Our Gang Collection, 80 shorts, Oct. 28 (1 Viewer)

[Bob McLaughlin]

I'm late to this party! I had been always been searching for threads with "Little Rascals" in the title, not "Our Gang"! This is truly awesome news. I just assumed it would never happen. And the silents are the icing on the cake!

 

[Jonathan Peterson]

I would love for these to be released, I liked Froggy.

 

[ahollis]

I am a completest. I would love to see a collection of the MGM Our Gang Shorts. I still have the old laserdisc collection of about a third of the shorts.

 

[MattSav]

Bill Hunt from The Digital Bits has a great review of the set up on his website. I was already looking forward to it and now even more so!

The Spin Sheet - Capricorn One: SE, The Little Rascals & U2: Live Under a Blood Red Sky

 

[Eric Peterson]

I'm champing at the bit to get my hands on this. I might have to take a vacation day to take it all in.

 

[MilesH]

"Video quality itself seems to average from fair to very good" and "some compression artifacting". Seems like usual Genius "quality". I'll wait for more reviews before buying.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Miles,

That struck me as rather odd, too.

Bill Hunt was considerably upbeat on this set and the review seemed
to fare extremely well until that statement.

If I remember correctly, however, he kept reinforcing that this is
the best these shorts have ever looked.

 

[Steve...O]

Bill said the DVDs looked better than the TV airings in the 60s/70s which should be a somewhat obvious conclusion and could be considered faint praise. However in reading the whole article, before and after the quoted comment, it appears that these DVDs will look quite nice. His last sentence reinforces how high he is on this set.

Bill didn't say which ones were "fair" but perhaps those were the silent ones from the '20s? Nitrate material from Roach product does apparently survive (many of the silent L&H shorts have surviving negatives as well) so one would expect that some very nice Our Gang DVDs can be made at least of the sound shorts. I'm concerned about the compression artifacts more than anything. Hopefully Genius didn't cram too much material on one disc.

It is also disappointing that there are no English subtitles (or even captions). Major releases like this one should always have these where possible.

Concerns aside, the positives of this set far outweigh any reported negatives and I still believe this will be a contender for "DVD of the Year" upon its release.

 

[Jon Martin]

Here is another very good review.

DVD Talk Review: The Little Rascals: The Complete Collection

 

[MilesH]

Bad news: Reportedly Blackhawk prints are used for some of the shorts.

The Little Rascals - New DVD Set...

The Little Rascals - New DVD Set...

I'm curious why none of the advance reviews mention this?

 

[ColbyCo82]

I am hoping the silents are the only films with Blackhawk title cards. I do not see any reason why they would use them on the talkies since the VHS copies had all the original title cards in place

 

[Steve...O]

A thread at DVD Talk shows that at least 13 of the shorts (over 15% of the total) use Black Hawk prints as opposed to the originals. The second link Miles provided above shows the exact titles in question.

RHI/Genius has access to the originals (which were used for the Cabin Fever set) so this is probably plain old human error.

Fortunately, the Black Hawk prints "should" be complete save for the replaced titles. I presume they're also 16mm as opposed to the higher quality 35mm that the originals would have been. Can anyone confirm?

It's too bad though, between this mess-up and the lack of any kind of English subtitles this set has lost some of its initial luster.

This has me concerned for any potential L&H collection that Genius might put out.

 

[Markie Mark]

I just wrote to Genius Products about the issue and should expect a response tomorrow or the next day. I offered a suggestion that the set should either be recalled to release a corrected set, or to at least send corrected DVDs to those who call in or email to complain. After all, some companies have done that (I Love Lucy, for example). Even Cabin Fever did that for VHS Volume 6 because there was a missing scene from "Washee Ironee." They later released a corrected version of VHS after someone brought it to their attention.

 

[JRSL1988]

Me too! I love the MGM Our Gang shorts as much as I love the Hal Roach Our Gang. If you visit MonkeeJuice’s Videos | Veoh Video Network you see that I upload several Our Gang shorts. I only have a few MGM ones. Most of the MGM shorts are available at Our Gang Comedies - AOL Video. I'm new here by the way.

