Joe McDoakes on DVD: a complete list (1 Viewer)

[Charles Ellis]

Hopefully a compilation of all of the shorts can be made thru the Warner Archive. Likewise with the Pete Smith, Robert Benchley, Crime Does Not Pay and Passing Parade series.

 

[Haggai]

Good news earlier than we'd hoped? WB's HTF chat earlier this year mentioned a complete McDoakes collection as a likely Warner Archives release, though I think they said it wouldn't be out until 2010. But a complete set appears to be available right now as a pre-order on the WB Shop website:

http://www.wbshop.com/Joe-McDoakes-+63-SHORTS+EST-MOD/1000115110,default,pd.html

And the price is only 19.95! Maybe that's a mistake...to add to the confusion, I went ahead and placed the order, and got an estimated shipping date of next week, i.e. the same as for releases that are already available. And I was, indeed, only charged at the 19.95 price. So, if/when something actually happens with that, I'll post back here with an update.

 

[Charles H]

It looks like WA has purged the title. I did receive a confirmation. I also ordered "Our Gang" on the phone (phone orders don't send confirmations) but the charge is reflected on in the "Order History." "Dogville Shorts" also vanished. PETA?

 

[ahollis]

I ordered the Our Gang shorts and also received a confirmation. I guess we will see what happens.

 

[Haggai]

I received my copy of the Joe McDoakes collection in the mail yesterday. All 63 shorts are included in a 6 disc set, arranged (as far as I can tell) in chronological order by release date. Four of the discs contain 11 shorts each, one has 10, and the other has 9. I only had time to watch about half of the first disc, including a few shorts that had previously been released on other Warners discs and a few that hadn't. They all look OK to me so far, pretty much consistent with the quality of the ones broadcast on TCM and included on previous discs.

This is a really great use of the Archives by Warners, a long-anticipated treat for fans of this series. It's hard to imagine a regular release of all these shorts being viable even in the best of DVD buying times, and collecting every single of them from TV or from other DVD releases may never have been completely possible. But now with archives, we can get all of them at once, and it'll be a real treat to own. Not only can we finally see all of them, but you can always pull it off the shelf and enjoy one or two shorts out of a choice of several dozen, in just a little slice of time.

Some of the Archives releases of late have been disappointing in a "dumping ground" sense, with films that undoubtedly would have seen regular releases under a more consistent schedule getting sloughed off to lesser treatment. But this set is getting just what it needs: absent any realistic chance of getting a regular release, a small but dedicated group of fans can satisfy our completist urges and finally own this full series.