Genius Press Release: The Little Rascals: The Complete Collection (1 Viewer)

[Ronald Epstein]

Let me veer off topic just for a second....

Now that I have this new Genius Products set that will take weeks
till I actually look at it (I am involved in a lot of post HTF meet work),
I was actually looking to get rid of another Little Rascals boxed set
I bought a few years back.

I am at work right now so I only briefly looked at the boxed set I was
going to give to a co-worker, that is, until I saw that the first disc was
a documentary on The Little Rascals including having footage of a
15 year reunion.

The boxed set (of about 6 DVDs) was distributed by GoodTimes Video,
contained all the shorts from the Genius set -- but it was the documentary
that most intrigued me.

Anyone own this set and have seen this documentary? Is it any good?

 

[Michael Elliott]

Disc 1 arrived from Netflix today and I've skipped through some of the shorts and I'm thinking the same thing. I think people got their hopes up way too high. Everyone who owns the R2 L&H sets calls the transfers "pristine" but they're very far from that and if these same transfers get released here I'm very positive that people will be murdered, tortured and possible suicides might follow. The prints are full of scratches, splices, speckles and some of the audio is so full of hiss that it'll drive you nuts.

I'm just curious if the Cabin Fever titles were so "clean" for their time that people are now upset because even more wasn't done with them. I'm sure those CF tapes were a major step up from old broadcasts people were watching but I doubt they'd even come close to a Criterion type quality today.

 

[Darrell S.]

Keep your CABIN FEVER DVDs if you were fortunate enough to snag them while they were available. You can still get a box set for $50 on the internet which houses the first half. I have the second half on LASERDISC and I'm keeping them. Also, in defense of the colorized Little Rascals, they used the FAMOUS KIDS versions, but apparently they found original nitrate stock and they are equisite in appearance and sound! They are also offered in original B&W as well.

As far as using the Blackhawk prints, I could have stomached that if they had just SYNCHED UP THE SOUND! That is so basic and how they could have gotten the sound so off synch is unbelievable! They need to offer replacement DVDs!

 

[Ethan Riley]

buttmunker wrote:
Cute; but in Scotty's case, I don't think he was given the heave-ho; he was probably sought out for better and bigger projects. Same thing happened to Dick Moore and Jackie Cooper, to name a couple. But yeah--some of the Gangers got too old and lost their Cute and were let go from the series.

 

[Mark Y]

Everything is relative. Over the years a lot of the Hal Roach material, including the Rascals and L&H, went through a lot of hands and it's evident viewing them today. There is only so much one can do with 70 or 80 year old film -- we're lucky a lot of these films even survive in any form. There are still several Our Gang silents that are considered lost. The L&H silent short "Hats Off" (which inspired "The Music Box") has been written off as "gone forever" for decades. Only a few bits and pieces of "The Rogue Song" have been found. The second reel of "The Battle Of The Century" is long gone, apart from whatever excerpts Robert Youngson used in "The Golden Age Of Comedy." When the L&H and Rascals shorts were airing on TV, there would frequently be occasional black frames where footage was missing. On the Image DVDs of the silent shorts, they don't do that, but they use occasional freeze-frames instead.

So I agree, you have to take into consideration what the DVD makers have to work with. And I would much rather see it looking "authentic" rather than with excessive DVNR or whatever because, horrors, this is in black and white and there is film grain on it! (Gasp!)

The issue really is...what happened to the already-done restorations? (And even the sometimes-cut King World TV versions that AMC aired had their original titles reinstated, which was a huge surprise to me.)

 

[Mark Y]

One other question that still perplexes me:

I haven't picked the new set up yet (so I'll refrain from commenting on it, apart from knowing that some of the shorts have home-movie titles etc.) but this has prompted me to pull out some older Our Gang DVDs from Goodtimes and Legend Films. And here is what I don't understand:

The Hal Roach shorts "Schools Out," "Bear Shooters" and "Our Gang Follies Of 1938" have been showing up on public domain releases for decades (usually with their original theatrical titles). The M-G-M short "Waldo's Last Stand" is on several PD releases too.

But both Goodtimes and Legend have released several other shorts, obviously not licensed through RHI or King World or whoever. For instance, the Legend Films set includes "Fly My Kite," "A Lad An' A Lamp," "The Kid From Borneo," "Hi' Neighbor," "Hide And Shriek," "Our Gang Follies Of 1936," "Washee Ironee," "Shrimps For A Day," "Choo-Choo," "Night 'N' Gales," "Free Wheeling," "For Pete's Sake," and "Divot Diggers." Some of these also appear on various Goodtimes releases, as do other presumably non-PD shorts. But in every case across the board, the title sequences are from theatrical or TV reissue prints (Monogram/Allied/Interstate) or home movie editions (Official, Erko). The latter two do not use the "Little Rascals" name (they call the series "Famous Kids Comedies" and "Kids And Pets Series," respectively). However, if the short in question is one of the four PD titles, they do have the original title sequences.

