Review(s): DVD Max Fleischer's Color Classics: Somewhere in Dreamland
Awesome awesome DVD set
I have the revised edition of this set and it was money well spent. The Stero-optical Process is always fun but the most overlooked quality of these gems is how they really get inside of you. Some call these cheesy and some are but cartoons like "Somewhere in Dreamland," "Play Safe," and "The Little Dutch Mill" are impossible to watch without tearing up. Now DISNEY cartoons are cheesy! They're just pointless romping and frollicing through daisies. These Fleischer shorts have morals and messages that really get to you.
cheesy
i am a cartoon fanatic, especially old ones. but these are dumb and cheesy for the most part. they're all based on fairy tales with happy endings, and they all have dancing and singing.
well, i take it back a little... they're not ALL really cheesy, but mostly.
Great cartoons... but the DVD's has technical glitches.
These are wonderful cartoons that I grew up with as a child and I'm only 25. It's amazing how cartoons nowadays have become so self indulgent and garish. It seems that the majority of these newer animated series have lost perspective of it's target audience and have been putting out mellowdramatic garbage since the mid-nineties. I think children of this generation would appreciate something lighthearted and refreshing like a collection of Fleischer cartoons.
There is one little flaw to this specific collection, though. In the middle of the first DVD it continues to play the same episode repeatedly... and from what I've read here in these previous reviews it's not only my DVD. Granted, it's not that big of a deal. All you have to do is return to the menu and select the next episode to play. Glitches and all, I think it's worth having these great cartoons on DVD.
Related DVD's Max Fleischer's Color Classics: Somewhere in Dreamland
One of the most talented animators of the silent and early sound eras, Ub Iwerks designed the physical appearance of Mickey Mouse. He animated the first Mickey shorts almost single-handedly, doing more than 700 drawings in a single day. Iwerks's animation was rubbery, weightless, and appealing, but his approach was at odds with the increasing realism Walt Disney sought. In 1930, he left Disney to start his own studio, but despite his talent--and the exceptional animators who worked for him--he produced old-fashioned, unfunny cartoons that couldn't compete with the more sophisticated storytelling and brash gags in the shorts from Disney, the Fleischers, Warner Bros., and MGM. In 1940, Iwerks returned to the Disney studio, where he won Oscars for his innovations in optical... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Ub Iwerks DVD Release Date: Released the 13 July 1999 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Ub Iwerks was one of the greatest animators of the silent and early sound eras: he animated "Steamboat Willie" and other early Disney shorts virtually by himself. But the films he produced at his own studio after breaking with Walt Disney in 1930 lack the vitality of his earlier work. During the '30s, the animators with Disney, the Fleischers, Warner Bros., and MGM developed a new style of cartoon humor that centered on characters with strong, recognizable personalities. Iwerks's first recurring character, Flip the Frog, who appears in more than half the cartoons in this collection, never developed into a wholesome good guy or a sarcastic antihero. He remained an observer, rather than someone who initiated the action, as Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny did. The rambling plots further... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Ub Iwerks DVD Release Date: Released the 13 July 1999 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Despite its talented staff, the Van Beuren Studio, which existed from 1928 to 1936, never rose above the level of a "B" cartoon house. Their talking version of Felix the Cat, who appears in "Bold King Cole" (1936) and "The Goose That Laid the Golden Egg" (1936), has none of zest of the silent character animated by Otto Messmer. Their original characters, Molly Moo-Cow and Cubby Bear, are awkward-looking nonentities. The "Rainbow Parade" series was clearly designed to compete with Walt Disney's "Silly Symphonies," but the films lack the polished animation, innovative designs, and focused storytelling of the Disney shorts. Some of the Van Beuren cartoons are genuinely odd: "Opening Night" (1933) celebrates the opening of the lavish Roxy Theater in New York; "In a Cartoon Studio"... More Info about this DVD DVD Release Date: Released the 09 March 1999 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Watching this as an adult is really a bit disturbing but yet entertaining at the same time. That tells you how much censorship has ruined and buried a lot of great vidoes. More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Johnny Legend DVD Release Date: Released the 20 January 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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I was a little disappointed with this dvd. If you are an aficionado of any types of animation it is a nice little snipet of cartoons from the 30s and 40s, albeit the image quality is horrific as it looks like it is from the 30s and 40s. It would have been nice if these cartoons would have been digitized (cleaned up) then it would have been an amazing little gem and little catologue of animation history, but unfortunately that is not the case. Otherwise what is the point of having it on DVD?
The cartoons themselves are not as 'racy' as I would have had to believe. Obviously they were for this era; "black faced" characters, animal cruelty, sexual overtones, etc. All played down for our time. Of course today's society would have a field day and riot if any of these incidents... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Cartoon Crazys DVD Release Date: Released the 09 January 2001 Special Order
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