkinson, Patterson Joseph, Freya Parker, Calah Lane,
Rufus Jones and Hugh Grant. That so much that was here was good and
this still does not work like it should is unfortunate.
The
screenplay is all over the place, there is not enough food or
chocolate and the kind of magic the Wilder film has (and the Depp
film never did) is missing too much here. A moderate hit, it managed
to capitalize on post-COVID nostalgia, a love of the first film and
hopes it might be better. Now you can judge for yourself.
Extras
include Digital Code, plus...
Unwrapping
Wonka: Paul King's Vision
The
Whimsical Music of Wonka
Welcome
to Wonka Land
Hats
Off to Wonka
and
Wonka's Chocolatier
For
more Wonka feature film action, try our coverage of the following...
Willy
Wonka & The Chocolate Factory 4K
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/15938/Infinity+Train:+Book+Two+(2021/Cartoon+Networ
Charlie
& The Chocolate Factory Blu-ray
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/13348/Tim+Burton's+Charlie+and+The+Chocolate+Factor
Now
for
playback performance. The
2160p HEVC/H.265,
2.35 X 1, Dolby Vision/HDR (10; Ultra HD Premium)-enhanced Ultra High
Definition image on Migration
4K is
decent if not showy about its color, but the depth and definition is
consistent throughout. It does not have any particular shots that
stunned me, but it is a pleasant watch and as compared to the 1080p
2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image on the Blu-ray version,
definitely has superior performance in all aspects of overall
fidelity.
The
2160p HEVC/H.265, 2.35 X 1, Dolby Vision/HDR (10; Ultra HD
Premium)-enhanced Ultra High Definition image on Wonka 4K has
some solid color moments and definitely is trying to have a visual
and color-coded connection to the Gene Wilder original, but is all
digital versus 35mm film and three-strip Techniciolor on the
original. The Burton/Depp film was shot on 35mm with plenty of older
digital. Fans will be wondering why this is the first of the three
films to be in the scope format and not flat. Who knows, but maybe
to hide some Ultra HD limits? Director of Photography Chung-hoon
Chung previously lensed Last Night In Soho, The Current War
and the original Oldboy, so he was a good choice.
All
three discs offer lossless Dolby Atmos (Dolby TrueHD 7.1 mixdown for
older systems) mixes and they are pretty state of the art, yet
nothing stands out in either film sonically as demo material, despite
how consistent and thorough both mixes are. So don't expect any demo
moments, but both could have used some standout moments and really do
not have them.
Finally,
the 1080p, full color, 1.33 X 1 image is more wide-ranging than
expected. Most of the new specials look good and have decent color,
plus the company did not get cheap like most of their competitors and
finish their filmed product on old, obsolete, analog videotape,
making them some of the best-looking animated TV productions of the
time. Following Disney on The
Rescuers Down Under,
they tried out doing animation totally in the digital zone and the
results were Scooby
Doo! & The Reluctant Werewolf
and Yogi
& The Invasion Of The Space Bears
that lacked any cel dust, but was a drop in definition and color
range.
Sadly,
all that digital work was only finalized on 1-inch analog tape and
they had to upscale this for Blu-ray, which looks very fuzzy and has
not aged well. If those digital cel files have somehow survived and
can still be accessed, maybe they could redo these, but it might also
be impossible if they actually survived and are accessible because it
might take forever to try and recreate the final versions in low
definition. Please note that many filmed TV movies no longer exist
because they too were never saved on film and only finalized on tape,
now gone forever. Wonder how many animated TV productions have
suffered the same fate.
So
the big surprise is that the oldest specials, here as bonus content,
are the best-looking of all with great, rich color and the strongest
look and definition of all 12 specials included. In 1974, they had
top rate color and by 1979, it was hit or miss, but fine here.
The
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Mono lossless mixes are pretty much as
good as these shows will ever sound, monophonic for the most part,
though the last shows almost sound like simple stereo. Yogi's
Great Escape
sadly has some harmonic distortion bordering on warping, so did
something happen to the soundtrack of that particular special? The
sound is also typical of the TV shows the company was making at the
times of the specials, which includes a boxy sound in more than a few
of the specials, a little smoother in the newer ones and slightly
aged in the older ones.
To
order
the
Hanna
Barbera Superstars 10
Warner Archive Blu-ray set, go to this link for it and many more
great web-exclusive
releases at:
https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/ED270804-095F-449B-9B69-6CEE46A0B2BF?ingress=0&visitId=6171710b-08c8-4829-803d-d8b922581c55&tag=blurayforum-20
-
Nicholas Sheffo