Apparently, this is some kind of legal loophole. But just how does this work? It can't be that simple -- use a reissue version and presto, they aren't under copyright. Or can it? The reason I ask is Goodtimes released a whole bunch of these -- and weren't they a company that always crossed their Ts and dotted their Is in regard to copyright issues?

Inquiring minds want to know.

 

[Brian-W]

That'd I'd love.

I actually still have all four laserdisc boxsets. Was keeping them around to transfer to DVD until the Genius release came out. Now I'm debating whether to move forward and make my own Cabin Fever DVDs (from the laserdiscs), just accept the Genius versions, or do some kind of 'hybrid' that blends the best of both worlds.

What to do...what to do...

 

[ahollis]

I have the four volume laserdisc collection and intend the weekend to compare to the DVD. At the present I will keep the laserdiscs since they have so many of the silents on short on them. The Sunset Ltd is one of the their classic silent shorts and every time I show it to friends that have not seen it, they are falling on the floor with laughter. When and if ever Laughsmith comes out with a collection of the silents is when I will decide the fate of the Laserdiscs.

 

[Darrell S.]

Transfer the laserdiscs to DVD. They are the best quality. There are a few good transfers on the new Genius version and the extras are interesting if you want to spend the money.

Also, I don't think people are being overly negative. The complaints are very basic and warranted. Also, I think this boils down to how dear to most people's hearts these films are. Most of us attach them to our childhood with fond memories of watching them on TV and trying to emulate the fun these kids were having playing outside and creating our own fun.

 

[Rob_Ray]

I was one of the negative posters earlier this week, remarking that the shoddy "research" that went into the liner notes was not petty, but inexcusable. Having said that, I still bought the box, because at this price, the booklet rife with errors and the Blackhawk title cards weren't deal breakers for me.

I'm not sorry I purchased it. The Blackhawk prints I've seen (Shivering Shakespeare and The Kid from Borneo), while having the look of analog video transfers, originate from clean 35mm source material. But other shorts, such as Mush and Milk, look positively spectacular, rivalling the work done by Warner Bros. on films of this period. A Lad and a Lamp appeared to be out of sync on my machine by only a frame or two.

The on-screen extras are lots of fun and a must for Our Gang fans. Jean Darling is a hoot talking about what a spoiled brat she was at the time and Annie Ross is a tough old bird with her "Born in a Trunk" stories involving the likes of Paul Whiteman and her aunt, Ella Logan.

Richard Bann is one of the world's foremost authorities on Hal Roach and the Roach Studios in general. But Mr. Ward's commentaries have long silent gaps and offer little insight into any of the adults working in Wild Poses. Franklin Pangborn worked into the 1950s on television, not just the 1940s and I'm quite sure that Emerson Treacy and Gay Seabrook were never married, although they were a professional team for awhile. It's frustrating listening to commentaries that offer little information and half of which is either incomplete or just plain wrong.

But, bottom line, with all the reservations, I do recommend purchasing the box. The casual fan will be more than pleased and the dedicated fan will want it for the featurettes and the prints which range from spectacular to never less than adequate.

 

[Darrell S.]

Again I want to encouarge you to check out the colorized Genius versions. They are spectacular prints and look like Warner Bros. work. Even though they were culled from the FAMOUS KIDS prints, they are pristine. And A LAD AND A LAMP is on them and it looks like you are watching High Definition.

 

[Brian-W]

I got my Genius box set yesterday, watched a couple, and my initial thoughts (I haven't done any comparisons) is that while the couple I watched looked good, I couldn't discern if the transfers were better or if they'd been DNR'd.

Other than the limited Warner DVD at Sunset (WTH - how could I miss this), I've purchased basically every Little Rascals DVD released. Each one has good stuff on them, and other than some of the shorts themselves, there's unique things on each.

I also got the colorized versions with hesitation, and was pleasantly surprised. They are interesting to watch, but I wouldn't rewatch them with any frequency. The black and white transfers also looked good.

I've been having fun insisting my kids (3,6,9 years of age) watch the Little Rascals. Keep in mind this is a generation who's grown up on Pokemon, Dora, etc. (I say this like I'm an elderly man). They *love* the Little Rascals. My 3 year old just loves the "Kid from Borneo".

I look forward to Allens comparison from Laserdisc - that will influence whether to transfer, leave as-is, or make a hybrid. I may transfer the Cabin Fever laserdiscs anyway because Maltin's intros are unique.

