Daffy
Duck's Quackbusters
(1988)/Tom
and Jerry: The Complete CinemaScope Collection
(1954 - 1958/MGM/both Warner Archive Blu-rays)/The
Regular Show: The Complete Series
(2010 - 2017/**)/The
Wayans Brothers: The Complete Series
(1995 - 1999/**both Warner DVD Sets)
Picture:
B/B/C+/C Sound: B-/B-/C+/C+ Extras: C+/C/B-/D Main
Programs: B-/C+/C+/C+
PLEASE
NOTE:
The Daffy
Duck
and Tom
and Jerry
Blu-ray releases are now only available from Warner Bros. through
their Warner Archive series and can be ordered from the link below.
Now
for some classic comedy, some of which you may have not seen or seen
for a long time...
Daffy
Duck's Quackbusters
(1988) combines several classic Warner shorts with that wacky duck
with some new animation, much like the many fun TV specials the
studio produced back in the day. Mocking Ghostbusters
and all of the horror genre, this was actually a theatrical film
release that did some business, is funnier than you might remember if
you saw it and even has a few jokes some might not get now. However,
Daffy starts hunting ghosts, et al, and it is in retrospect, actually
more watchable than any of the sequels to the actual Ghostbusters
film.
Just
getting any of the classic shorts booked in any movie theater was a
treat then, as it is now (especially in a film print) and
Quackbusters
continued the fun Warner was continuing to create with all the Looney
Tunes
properties at the time (they had their Warner Bros. Stores then,
which they would sadly abandon and close in a few years after this
came out) and the old and new material meld together well enough,
even when the older shorts have more detail and obvious work in them.
I still like the new animation, limits and all.
The
shorts in the body of the film include Daffy
Dilly,
Claws
For Alarm,
Transylvania
6-5000,
The
Abominable Snow Rabbit,
Punch
Trunk,
Jumping
Jupiter,
The
Duxorcist,
The
Night Of The Living Duck,
The
Prize Pest
and Hyde
and Go Tweet.
However, all the wrap-around material is clever and that is why it
is worth going out of your way to check this out (or see it again) so
Quackbusters
is more fun than it gets credit for and by default, is one fo the
last pre-CGI animated features the studio ever released. Definitely
check it out!
Extras
include a promo trailer and several of the animated theatrical shorts
the studio made after this film was released and a couple in them,
including DUCK DODGERS AND THE RETURN OF THE 24th 1/2 CENTURY, THE
DUXORCIST, LITTLE GO BEEP (a widescreen Baby Looney Tunes short),
NIGHT OF THE LIVING DUCK, SUPERIOR DUCK, BLOOPER BUNNY and the
infamously odd INVASION OF THE BUNNY SNATCHERS, but all in lossy
Dolby Digital for some reason.
Tom
and Jerry: The Complete CinemaScope Collection
(1954 - 1958) brings together the 23 animated shorts MGM made in the
widescreen format with their most successful animated team with some
fun and interesting results. Still in Technicolor, the animation had
to be a little oversimplified since you cannot do the detail on an
scope-shaped cel versus a square/block style one. The result was an
amusing revisiting of every character from the older classics in the
series, now in a wider world than ever and they did not loose their
charm, even when they lost some of their detail. Those shorts
are....
1954
1
Pet
Peeve
2
Touche,
Pussy Cat!
1955
3
Southbound
Duckling
4
Pup
on a Picnic
5
Tom
and Cherie
6
That's
My Mommy
1956
7
The
Flying Sorceress
8
The
Egg and Jerry
9
Busy
Buddies
10
Muscle
Beach Tom
11
Down
Beat Bear
12
Blue
Cat Blues
13
Barbecue
Brawl
1957
14
Tops
with Pops
15
Timid
Tabby
16
Feedin'
the Kiddie
17
Mucho
Mouse
18
Tom's
Photo Finish
1958
19
Happy
Go Ducky
20
Royal
Cat Nap
21
The
Vanishing Duck
22
Robin
Hoodwinked
23
Tot
Watchers
We
covered over half of these as part of a fancy DVD set of the duo
years ago at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/6123/Tom+and+Jerry+%E2%80%93+Spotlight+Collectio
I
agree with what my fellow critic wrote, as well as like these very
much, but with limits as they are repeating the previous shorts a
little more than I would have liked. However, any scope animation
was very rare at the time and many studios skipped doing animation
widescreen, so for their time, they were rare and when TV arrived and
moved into full swing, the studios slowly fazed out animated shorts
all together. Nice to revisit them now.
The
only extras are three other MGM CinemaScope Technicolor animated
cartoon shorts that fit nice with the rest of them:
Give
and Tyke
Scat
Cats
and
Good
Will To Men.
