Misssing Hanna Barbera shows on DVD?

[billsqueak]

Does anyone know if Hanna Barbera's "Abbott and Costello" (1967 cartoon) and "The New Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" (1968) will ever be available on DVD?

[kay]

ive been looking for them too.also laurel and hardy.i have a cartoon dvd of each but it doesnt show many cartioons.you tube has them in spanish

[hobbyfan]

The question's been asked before in re.: Huck Finn & Abbott & Costello. It's a matter of who holds the rights, because you're dealing with the estate of Samuel Clemens (aka Mark Twain) in the case of Huck Finn, and the respective estates of Bud Abbott (who actually worked on the toons) and Lou Costello, or whomever also has the DVD rights to the team's movie library, be it NBC-Universal or someone else, like Anchor Bay. Same goes for Laurel & Hardy, BTW.

[SpongeJosh]

I'm waiting for Secret Squirrel and a few others.

[ap75021]

I've got the 36 half hours of The Banana Splits & Friends show transferred to DVD if anyone's interested. Word was that the masters to the original Adventure Hour shows either are not available or could not be reconstructed to satisfactory levels so the plans for Hanna Barbera to release the series were scrapped. My copies are from Teletoon Retro as Boomerang kept shuffling their schedule and it was hard to be able to catch the show at any consistent time. There are a few flaws in the film that Teletoon Retro continues to air and as a result, the shows don't look quite as clean as what Boomerang airs...we have to take what we can get in some cases. I'd love to see the full hour-long shows as the syndicated package took very little from season two aside from the 3 or 4 "Micro
Ventures" they did, and of course the rest of the "Danger Isnald" serial movie. To quote Mike & The Mechanics, all we need is a miracle...

[dth1971]

What about the 1974 H-B live action "Korg: 70,000 B.C."?

[Mark The Shark]

I've got the 36 half hours of The Banana Splits & Friends show transferred to DVD if anyone's interested. Word was that the masters to the original Adventure Hour shows either are not available or could not be reconstructed to satisfactory levels so the plans for Hanna Barbera to release the series were scrapped. My copies are from Teletoon Retro as Boomerang kept shuffling their schedule and it was hard to be able to catch the show at any consistent time. There are a few flaws in the film that Teletoon Retro continues to air and as a result, the shows don't look quite as clean as what Boomerang airs...we have to take what we can get in some cases. I'd love to see the full hour-long shows as the syndicated package took very little from season two aside from the 3 or 4 "Micro
Ventures" they did, and of course the rest of the "Danger Isnald" serial movie. To quote Mike & The Mechanics, all we need is a miracle...

Thanks for the info. You have got me curious -- are the Teletoon versions different edits than those seen in the United States? I understand that before Turner bought Hanna-Barbera, there was both a one-hour and a half-hour version of the show syndicated internationally -- the one-hour version was essentially the first season as originally aired, with the original Season 1 opening and closing -- completely different from the Season 2 opening which was used in US syndication. (The footage was shot mostly at Six Flags Over Texas and all of it appears in various episodes, mostly music segments.) I also have seen half-hour cutdowns using the Season 1 opening and closing, with some Season 2 segments slipped in occasionally -- no Season 2 material appeared in the 36 US half-hours. These recuts also replaced "Danger Island" with cartoons that originally aired on the "Cattanooga Cats" show and I believe they aired that way in the UK in the mid-1970s.

The half-hour Banana Splits edits (as seen on Boomerang) are available on DVD in the UK. Even though I was greatly disappointed that they chose to release the edited half-hours rather than the one-hour shows, I did order the set and although incomplete, the quality is very nice. (The set is Region 2 but can be viewed on some NTSC players with a simple code modification that can be done with a DVD player's remote control -- info for particular brands and models can be found in various places on line.)

"Micro-Venture" was Season 1. The only Season 2 material in the edited Boomerang half-hours is the show opening and closing. They also changed the visuals on the "This Spot" song segment in one epsiode -- originally it had amusement park footage filmed at Six Flags Over Texas, and the Banana Splits characters did not appear in that footage. They replaced those scenes with chunks of the Season 2 opening -- more of it than can be seen in the severely cut opening on the half-hours.

