Complete Harvey Toons Collection (1 Viewer)

[Dorrie_W]

I have the Harvey Toons set. Now I know pretty little about this show and vagualy (typo) remember it from child hood but me and my kids have been watching it most of the day, so I don't know about whats cut, uncut and whats missing.

But I will say the most annoying aspect of the whole thing is no booklet. So we have dual sided discs and no booklet. Half of the time when I find a short I think its cute and want to refer to I have to make a mental note in my head to remember which disc it was on. The menu in episode selection does let you choose the number of the episode you want to watch, but there is no breakdown with the names of the shorts.

The Wikipedia listing someone posted was helpful. I just can't understand why Sony would release such a huge set with no booklet (???). Overall it seems like a pretty barebones release.

 

[Xenia Stathakopoulou]

Dorrie,can you confirm if richie rich is on this set , and if the box on the backside shows how long the whole set is ?

 

[Dorrie_W]

I havent watched all 19 hours but I haven't seen Ritchie Ritch yet (although he was mentioned in the press release).

The blurb on the back of the box reads "Make friends with Casper, listen to Little Audrey's tradmark laugh, stir up some mischief with Baby Huey, be a part of Herman and Katnip's prop-filled comic battles."

Running time it says 19 hours of fun on 4 double sided discs. and it says also includes the Modern Madcaps (not sure what that is).

There is running time info on the discs

Disc one side 1-298 min
Disc two side 2-298 min

Disc two side 1-298 min
side two-298 min

Disc 3 side 1-251 min
Disc 3 side 2-251 min

disc 4 side 1-296 min
disc 4 side 2-296 min

Oh yeah Ritchie Ritch isn't featured on the cover art--front or back.

 

[Xenia Stathakopoulou]

Thanks for taking the time doing that Dorrie, wow each side of every disc looks like it has lots of cartoons. Im now convinced to get this around christmas.

 

[Chris S]

Bill Hunt from theDigitalBits.com had the following to say about the set. His full review coming later today hopefully.

 

[ScottR]

So, are the voices in the Casper cartoons the originals? And are these toons more cut than they would have been in the late '70's and early '80's? If not, I'm gonna get this as I loved Casper.

 

[Xenia Stathakopoulou]

Darn it ! Once again amazon has to have an awesome price . I wasnt planning to get this till christmas , but i figure that by then itll no longer be 25.54 for the set.So i went ahead and ordered it.Also on the website, classiccartoons.blogspot.com , they have pictures of some of the cartoons on the set. We are talking looney tunes golden collection style restoration on these shorts !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[ScottR]

Does anyone know if these are the original voices, and if they are edited moreso than they would've been around 25 years ago?

 

[Xenia Stathakopoulou]

Scott, according to golden age cartoon forums and i quote, all cartoons have their original soundtracks aka voices restored, including buzzy the crow !Buy it without hesitation !

 

[Xenia Stathakopoulou]

I just read some fantastic news about this set at another forum !!!!!! The news is if you go to disc 4 on this set on show # 49, if you skip the first casper cartoon, you will be able to see the original 50s 60s harveytoons opening with the big red H, with the harveytoon stars on both sides and the jack in the box !!This is the only episode on the entire set that shows this.Waiting for mine in the mail towards the beginning of this week.Anybody got their set yet, what are your thoughts ?

 

[Mark Y]

After reading about that on the internet, I finally saw it...and after watching some of the other cartoons on the set, I figured out how and why it happened, just on that one cartoon. (By the way, the cartoon in question has the full Harvey opening titles, but no closing title card.)

In a few words, thank Buzzy The Crow and 1990s political correctness.

In a long, drawn-out, roundabout way, here's why it happened:

(1) The Harvey cartoon library used to be available to local stations as a syndicated TV package from TV distributor Worldvision. That package included the 1950-1960 Paramount cartoons (not including Popeye), plus the cartoons that had been featured on "The New Casper Cartoon Show" (the 1960s made-for-TV Casper cartoons and a bunch of "Modern Madcaps"). I have some 16mm film prints of a few cartoons and some of them have the original "New Casper Cartoon Show" opening and/or "next week previews" from the show...followed by a white-on-red Worldvision logo. Anyway...

(2) In the 1980s, Worldvision had a home video division, which released a bunch of its Hanna-Barbera properties (now controlled by WB). In the 1980s, very few TV shows were released in "season sets" or had complete or even representative selections of episodes available. Most of the H-B VHS releases were one-shots, with about 8 cartoons on each. If a character or series sold well, a second volume might be released. Anyway, after Worldvision Home Video released a bunch of Hanna-Barbera tapes, they followed up with a selection of Harveytoons, which they distributed at the time. Those tapes featured a selection of cartoons edited back to back on the master reel. The first cartoon on a tape had the full Harvey opening titles, and the last had the Harvey closing title. All the rest were truncated, showing only the name of the cartoon and maybe the starring character.