The
Regular Show: The Complete Series
(2010 - 2017) was a popular Cartoon Network series that is sometimes
discussed, but had a widely mixed reception for a hit show. Running
eight seasons, we covered the first three seasons on DVD, first two
on Blu-ray and some other special releases as listed at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/new/viewer.cgi?search=regular+show
Why
we got no later seasons is odd (it looks like the latter ones were
only issued overseas?,) but the adventures of mature raccoon Rigby
and smart alec blue jay Mordecai working at a park owned by a guy
with a lollipop head named Pops (OK) and also populated by other
unique characters, it is a good show, but never stayed with me much,
though somewhat enjoyable. I am now the fourth writer to cover the
show, with one previous critic a huge fan, one a somewhat impressed
viewer and one not liking the show at all. I join the middle in all
that and can see why people like the show. I wonder if a revival is
in the works.
Extras
repeat the previous DVD sets, including episode commentaries on the
first three seasons, plus...
·Unaired
Pilot Episode
·Pencil
Tests
·Animatics
·2010
Comic Con Teaser Trailer
·CG
Test for Hodgepodge Monster
·''The
Naive man from Lolliland'' Student Short
·'Party
Tonight' music video
·Sam
Sings Mystery Karaoke
·Interview
with show creator JG Quintel
·JG
Pitches the episode 'The Power'
·Regular
Show
Commercials
·JG
Answers Why featurette
·A
Characters Come to Life: Live Episode Read
·4
Things you Didn't Know About JG
·Regular
Show: The Movie
and its extras, including Deleted Animatics, Movie Animatics,
Original Board Pitch, Concept Art & Movie Galleries, a feature
length audio commentary track and trailer. You also get a small
paper foldout (looking like it would fit in a Blu-ray case) listing
all the extras and episode titles.
So
for now, this is the first definitive and complete set of the show
ever issued, so fans should be happy and I'll be curious to the
reaction of this release.
And
to conclude, The
Wayans Brothers: The Complete Series
(1995 - 1999) was a show Marlon and Shawn landed a few years after In
Living Color
had to be cancelled after all the Wayans left the show over creative
differences with Fox. For more on that, try my coverage of all five
season in their original DVD releases at this link with other
links....
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/new/viewer.cgi?search=in+living+color
Running
a season longer than that hit, the two brothers play brothers running
a newsstand (ahh, the analog era) with one scheming to get rich quick
and both finding goofiness all over the place, while their father (a
convincing John Witherspoon) runs his own restaurant that they also
work at and help out with. With some of the flavor of the humor from
the previous hit skit show, it is also the most restrictive not
having the freedom of some of the family's feature film outings and
not be as bold as In
Living Color.
The
result is an enjoyable show that holds up better than it should for
its age and limits, yet is only so funny, but playing it somewhat
safe was the intent and sad as it is to admit, a hit from the tail
end of the success The
Cosby Show
made possible. Of course, it holds up better than that show does now
and we also get some guest stars and In
Living Color
alumni, so it is a curio outside of nostalgia and should be in print.
Now you can judge for yourself.
There
are no extras, though you'd think you might get one.
Now
for playback performance. The 1080p 1.33 X 1 digital High Definition
image transfer on Quackbusters
can show the age of the materials used a bit, with the color slightly
limited versus how I remember the film, but the classic shorts were
in actual technicolor while the new footage tries to match that to
most of an extent. Since the film was issued, those shorts have
popped up in more vivid Technicolor on Blu-ray, so that holds it back
a little, but color is consistent throughout otherwise. The
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Mono lossless mix of the original
theatrical sound is also not bad and about on par with the PCM 2.0
sound on the old 12-inch analog LaserDisc, which was really good for
its time. The combination is solid and fans will get a kick
revisiting this one. Though the film was going to be shown 1.85 X 1
in more than a few theaters, they kept the original aspect ratios of
the classic cartoons and I like that.
The
1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image transfers on the Tom
& Jerry
shorts can show the age of the materials used when you see some
instability and slight flaws, but this is far superior a transfer to
all previous releases of the film, though it is the same HD masters
used though they all are a pretty decent representation
of dye-transfer, three-strip Technicolor prints of the shorts. The
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 lossless mixes are a mix of stereo (the
way all the shorts were originally issued) and mono (where the stereo
tracks are lost or were maybe trashed!!!) so the sonics also have
their issues. The combination is the best these have ever looked on
home video, but after all these years, they still need some more work
and maybe those lost stereo tracks will be somehow recovered to the
shorts still missing them.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on the Regular
Show
episodes look good for their age, produced in 2K HD, though no match
for how good the Blu-ray set we covered looked. The episodes are all
in lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo, while the feature film has a
little more punch in its lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 mix, but not enough
to have a higher sound rating. Sadly, the first two seasons had the
same lossy audio in their blu-ray release, so these will pass for
now, but any Blu-ray set should introduce lossless sound when and if
that ever arrives.
The
1.33 X 1 image on the Wayans
episodes are a little more compressed with digititis, detail issues
and other minor noise that never goes away. The
lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 (Season
One)
and 2.0 Stereo (the rest of the series) is passable and you can hear
the jokes, but it is not as rich and warm as it might be in some
lossless format. The combination is not horrible, but could have
been better.
To
order either of the Daffy
Duck
and Tom
and Jerry
Warner Archive Blu-ray titles, go to this link for them 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
