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

[Michael Elliott]

EDIT: Oops, Joe beat me to it.

Blackhawk was a company in the 70s who made 16mm prints of various silents and shorts. I believe they turned to Beta/VHS in the 80s and only recently closed their doors. I'm sure they are a reason a lot of silents are still out there today and they certainly helped in keeping them "alive" so to speak throughout the decades.

I take it the problem people are having now is that 16mm prints were used for the DVDs when 35mm were previously available. I'm rather curious if those videos were certainly from 35mm or perhaps they were 16mm prints with the correct title cards.

 

[Jon Baker]

So if there are MGM shorts of the Little Rascals and they're not included in this set, then this is not a complete collection. Froggy was my favorite Rascal too. What a shame.

Seems Genius also called their Harveytoons collection complete as well, and it wasn't.

 

[Tino]

This is the complete HAL ROACH collection .

 

[Jon Baker]

Does anyone know if the MGM shorts, which include Froggy and Robert "Mickey" Blake, are available on any of the previously released DVDs?

 

[Jon Martin]

Thanks for the explanation!

 

[Mike*HTF]

Thanks for that link, Steve.

I was on the fence about this release but now I'm pretty sure I'll pass.

 

[ahollis]

Warner did attach a couple of the MGM Our Gang shorts to some of their classic MGM DVD releases, but no more than those two. I will try to find the name and what they are attached to latter. A Laserdisc box set was release in the early 90’s with a mixture of the latter MGM shorts and a few of the silents. They also released the feature film “General Spanky” on laserdisc with a few of the MGM shorts as extras.

Warner’s says they have no plans to release any collection of shorts. I understand that philosophy with the Pete Smith Specialties, The Passing Parade, and Traveltalks, but they could do an Our Gang collection like they are doing with the Looney Tune Cartoons. These shorts cry out for a collection.

I know there is a lot of disappointment in the use of the 12 or so Blackhawk transfers, and for the life of me I cannot understand why they did it. While I share that disappointment, I understand that these shorts are not censored and are complete. I still want this set and have it on order. I never thought I would ever see any of these films on a legitimate DVD and will embrace them for the entertainment they are. I have not read one review yet that says the transfers are in bad shape and in fact they say they are the best they have seen.

The funny thing about Blackhawk Films is that one of my first 8mm Little Rascals films was purchased from them. It was magnetic sound and was Spooky Hooky. After that I purchased several sound and silent Little Rascals from them, along with a silent full length “Phantom of the Opera” and “Intolerance.” I guess I can blame them (and Castle Films) for my out of control collecting of movies, shorts, and cartoons, first on 8mm, then VHS, then laserdisc and now DVD. Bad Blackhawk!

 

[Randy Korstick]

Too bad about this. I was considering it but with 20% unmastered 16mm prints with blackhawk titiles and 80% remastered 35mm prints with original titles. Thats too much, I'll definately pass. There has been way too many mistakes with classic films and TV shows the last couple of years. It makes me think there are too many people behind these releases with no knowledge or interest in what they are working on maybe due to the age of those now working on them.

 

[John Morgan]

I just received my collection from Amazon today. Yes, it is really a shame about the Blackhawk prints. I went through and scanned several titles, and the Blackhawk ones certainly are several notches in quality below the rest. To make matters worse, some of the main title and end titles start late or have the last bit cut off before this last music note on the Blackhawks. I think I'll keep it with hopes up an exchange program, which I doubt will happen. I just don't feel up to transferring to DVDr my lasers. So close, yet so far away.

 

[Mark Y]

This is splitting hairs, but the M-G-M shorts were never part of The Little Rascals, which was a TV package originally consisting of 79 of the 80 Hal Roach-produced shorts (correct original series title was Hal Roach's Rascals, also later known as Our Gang) and ten of the Roach/M-G-M silent shorts. The silents eventually disappeared from the package. The one talkie short not originally included, Railroadin', was left out because the soundtrack was missing...until 1979 when it was discovered by Blackhawk Films. By the early 1970s, King World (yes, Oprah's King World) owned the TV rights to the package and that's when they re-edited a lot of the shorts and dropped eight titles altogether. (It wouldn't hurt to check some of the shorts on this DVD set to see if somehow, some of these TV edits may have been used -- I'm not saying they were, but you never know.)