 

[bigshot]

There is considerable compression artifacting, at least on disk 2, the one I watched. Occasionally the backgrounds would freeze and the moving elements would continue with the weave in the gate. It is extremely distracting and makes it look like bad video compositing. I wish they didn't try to cram so many titles on a single disk. I would have been happy to buy set after set of these in 2 to 4 disk packages, like the Three Stooges sets if they had maintained high quality throughout and took the time to do it right.

 

[Mark_Wilson]

The problem with this set is the EXCESSIVE DVNR. Items in the scene that should move in unison are detached. Don't know how else to explain it. Horrible.

 

[bigshot]

The separation between moving and static areas isn't DVNR. It's over compression. They crammed too many shorts on each disk. Any time you have grainy source material and over two hours on a dual layer disk, this will happen.

 

[Darrell S.]

I've never seen anything like it on DVD! On A TOUGH WINTER: Farina's face moves separately from his hair!

 

[Robbie^Blackmon]

Basically, the shorts have a fairly high bitrate (around 9.800 Mbps) and 200 minutes might be pushing things a little, but I wouldn't say they're crammed on the dual-layer discs.. In fact, some of the shorts look pretty good, although they do show some excessive signs of wear.

The problem is that the folks who put this set together, relied far too heavily on some simple digital tools during the "restoration" process. Remember that even the press release touted the use of "DVNR technology" (to paraphrase a little), as a positive boon for this set.

And it does all add up since, of course, not all shorts in the set exhibit the morphing/bounce phenomenon. The ones that do, suffer from excessive gate weave and have had most of the grain and blemishes smoothed out to the extent that they look over-polished and lack sharpness and detail (evidence of DVNR). The result is that the noise reduction can't compensate for the bouncing picture and causes the image to "tear" and bounce. The same effect can be created with cheap ATI video capture software, using the maximum DVNR (what ATI called "video soap") settings.

What the folks at Genius have done is to try to smooth out all the blemishes, scratches and dirt on video masters that already existed prior to this set being created. The existing tapes/transfers have inherent problems that can only be solved with a new, re-telecine of the source material-- preferrably using something along the lines of a wet-gate transfer, followed by some extensive audio and video restoration.

Additionally, two shorts, for sure, exhibit horizontal, analog video dropouts, "Lazy Days" and "Bouncing Babies"-- Further evidence that the shorts are sourced from video masters and not film.

The real problem here, is that there's only so much that can be done with analog video. I haven't even mentioned that the shorts are interlaced, rather than progressive...

 

[Robbie^Blackmon]

Check out the close-up of Wheezer in "Lazy Days" (9:15). His forehead looks like its floating 2 feet in front of him! Lol!

 

[David Weicker]

Ok,

I got my set today. I've just started going through it and I thought I would try to address some of the issues that have been posted (i've gotten through page two of this thread).

I hooked up two dvd players and my LaserDisc player to my projection tv, and set the PIP to be split screen to do comparisons between the new set and either the Cabin Fever Canadian DVDs (for sets 1-12), or LaserDisc (for sets 13-21)

Bear Shooters – missing dialogue due to broken film. CF missing same dialogue

Washee Ironee – part of the gag with Chinese boy is missing – his first spit and saying ‘washee clothesee’ – it picks up where gang spits. CF DVD has full scene.

The Pinch Singer – other than title, picture is definitely better on NEW set compared to CF DVD.

Kid From Borneo – other than title, picture is definitely better on NEW set compared to CF DVD, although picture is zoomed in slightly – no different than overscanning.

Boxing Gloves – better picture and sound

Free Eats – yes, there are scratches, but these scratches were on the CF LD as well. Because of the increase in picture quality (DVD vs LD/VHS) the scratches are more visible.

On all of these, picture has been improved – less flicker, sharper picture, more detail, also brighter.

As I get through more, I'll post my results. In all cases, the Cabin Fever originals have an inferior picture (to my eyes). If the originals on this new set were 16mm (not verified) then they were really good 16mm prints.

David

 

[Joe Karlosi]

Nice work, David - and thanks. Keep 'em coming!

I'm really ticked off that WASHEE IRONEE is the "cut" copy missing the bit with the water spitting and the "Washee Clothesees" gag. Yeah, I've still got it intact from the other source -- but the whole appeal of the Genius set was supposed to be having everything all together in best shape, in one solid chronological collection. Who the heck wants to bounce from one source to another, just to watch every short as complete and in as good shape as possible???

And all these reports about the "floating images"... just really disgusting. I can't stand that. Well, today is the last day of the HALLOWEEN CHALLENGE, which means beginning tomorrow I can finally watch all the Little Rascals shorts in order.... and it's a mixed blessing, I fear.