Warner Archive Press Release: Space Ghost & Dino Boy: The Complete Series (Blu-ray) (1 Viewer)

[SFMike]

Sad. A waste of good blu-rays.

 

[JamesSmith]

I would love to see all of these available!

But I think you meant:

I stand corrected.

--jthree

 

[ScottRE]

But what about
the Adventures of Gulliver
The Harlem Globetrotters
The Chattanooga Cats
Wait Till Your Father Comes Home (season 2)
Those Were The Days
Wildfire
Goldie Gold and Action Jack
Fangface

Surely, a few of those programs aren't in as bad as shape as the Banana Splits?

--jthree

And Where’s Huddles. Don’t forget Where’s Huddles!

EDIT: Never mind, I didn’t realize that actually had a dvd release! Good lord, I shoulda asked where Huddles was sooner...

 

[Mark Y]

In addition to the Splits' condition, one of the issues that got Warner OUT of the retail business for H-B sets (apart from dreaming bigger sales for the TV-boxset craze then they got for Yogi Bear and The Smurfs) was the question of whether or not The New Adventures of Huck Finn was still its own series to release, since the reruns had been absorbed into the half-hour syndicated Banana Splits reruns, along with Atom Ant and The New Adventures of Gulliver.
Warner spent several years of psychological torment wondering whether it was worth remarketing the unremitting horror of the original live-action Splits (and this was decades before smarmy indie movies), just because Tom & Huck had been one of the #1 fan-requested titles since Warner first announced it was going to sell vintage H-B on disk.

The Archive not only saved H-B's hinder, it also solved the messy question of how we were going to see Huck or Atom. (Do we have Gulliver yet?...Or will they never make it?)
Now I'm wondering whether it's worth the unremitting horror of the live-action Splits--which I already suffered through on Warner's "Saturday-Morning Memories" decade collections--just to see those great "Arabian Knights" and "Three Musketeers" animated segments again. If there was anything the Archive needed to sell as its own collection...



Despite constant alibis of "Print condition" when they were showing on Boomerang, music rights are reportedly holding Huckleberry Hound S2 and Quick-Draw McGraw in limbo, over their use of 50's John Seely cartoon-library music that's still technically owned by Sony/Columbia.
I'm sure Quicks-Draw would have been farther ahead on Warner's lists than Chatanooga Cats without it, but no hope seems to be on the horizon.

(Along with any hope of seeing "Gopher Broke" or "Weasel While You Work" escape the MIA Looney Tunes shorts. )

All of this is very interesting, thank you. I also regret all of my harping over the years about the Banana Splits, as maybe that didn't help -- I mean, I'm just one person, but I hope it didn't give the impression that whatever fans are out there might react badly if they didn't get it exactly right.

The "headache" you mention about the shows (such as Huckleberry Finn) which had been combined with the Banana Splits in syndication kind of surprises me -- that it would have been a concern at all. Even back in the VHS days, Atom Ant and Secret Squirrel had tapes released by Worldvision with no mention of the Banana Splits, and those tapes even included the original show openings and closings, which I had never even seen. Not only that, but the four other cartoon segments on those shows all had their own tapes released dedicated to just them, with no mention that they came from the AA/SS shows, let alone having been repeated alongside the Banana Splits.

When any of those shows ran on Cartoon Network or Boomerang, it was always stand-alone. Since 1992, the reassembled Banana Splits half-hours also have stood on their own, even though they retain the anachronistic series title "The Banana Splits AND FRIENDS show," and Fleegle's announcement "The Banana Splits present The Banana Splits" is still heard on the show opening -- on other days, he would have said they were presenting the Atom Ant show, the Secret Squirrel show, Huck Finn or Gulliver. I wonder why Turner went with that version of the show opening -- even to the point of having to re-create it using original film elements, i.e. their version was cut down "again" from the original longer intro -- if you compare the old syndicated intro to Turner's, the edits are not exact and there are a few FRAMES of original footage that weren't there in the syndicated intro -- only a Rain Man like me would probably notice, but it's just before the words "four banana, three banana, two banana, one" and the extended shot of Super Drooper cuts into the next shot of the four characters going down the slide -- it's less than a second long, but it's there.

Since the "friends" weren't part of the Turner reruns, I wonder why they didn't at least restore the full intro with the longer version of "The Tra La La Song" -- and the short version on what I would call the "TRUE Banana Splits" half-hours was the shortest and most badly butchered of all.

But I digress, as usual. Anyway, my point is that historically, they have never had a problem running these shows under their own names. Although still to this day, people of my generation still think "Huck Finn" was a segment on the Banana Splits (I see mention of stuff like this on internet forums all the time).

