Wonder Toons

[Jack]

Has anyone else ever heard of these PD videos? My local dollar store sells a whole series of them. They pretty much feature old Paramount cartoons, since one is called "Baby Huey and Many More," ect. I decided to try it out, so I bought "Droopy and Many More." This tape had a picture of Tex Avery's creation, but then had three cartoons on (well, really four, but I don't think playing "The Stupidstitious Cat" twice in a row counts as two separate cartoons) it from Paramount.

It had
"Hectors Hectic Life" a titleless (almost made that one typo again, heh, heh) cartoon about a Dog who tries to keep three pups a secred from the home owner.
"Leprechauns Gold" cute little Leprechauns abound in this Noveltoon
"The Stupidstitious Cat" Another Noveltoon with Buzzy The Crow, marking the first time I have EVER seen a Buzzy short. I really like Buzzy, he talks like Rochester.
"The Stupidstitious Cat" again

All prints were terrible (washed out, blurred, choppy), but I thought it was a good buy since I had never seen any of these cartoons.

I also got another video called "Sunshine days" with:
"The Sunshine Makers"
"Hassan The Simple" A dreadful cartoon with live action kiddie show framing sequences, the animation made Yogi Bear look like Disney, the characters would just stand there, open their mouths, and talk, without any other mouth movement.
"Snubbed By A Snob" a color Fletcher cartoon!
"Happy Days" a Comicolr short scored by Carl Stalling

Bad brints (just washed out), but still better than Wonder Toons.


Jack:D

[BobChief]

...here in Allentown/Bethlehem/Easton, but their selection of PD toon tapes has gotten dicey at best. Human-type movies make up most of the selection, tho' there is the odd toon, usually some fairy tale remade by somebody you'll recognize straightaway. The toy chain in whose branch I saw that Famous Studios short once, has majorly deemphasized videos...a handful of legit D~sn~y stuff ah theenk, nuttin' more...

[TServo2049]

Wonder Toons suffers "Cartoons R Fun" syndrome. They have 3 cartoons to a tape, but say "and Many More." Also, Jon (or someone) has a copy of this tape where the tape ends before the first "The Stupidstitious Cat" ends!

[TServo2049]

Also, I have a PD tape called "Favorite Cartoon Classics" from Celebrity Home Entertainment's "Just for Kids" label. It has no WB or MGM toons, but it does have a bunch of Famous Studios toons, 2 Van Beuren Felix toons, 1 Mighty Mouse toon, and 1 Woody Woodpecker toon. It's about 2 1/2 hours, and is in SP. And the good part is, not only are there a bunch of rarely-seen (not un-PC) toons on there, but the prints are excellent, for a PD tape. Sure, they are dark and/or washed out, but they have no red/magenta distortion, and all come from 35mm! But still, if you want quality PD tapes, stick with Bosko Video, Shokus, and Video Yesteryear.

[Thad Komorowski]

Let's not forget CARTOON EXPLOSION! That's a GREAT series of PD videos.

-Thad:D

[Patrick McCart]

One PD tape I have has Ali-Baba Bound and Pigs In A Polka edited together to seem like one cartoon...

One line of tapes I found has nice transfers (cheap too) are Unicorn Video's tapes.

I found a tape with On Duty (One More Time, redrawn and overdubbed) which was a weird find.

It's kind of pitiful that cheaper PD DVD's are better than the Cartoon Crazies...they may edit Fresh Hare, but at least they don't screw up the sound.

[Jack]

There was also a "Popeye In Color!" video there, with four redrawn popeyes.


Jack:D