Showing posts with label rankin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rankin. Show all posts

Thundercats - Season One, Volume One (1985) Review

Thundercats - Season One, Volume One (1985)
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Thundercats was one of the best shows to come out of the 80s (Transformers being at the top), and one every fan has been eagerly awaiting to hit DVD.
Months ago, WB finally announced they would be releasing the series in a total of four box sets (33/32/33/32), which had everyone cheering for the return of one of their favories shows, in top notch DVD quality. Most of all, they were given a SRP of $64.99, thus guaranteeing the episodes must be remastered. Unfortunately, this is not the case.
For a SRP of $64.99, you get 33 episodes on six discs, but without any remastering done whatsoever. What was WB thinking? Not only do the episodes look like they were dumped down from VHS tapes (giving it a bootleg quality appearance), but there are a mass amount of errors throughout the episodes themselves. One of the major issues is with the second episode, "Unholy Alliance," which is missing all of the music (sans the opening and closing) during the episodes. However, this is only the case in the English track as both the Spanish and French versions have the music playing. Whatever the reason is, this is totally unacceptable. Hopefully WB will issue a recall and offer replacement discs.
The next negative to this set is that it is definitely no where near woth a SRP of $64.99. Yes, you can buy them cheaper online or at a retail store, but if you pay more than $30-35 for this set, then you were just ripped off. You could buy a DVD-R bootleg (not that you should) off ebay of the entire series in the same quality (if not better) for $15 more.
With other 80's shows, coming out (or have already been released) with a beautiful remastered print, and 5.1 audio, this makes this buy even worse than it seemed before. Why couldn't WB let Rhino handle this? Rhino may have their own faults, but at least they know how to NOT mess up a release THIS bad. Not to mention Rhino would have remastered the prints and mastera a 5.1 track, while this just has a less-than-satisfying-and-boring mono soundtrack.
So if you have not bought this set yet, hold off until WB fixes the set's glitches or lowers the SRP. Also, let's hope they do a much better job with Volume 2 when it comes out in Dec than they did with this. I love Thundercats, I am happy to own it on DVD and replace my tapes from Toonami, however, the price is unacceptable for a crappy release as this.
WB, Thundercats deserves to be treated just with respect as you have done so with Looney Tunes, and as much as Rhino did so with Transformers!

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In a distant galaxy, the world of Thundera is in crisis. The planet's structure has become unstable and is near collapse. With their destruction imminent, Thundera's denizens--known as the Thundercats--escape in a spaceship and plot a course for a new home. While in transit, the Thundercats are attacked by evil mutants and their craft is irreparably damaged. Jaga, the eldest Thundercat, sacrifices himself in order to pilot the ship safely to its destination: Third Earth.

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The Easter Bunny Is Coming to Town Review

The Easter Bunny Is Coming to Town
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Another stop-motion Animagic hit from the holiday entertainers, of Rankin/Bass Studios, the kings of holiday TV specials. This 1 hour show was released for the first time on April 6, 1977 on ABC television network. The storyline is very similar to "Santa Claus is Coming to Town", from the same studio - and by that I meant that part of the story explains all the traditions of Easter and how they began, such as why we eat chocolate bunnies, or why we color eggs. The show opens with a newsreel showing kids asking these questions. Fred Astaire reprises his role as the singing mailman S.D. Kluger and gives a great voice performance but he has a bigger role this time. He has traded in his snowmobile mail truck for "the little engine that could", voiced by Robert McFadden. In the story we go back in time to the beginning of the children's Easter traditions to answer these questions, to a hidden town called "Kidville". There is a scary bear named Gadzooks who hates holidays, and he is similar to the Winter Warlock character. A rabbit named "Sunny" grows up to be the Easter Bunny and bring joy to children, making great friends and allies along the way. He is voiced by Skip Hinnant, who voiced "Pogo" in a special from another studio. He befriends a lonely young King, named Bruce, who is being controlled and bullied by his tyrannical Aunt Longtooth.
We have come to expect good music in these holiday specials and they did not disappoint. There are 6 songs total with music by Maury Laws and lyrics by Jules Bass including the catchy, "Someone's Got to be First", along with "Big Rock Candy Mountain", the inspiring "Somebody Will Love You, If You Do", and "The Easter Bunny is Coming to Town Today". Fred Astaire sings "All You Have to Do is - Think Can Do". There is a hilarious song by the Hendrew Sisters, "What Came First, the Chicken or the Egg?". This very colorful special has terrific character designs by Paul Coker, who did the same for most of the studios products. The look of the film is, well, very Easter... They just did a great job capturing what the visuals should be for the kids.
This show is the 3rd and last of the Easter themed holiday shows made by the studio. In 1971 they made an hour long Animagic TV special for ABC, "Here Comes Peter Cottontail", about the selection contest for the Easter Bunny, and it actually travels through time to all the holidays. In 1976 they made a half hour traditional cel animation special "The First Easter Rabbit" for NBC. As you know, Rankin/Bass Studios brought us such beautiful holiday TV classics such as Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer, Year without a Santa Claus, `Twas the Night Before Christmas, Nestor the Long Eared Donkey, The Little Drummer Boy, Frosty the Snowman, Santa Claus is Comin' to Town, Mouse on the Mayflower, Cricket on the Hearth, the Stingiest Man in Town, Rudolph's Shiny New Year, and more. They also made non-holiday films such as the Hobbit, and Flight of Dragons. It is incredible that one company was responsible for all those TV specials, 95% of the ones we see every year. Their work includes traditional hand drawn cel animation, stop-motion Animagic, and live action. Little Golden Books Publishing owns the rights to almost every show the studio made, and have done a commendable job re-mastering them and releasing them on DVD. I hope this comes out on a restored DVD too; I have bought all the other Rankin/Bass that has been released on DVD.


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The Easter Bunny is Comin’ to Town is a Rankin and Bass holiday classic (originally produced in 1977) featuring stop motion animation and narrated by the legendary Fred Astaire. The feature is a fun, playful, retro 50-minute Easter story with an uplifting message that teaches kids about the origins of Easter traditions such as Easter Egg Hunts, Egg Rolling Contests and Easter Bonnets. The Deluxe Edition is fully re-mastered with all-new EC and special

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