Anyway, the 52 M-G-M Our Gang talkies (originally released 1938-1944) are owned by WB. Two of them were released as extras on The Marx Bros. Collection: Party Fever with Room Service, and Dog Daze with At The Circus. One other M-G-M Our Gang short, Waldo's Last Stand, has appeared on some public domain releases, including the now out-of-print Legend Films set.

Speaking of Froggy's mention in the press release...the front cover of the most recent Artistan/Lion's Gate Little Rascals single-disc DVD release has an M-G-M period photo with Robert "Mickey" Blake, who also did not appear in any of the Roach-era films.

 

[John Morgan]

Another question I wonder if someone can answer. Even the restored shorts on the VHS and LASER Maltin hosted sets had several of the films with the MGM lion, but the roars were muted out. Was this done at some later time when the films changed ownership? Just wondering.

 

[ahollis]

I went back and checked and found that Warner’s issued five of the MGM Our Gang shorts (post 1938) as extras on DVD. They are:

Party Fever with Room Service
Dog Dazewith At The Circus
Duel Personalities with Babes In Arms
The Big Premiere with Broadway Melody of 1940
Melodies Old & New with Ziegfeld Girl

Please Warner’s release a collection of the MGM Our Gang shorts. We need it!

I do not know if the question has been asked, but could the Blackhawk transfers be the only non edited versions of the shorts available. It is known that King World released the shorts on television and that they were edited with some shorts not even being released. Genius has insisted that the shorts are complete and un-edited. I also know that Blackhawk would advertise the shorts in their great catalog (looked forward to their monthly catalog) as being the original un-edited versions. This is just a thought and I would like to hear the Genius version (no pun intended) of this discussion.

 

[Steve...O]

I sent an e-mail to a specific contact at GENIUS that was nice enough to correspond with me when news of this set first broke. If I get a response I'll pass along what I find out.

I really want this set to succeed and am very much willing to give Genius a chance to respond on this. What bothers me is that this wasn't just 1 or 2 shorts, but rather over 15% of the entire set. It is a shame that an otherwise first rate set could be marred by a major quality control issue.

I also asked about the lack of any kind of English subtitles. It is almost unthinkable that in 2008 any major release would not have these. The DVD Talk reviewer noted that subtitles would have benefited some shorts where it is hard to understand the the audio. Also, a signficant portion of the buyers of this set are going to be of an age bracket that would benefit from subtitles.

 

[MilesH]

I took some screen shots of the Cabin Fever DVDs to show what is missing

Genius


Cabin Fever



Genius


Cabin Fever



Genius


Cabin Fever



Genius


Cabin Fever

 

[Joe Karlosi]

Great friggin' news to wake up to - YET AGAIN. :frowning:

I knew it was too good to be true. I knew it, I knew it, I knew it.
God, this SUCKS!

And I've just received confirmation that my pre-order has been sent from Amazon. Big Deal.

So what now? What is the alternative -- to keep all my old VHS tapes (some of which are still sealed in cellophane like someone else said, because I can't be bothered)...???

And just look at some of those title cards above. It's not like the inferior prints were used only for more obscure shorts like BOXING GLOVES; even stuff like THE PINCH SINGER and KID FROM BORNEO are messed up!!!

The average Joe Six Pack won't know or care, and so they'll probably still sell - at least off the shelves. But I can't wait to go to Amazon and read the negative reviews now that this travesty has become known to us.

 

[Joe Karlosi]

I hope someone can confirm this, but I've read that there are only 13 titles with the BLACKHAWK title:

Boxing Gloves
Moan & Groan Inc.
Shivering Shakespear
A Tough Winter
The Kid From Borneo
The Pinch Singer
Three Smart Boys
Roamin' Holiday
Bear Facts
Came The Brawn
Feed'em & Weep
The Awful Tooth
Hide & Shriek


If this is the case, 13 out of 80 isn't really that devastating. And for me personally, other than THE KID FROM BORNEO (which I hope is not edited!) I don't feel that most of the titles here are among the cream of the crop anyway. In fact, a good chunk of these are later ONE-reelers.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

It's sad to see that this most anticipated release is inferior to
the Cabin Fever DVDs.

