Great Old School Cartoon
These cartoons are enjoyable, but like the majority of older cartoons, they’re best viewed in small, two to three episode bursts. When these shows were first released, they only had one episode per week, so viewers never really got overwhelmed. What makes it hard to watch some a lot of these episodes today is just in how quickly the creators had to tell a story; time was the big factor and so things move fast in these episodes, and you can always bet on the outcome. Cramming individual cartoon stories into a single episode is a fairly tall order. What you get is a lot of similar stories with very predictable resolutions. Again, in short bursts, this is fine – and probably even more so for kids, but as an adult it can be painful to watch for very long.
Be that as it may, I can’t fault the animation quality. I love the look of the old cartoon series,’ like Space Ghost, Challenge of the Superfriends, Johnny Quest, and so forth. They’re simplistic, but functional backgrounds and attention to character animation is just a pleasure to watch. Alex Toth is credited a great deal for forging this type of animation style. In terms of video quality, Turner Home Entertainment hasn’t really done anything to improve the video quality, but I’m honestly fine with that. These episodes look just fine to me, and besides I love older cartoons, cartoons from the 60s and 70s. Each episode is presented in full screen and holds up very well on DVD. The sound transfer is also very good, which reminds me of how great the sounds and voice acting were for these shows, especially Space Ghost’s booming voice.
An Intriguing Release
The twenty episodes, which you can find a complete list of on the Internet, along with the extra feature total about 420 minutes. The extra feature focuses a great deal on Alex Toth and his work; it’s interesting, but something most people will only watch once, if that. Ultimately what you have is the complete series of a good old cartoon and for $20, that’s not half bad at all. Give it a rental if you’re unsure, but I think most cartoon lovers won’t be disappointed with a purchase.