Warner Archive did a beautiful job on Huckleberry Finn, by the way. The colors pop right out at you. Although apparently it wasn't 100% perfect -- there were different edits of the "prologue" on different episodes and one of them didn't make it onto the set, so a few lines from the scene with Mrs. Thatcher and Aunt Polly are missing. But aside from that, it was close to perfection. I'm glad they had that footage at all (when the shows ran on Boomerang, it was with no show opening, guess why).

As far as the various openings, closings and cartoon intros added to the shows when they were syndicated along with the Banana Splits, I hope that stuff can be added as extras IF the Banana Splits ever gets a proper release. It's interesting to compare the closing credits to the ones on the original shows. They took the text overlays (which they somehow still had) and superimposed them over the tra la la song, so they still say "Atom Ant -- A Hanna-Barbera Production" or "Secret Squirrel -- A Hanna-Barbera Production" -- and the word "animation" is still misspelled "aimation."

Aside from one episode on one of the Saturday Morning Cartoons sets, they haven't yet released "The Adventures Of Gulliver."

 

[Ronald Epstein]

NEW 2020 1080p masters!
SPACE GHOST & DINO BOY: THE COMPLETE SERIES
Run Time 420:00
Subtitles English
Audio Specs MONO - English
Aspect Ratio 1.33:1, 4 X 3 FULL FRAME
Product Color COLOR
Disc Configuration BD 50 (2)
Special Feature: Documentary "Alex Toth: The Artist's Artist: The Journey of a Master Cartoonist" (SD)

Showcasing the episodes in the three-segment form as they originally aired, these stellar retro hits soar through space and time to deliver justice! First, intergalactic policeman Space Ghost navigates the cosmos in his tricked-out spaceship The Phantom Cruiser, battling villains like Brak and Zorak with his legendary suit and powerful wristbands. Then, Dino Boy teams with caveman Ugh and dinosaur Bronty to go primeval on the ancient menaces of their primitive home. And finally, Space Ghost flies again with more extraterrestrial adventures and thrilling takedowns. This dynamite compilation also features the dynamic six-part Space Ghost episode The Council of Doom. It’s cosmic entertainment for all!

 

[JoeDoakes]

In addition to the Splits' condition, one of the issues that got Warner OUT of the retail business for H-B sets (apart from dreaming bigger sales for the TV-boxset craze then they got for Yogi Bear and The Smurfs) was the question of whether or not The New Adventures of Huck Finn was still its own series to release, since the reruns had been absorbed into the half-hour syndicated Banana Splits reruns, along with Atom Ant and The New Adventures of Gulliver.
Warner spent several years of psychological torment wondering whether it was worth remarketing the unremitting horror of the original live-action Splits (and this was decades before smarmy indie movies), just because Tom & Huck had been one of the #1 fan-requested titles since Warner first announced it was going to sell vintage H-B on disk.

The Archive not only saved H-B's hinder, it also solved the messy question of how we were going to see Huck or Atom. (Do we have Gulliver yet?...Or will they never make it?)
Now I'm wondering whether it's worth the unremitting horror of the live-action Splits--which I already suffered through on Warner's "Saturday-Morning Memories" decade collections--just to see those great "Arabian Knights" and "Three Musketeers" animated segments again. If there was anything the Archive needed to sell as its own collection...



Despite constant alibis of "Print condition" when they were showing on Boomerang, music rights are reportedly holding Huckleberry Hound S2 and Quick-Draw McGraw in limbo, over their use of 50's John Seely cartoon-library music that's still technically owned by Sony/Columbia.
I'm sure Quicks-Draw would have been farther ahead on Warner's lists than Chatanooga Cats without it, but no hope seems to be on the horizon.

(Along with any hope of seeing "Gopher Broke" or "Weasel While You Work" escape the MIA Looney Tunes shorts. )

The live action Banana Splits was the best part of those shows. I'm very grateful for the British DVDs. I am not sure how many more minutes of the actual Splits might be left, although I would be ok with some duplication to get it. I'd particularly like WA to release Hocus Pocus Park.

 

[Randy Korstick]

But what about
the Adventures of Gulliver
The Harlem Globetrotters
The Chattanooga Cats
Wait Till Your Father Comes Home (season 2)
Those Were The Days
Wildfire
Goldie Gold and Action Jack
Fangface

Surely, a few of those programs aren't in as bad as shape as the Banana Splits?

--jthree

The rights to Harlem Globetrotters is with CBS/Paramount
WAC mentioned on FB page a few years back that Wait till your Father gets home season 2 and 3 had some sort of rights issue but they did not mention what the was.
The Chattanooga Cats was rumored as being worked on a few years back as was Yogi's Space Race but I think they may have run into some issues finding all the connecting segments for those 2 shows. I would really like both of these shows.

 

[Mark Y]

The live action Banana Splits was the best part of those shows. I'm very grateful for the British DVDs. I am not sure how many more minutes of the actual Splits might be left, although I would be ok with some duplication to get it. I'd particularly like WA to release Hocus Pocus Park.