I am most interested in hearing the response from Genius Products,
though I am certain there will be no corrections made.

 

[Mark Y]

The whole set, 80 talkies plus five silent shorts, was released by Cabin Fever on VHS, and some of it made it to DVD. On those tapes, they created an intro touting the restoration of the films, which cost them over half a million dollars. It was a class job all the way -- once in a while there would be an anomaly like the M-G-M logo being removed from the Bouncing Babies title card (and while that's not a huge deal, I still wonder when that would have been done and why, since when the shorts were re-released, that title card would have been completely replaced anyway, as far as I know) and an occasional missing M-G-M lion, which may have even been missing from the extant prints/negatives (though this does seem kind of unlikely).

If they were going to include some of the silents, I wonder why they picked the ones they did. On the Cabin Fever set, some were early Pathe titles which were public domain. Cat, Dog And Co., Dog Heaven and Barnum & Ringling Inc. actually had been part of the original TV package along with the talkies -- it seems most of the M-G-M released silents are more difficult to see (several are considered lost). But as mentioned earlier, ten of them were released as part of the original 1950s TV package (as I understand it, the only ten of the 22 M-G-M silents known to still exist at that time).

In Chicago we have the Roach-era Little Rascals shorts airing on "Me-Too," Channel 48 (formerly on Channel 23, "Me-TV"). They are actually colorized versions with the color turned off. They appear to be TV edits, but most have the original titles -- a few odd ones have altered titles with the name "Hal Roach Studios" and series title "The Little Rascals" replacing the originals, digitially inserted onto the title cards. Some have some bizarre overdubbing of LeRoy Shield music on the soundtracks, obscuring some of the dialogue. I remember watching these films in the 1970s, when you'd just see three generic title cards -- "King World Productions presents" / "The Little Rascals in" / (name of short). Later on, they redid them, using the title cards from the 1936-37 era shorts as a template, so they showed Spanky, Darla, Alfalfa, Porky, Buckwheat at the beginning no matter what era the particular short was from. Still later (late 1980s) I saw versions on TBS with a similar title format, but with different Rascals inserted (like Stymie and Jackie Cooper). So the Blackhawk titles on certain shorts isn't the end of the world, but it still shouldn't have happened. That's what happens when you don't have someone check this stuff who is familiar with the films.

Oh...for the person who asked about the silent roaring M-G-M lion: I am not an expert on this, but I believe some of the earliest talkie shorts -- Rascals, Laurel & Hardy and others -- had completely silent titles altogether, and sound may have been added to them later on. For ones that did have an audio track, initially the lion visual was not accompanied by roaring, but instead by a musical fanfare (that still makes no sense whatsoever to me, but neither does Pathe using a crowing rooster as an intro on silent films)!

 

[WilliamMcK]

This question would be more appropriate for an Our Gang/Little Rascals forum, but I thought I'd ask: just prior to King World who was leasing the films to television? I ask because I grew up in the '60's/'70's and I remember when the title cards switched over to King World. Nostalgic curiosity has me wondering what the title cards looked like for the Little Rascals in the mid/late-'60's.

 

[Mark Y]

My understanding is that the first retitlings were done for Monogram, later known as Allied Artists -- and their TV division was called Inter-State Television. Some of these prints are on the Goodtimes and Legend Films DVDs. Also, in the not-too-distant past, TCM aired at least one of the three public domain shorts with either Monogram or Allied titles (or Inter-State titles, I don't remember which).

Official Films had them for non-theatrical release -- I believe I saw a version of Pay As You Exit on Channel 32 in the mid-1980s (just before they lost the rights to the package) with an Official Films main title, but a King World end title. (However, I only saw this once, over 20 years ago.) They didn't show the entire opening, and I remember just catching a glimpse of it, thinking they somehow had one short with original titles -- later on I saw a Columbia Glove Slingers short with Official titles and realized that's what I had seen. There are a couple of Official prints on the aforementioned PD DVDs too -- those use the series title "Famous Kid Comedies."

Other than Monogram/Allied/Inter-State and King World, I think that's it as far as TV distributors (the others were for home movies). Channel 32 in Chicago was running the Monogram titles until the fall of 1973 when they got the King World prints. They also had the M-G-M shorts, which always had their original theatrical titles.