WB did release (a version of) the first one-hour Banana Splits show as part of the "Saturday Morning Cartoons: The 1970s Vol. 2" set. It's a re-edited network repeat version with Season 2 titles and bumpers, and the first couple minutes of footage is changed, but for all intents and purposes it's the real deal. I am hopeful that maybe some day Warner Archive may release the rest. That also may be where "The New Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn" could end up. As for the Abbott & Costello cartoons, my understanding is that WB does own those as a result of Turner getting the RKO library (so it's unconnected with the rest of the Hanna-Barbera library; the A&C cartoons were always under different ownership). And if I remember correctly, Turner/WB only hold domestic rights to the RKO material...didn't they say they would only release things through Warner Archive if they owned full rights internationally?

The Laurel & Hardy cartoons are owned by Larry Harmon's estate.

[Toonatic]

The Snorks are missing from DVD. I'm hopin' 2010 is finally the year.

[MeanMachine00]

Yogi's Gang..I cant even find bootlegs of these.

[Zorak Masaki]

There are two episodes of Yogi's Gang on the 70s Saturday Morning Cartoon dvd sets.

[Ioz]

I'd like to see The Pirates of Dark Water released, plus Ruby-Spears shows like Dragon's Lair, Pac-Man, Thundarr, and Saturday Supercade if WB has the rights to all of them.

[Hey Steve]

WB most likely does own the rights to the Pac-Man series because it has aired on Boomerang, and the series is available on Xbox Live Marketplace. The only things that really should stand in the way is the licensing fee to Namco-Bandai for Pac-Man, and of course, sales projections based on the demand for such a series to be on DVD.

The rights to Saturday Supercade, last I knew was a chaotic issue seeing how all the properties represented in that one program are split up amongst different rights holders.

[SF4Ever]

WB most likely does own the rights to the Pac-Man series because it has aired on Boomerang, and the series is available on Xbox Live Marketplace. The only things that really should stand in the way is the licensing fee to Namco-Bandai for Pac-Man, and of course, sales projections based on the demand for such a series to be on DVD.

The rights to Saturday Supercade, last I knew was a chaotic issue seeing how all the properties represented in that one program are split up amongst different rights holders.

Agreed, but unless I miss my guess, one of the properties' copyright owners for Saturday Supercade is Nintendo. Nonetheless, I think they, meaning all of the copyrighted owners of each property in the program, need to get together with executives from Warner Home Video to discuss clearances, possible agreements and some sort of payment plan to each of the video games' property owners to have Saturday Supercade released on DVD. It's a long shot, but if all involving parties get together and talk, it'll be helpful in terms of possibly getting the program released on DVD.

[Zorak Masaki]

Agreed, but unless I miss my guess, one of the properties' copyright owners for Saturday Supercade is Nintendo. Nonetheless, I think they, meaning all of the copyrighted owners of each property in the program, need to get together with executives from Warner Home Video to discuss clearances, possible agreements and some sort of payment plan to each of the video games' property owners to have Saturday Supercade released on DVD. It's a long shot, but if all involving parties get together and talk, it'll be helpful in terms of possibly getting the program released on DVD.

But would there be a demand for it? I mean, the only characters from that show who have any name value are Donkey Kong, DK Jr, and maybe Q-Bert, but trying to sell people on Kangaroo, Space Ace, and Pitfall would be difficult to do, and the fact that most people who have seen the show only have negative reviews makes it even harder.

[SF4Ever]

But would there be a demand for it? I mean, the only characters from that show who have any name value are Donkey Kong, DK Jr, and maybe Q-Bert, but trying to sell people on Kangaroo, Space Ace, and Pitfall would be difficult to do, and the fact that most people who have seen the show only have negative reviews makes it even harder.

Maybe they do and maybe they don't- it's about how they look at the program as a whole. At the same time, there are posters who've been wanting for the program to be released on DVD.

[goran712]

If anyone needs some hanna-barbera cartoon,please PM me.I have a lot of rips,on rapidshare and on torrents :D

[ap75021]

The only difference between the Banana Splits shows on Teletoon Retro and Boomerang is that Boomerang's copies appear a little cleaner but also a bit more choppy coming into and going out of segments. Boomerang seems to cut very quickly out of not only this show but many others when they go to their bumpers and promos. I chose teletoon not only for a consistent air time but the fact that they don't tend to cut so abruptly into their breaks. A bit cleaner look would be nice, but the effect of the 40-plus year old films actually kind of adds to the overall retro feel of the show in 2010! The hour long version would be great to see someday, but as difficult as this seems to be to attain, I'll take what I can get for the time being.