I think it's a couple bits missing from each one in the first season -- plus all the Splits segments from Season 2, which were all new. But who knows how much of the Season 2 material is extant? There are about a half dozen skits from Season 2 on You Tube.

 

[Mark Y]

The rights to Harlem Globetrotters is with CBS/Paramount
WAC mentioned on FB page a few years back that Wait till your Father gets home season 2 and 3 had some sort of rights issue but they did not mention what the was.
The Chattanooga Cats was rumored as being worked on a few years back as was Yogi's Space Race but I think they may have run into some issues finding all the connecting segments for those 2 shows. I would really like both of these shows.

Boomerang ran the one-hour version of Cattanooga Cats about 8 or 9 years ago. They looked and sounded fine to me. I don't know if anything was missing beyond the throws to commercial breaks.

 

[ClassicTVMan1981X]

When originally broadcast on CBS Saturday mornings, didn't Space Ghost and Dino Boy originally end with the Screen Gems "S from Hell" logo?


~Ben

 

[B-ROLL]

When originally broadcast on CBS Saturday mornings, didn't Space Ghost and Dino Boy originally end with the Screen Gems "S from Hell" logo?


~Ben

Columbia also released "The Man Called Flintstone" film to theaters ...

...

Apparently H-B was sold to Taft (Broadcasting).

That became Great American Broadcasting and eventually they were bought out by one of Jane Fonda's exes. Turner was in-turn acquired by Warner... So it was written, so it shall be done ...

 

[ClassicTVMan1981X]

Columbia also released "The Man Called Flintstone" film to theaters ...
View attachment 78743
View attachment 78744 ...

Apparently H-B was sold to Taft (Broadcasting).
View attachment 78745
That became Great American Broadcasting and eventually they were bought out by one of Jane Fonda's exes. Turner was in-turn acquired by Warner... So it was written, so it shall be done ...

It was in the Taft era of H-B that the special opening Columbia logo with Wilma posing as the Torch Lady was eliminated from future broadcast prints of The Man Called Flintstone, starting around 1984.

~Ben

 

[ClassicTVMan1981X]

Also, did this CBS intro logo ever appear before the opening credits on this and other Hanna-Barbera cartoons broadcast on CBS from 1966 to 1970?


~Ben

 

[John*Wells]

Janna of the Jungle? Herculoids? Teen Force?

 

[Midnight Mike]

I just got the Space Ghost blu ray set today. It looks spectacular! Really vibrant colors, and definitely cleaner then the 2007 DVD release ( although there are still some specs of dirt here and there). I’ve only sampled a few episodes so far and there doesn’t seem to be any of the original bumpers Included (The short animated bits between commercial breaks). That’s too bad, but the episodes look fantastic! A real upgrade from the DVD if you’re a fan.

 

[Ken_Martinez]

Re: The Banana Splits.

So, The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm is in restoration for a possible 2021 release. The release of that was, as late as six months ago, deemed completely impossible because the elements were too far gone and too prohibitively expensive to restore.

That gives me a little bit of hope that we might see The Banana Splits eventually, if that indicates that WB is less inclined to give up on "problem" titles. .

 

[JamesSmith]

Re: The Banana Splits.

So, The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm is in restoration for a possible 2021 release. The release of that was, as late as six months ago, deemed completely impossible because the elements were too far gone and too prohibitively expensive to restore.

That gives me a little bit of hope that we might see The Banana Splits eventually, if that indicates that WB is less inclined to give up on "problem" titles. .

Maybe the Chattanooga Cats as well.

--james

 

[Thomas Newton]

That gives me a little bit of hope that we might see The Banana Splits eventually, if that indicates that WB is less inclined to give up on "problem" titles. .

One might say that the modern incarnation of The Banana Splits is a "problem" title.

The Banana Splits Move (2019) – IMDb

 

[JamesSmith]

One might say that the modern incarnation of The Banana Splits is a "problem" title.

The Banana Splits Move (2019) – IMDb

I have no desire to watch the 2019 film

--jthree

 

[Mark Y]

I just got the Space Ghost blu ray set today. It looks spectacular! Really vibrant colors, and definitely cleaner then the 2007 DVD release ( although there are still some specs of dirt here and there). I’ve only sampled a few episodes so far and there doesn’t seem to be any of the original bumpers Included (The short animated bits between commercial breaks). That’s too bad, but the episodes look fantastic! A real upgrade from the DVD if you’re a fan.

When Boomerang ran Space Ghost a few years ago (maybe more than "a few"), there were some of those short segments in between the cartoons, but they were only in a few episodes. IIRC they appeared in the last couple of shows with the "Council Of Doom" storyline. I am not certain but I wonder if maybe the Dino Boy cartoons may have been slightly longer and the Council Of Doom shows might have had some extra time to fill, so that's where they went?