(3) In 1991, the Harvey cartoons TV package changed hands, and the new distributor compiled them into a formatted half-hour show on tape (which was a lot simpler to program). This series (called "Casper And Friends") presented the cartoons with no individual opening or closing titles at all, and to make matters worse, the original soundtracks (voices, sound effects and music) were completely re-recorded, using new voice artists and synthesized music to replace the original Winston Sharples scores. I have even read rumors to the effect that the dialogue in some of the shorts was changed to be more "contemporary," such as inserting references to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (I am not making this up).

(4) After a year or two, the syndicated "Casper And Friends" reverted back to the original soundtracks on the cartoons, though they were still presented otherwise in the same format.

(5) In 1998, the Harvey cartoons were reformatted again into another half-hour show, called "The Harveytoons Show," which aired on the Fox Family Channel. (This series is the basis for the DVDs.) These versions at least had a shortened opening title on each cartoon, so at least they'd show the title of the short (most of the time). These shows also presented the cartoons with their original soundtracks...all except for the Buzzy cartoons, which reverted back to the 1991 redubs.

(6) The "Harveytoons Show" episodes were used as the basis for the new DVD set (which is not "complete" by any definition; it includes 52 of the 65 "Harveytoons Show" half-hours, but that's a different subject). The Buzzy cartoons as presented in this package have their original soundtracks, because...

(7) ...the Buzzy cartoons on the new DVD set are sourced from the 1980s Worldvision VHS tape (which I have). (I'm not saying they're sourced from VHS--they're not--but the *master* from the 1980s VHS release was used.) You'll notice on the new DVD set that the title sequences on most of the Buzzy cartoons, while not complete, are not the specially re-edited versions as seen on the rest of the cartoons (with the 1998 Harveytoons intro). They just pick up towards the end of the (1950s vintage) Harvey reissue titles, showing the name of the cartoon, usually followed by the final title card with Buzzy's picture. In some cases, the audio track has a split-second or so of the soundtrack of the tail end of the previous cartoon on the Worldvision tape (because the editing had been done on film, so the audio would lag behind the visual for a second or so). Listen close and you'll be able to hear this. As mentioned above, the first cartoon on the Worldvision tape had the full Harvey opening...that's why it's present on the new DVD set.

Check it out.

 

[Xenia Stathakopoulou]

Wow, that was an interesting very informative read ,thanks.Ill try to listen in for those edits when i recieve my set.

 

[Jonathan Peterson]

I just wonder if a second set will be released including one short I really wanted? "Crumley Cogswell" is the short and it was excluded from this set.

 

[ScottR]

I want the Kings of Toyland Casper cartoon! The individual Casper releases so far appear as I remember them from 1980-1981 with the same opening at the beginning of the disc and the same closing credits at the end. What they should do is release a complete set for each character. That way, all of the shorts are released with no omissions or duplicates. And are the follow the bouncing ball songs on here?

 

[exliontamer]

I'm new to the forum, and this is my first post. Hi, everyone.

Anyway, first off, thanks to Mark Y for the informative history of what's on this set. It's always nice to know why a DVD set is the way it is, and in this case it clears up a lot of questions.

Second, my impression of the Harveytoons set is that it's more than better than nothing, but quite a ways from ideal. Releasing these cartoons in bowdlerized form, however slightly, implies a lack of respect for the artists involved in their creation. It also implies a laziness or sloppiness borne out of greed, which may be worse. Shame on the copyright holders.

That said, I'm glad to have these cartoons on disc, even if they aren't in pristine form. They're still a pleasure to watch, and the price is pretty good, so I can't complain too much. Until Shout Factory, Time Life, or (wishful thinking) Criterion license the masters and do a proper release, this set will do.

One more thing -- anyone else out there a Modern Madcaps fan? I would've settled for a two-disc set of just those (unedited, natch).

 

[Michael Alden]

I have a question for the people who are knowledgable about these cartoons. As someone who would have watched Casper in the early to mid 60s, would this set contain those cartoons? Would I have been watching theatrical Casper cartoons or made for TV ones. And whichever they were, on they included here?

 

[Mark Y]

If you're referring to the made-for-TV Casper cartoons produced for "The New Casper Cartoon Show" in 1963, the answer is no, they are not included in this set. However, a few of them are available on other DVDs. Even those, though, have butchered titles. They take the main title card from "Boo Moon" (from 1953), black out the title and replace it with the title of the made-for-TV short. The 1963 Caspers were not included in the original "Harveytoon Show" package aired on Fox Family Channel in 1998. Later, when the show aired on Boomerang, they added 13 more episodes (the Family Channel series was 65 shows, the Boomerang one had 78 shows) and those consisted primarily of the 1963 Caspers and later (MUCH later) Richie Rich cartoons, which I myself have never even seen.

If you're talking about the cartoons that aired on "Matty's Funday Funnies" (on ABC 1959-1962) those were originally made for theatres and released by Paramount. They were in syndication, airing on local stations by the time the 1963 series started. Later on, the 1963 cartoons were added to the earlier package, so they all aired together by the mid-1970s.

So chances are, you'll be familiar with the cartoons in this set.

 

[ScottR]

I seem to remember a "I've Been Working on the Railroad" follow the bouncing ball short but I haven't seen it in 25 years or more.