 

[Joe Lugoff]

This set has been at Sam's Club for a while now, but I didn't look at it closely until recently.

Some of the boxes say, along the top, "Remastered . Restored . Uncut."

However, other boxes say, along the top, "80 Original Theatrical Shorts."

Was it always like that, or has there been a second "printing" of the box because not all of the shorts were remastered and restored?

 

[Radioman970]

Just wanted to say I'm real pleased with this set even with the problems. These shorts have always been close to my heart and this is the only way I can watch them.

If I had a concern it would be more about the packaging and how slightly overemphasized Alfalfa, Buckwheat and Spanky are. Fernina, Chubby, Jackie and Weezer are my favorites. Followed by Spanky and the rest.

 

[Marsh]

Hello,

I'm about seven months late with this, but I've recently written a review of
the Genius Little Rascals DVD box set. I've geared the review more towards the
casual Our Gang/Rascals fan. Here's the link:

The Little Rascals Classic Films Collected in Box Set - Associated Content

Feel free to critique the article, clarify info., etc. I do think it's a
good box set on the whole, with some minor quibbles.

Thanks,
Marshall

 

[Eric Peterson]

While this is not discussing the primary set in this thread, I received this disappointing E-mail from Laughsmith yesterday regarding their silent "Our Gang" set.

Dear Eric,

Thank you for your note.

Unfortunately, following a protracted legal battle with our distributor,
Laughsmith Entertainment is no longer affiliated in any fashion with the
Our Gang production which it started in 2005. The unfinished materials
are now the property of Mackinac Media, Inc. What that company intends
to do with the materials, if anything at all, is unknown to us at this
time.

We understand that another production company has already started work
on a definitive Our Gang silents collection, a multiple DVD set which
includes all known surviving Pathe era silents, we will post details of
this project as they are made available to us.

Thank you for your patience, time and interest.

Sincerely,

Laughsmith Entertainment

 

[Jack Cleveland]

I thought I would revive this thread...


I have still not bought this set because of the use of Blackhawk prints that were used. These films were cherished memories of childhood for me, and when I first heard about this set I pre-ordered it. After reading the reports, I cancelled it. I have two box sets of these from my laser disc years, and kick myself repeatedly for not buying the other two. The volume three box continues to elude me, and I rarely see it on Ebay anymore. These use the restored release prints, and were truly complete!


I watched the first disc of the Warner Archive post-Roach shorts, and though they were enjoyable, they felt rather flat to me.


It is truly a shame that these classic shorts have been treated the way they have. I just can't bring myself to buy the set with the Blackhawk prints- Anyone have a volume three Cabin Fever Laser disc set they want to unload?

 

[Ethan Riley]

Originally Posted by Jack Cleveland

I thought I would revive this thread...


I have still not bought this set because of the use of Blackhawk prints that were used. These films were cherished memories of childhood for me, and when I first heard about this set I pre-ordered it. After reading the reports, I cancelled it. I have two box sets of these from my laser disc years, and kick myself repeatedly for not buying the other two. The volume three box continues to elude me, and I rarely see it on Ebay anymore. These use the restored release prints, and were truly complete!


I watched the first disc of the Warner Archive post-Roach shorts, and though they were enjoyable, they felt rather flat to me.


It is truly a shame that these classic shorts have been treated the way they have. I just can't bring myself to buy the set with the Blackhawk prints- Anyone have a volume three Cabin Fever Laser disc set they want to unload?

I don't know why they didn't use the same prints as the Cabin Fever releases. The Blackhawk prints are so utterly inferior that I'm embarrassed to even point out their flaws. It would serve no purpose. Thank god there's only a few Blackhawks in there but let me tell you one thing: as I continue to upgrade my old vhs tapes with dvd and blurays, I generally give away the old vhs versions. I have yet to give away my 20 or so Cabin Fever Little Rascals vhs tapes!! They take up too much space and yet I'll never part with them...


...that is, until some clever distributor decides it's a good idea to release the entire Our Gang canon on bluray...now there's another story...