HARVEYTOONS: COMPLETE COLLECTION, THE - DVD review

I have mixed feelings about the new "Harveytoons: The Complete Collection" DVD, and I'm sure many fans of the old Casper the Friendly Ghost, Herman and Katnip, Baby Huey, and Little Audrey cartoons will feel the same.

On the one hand, it's good to get these cartoons on DVD. They're closer in spirit to the Warner Brothers shorts than I remember, while being just as creative in their gags and even a bit freer with the violence. It's not exactly Itchy and Scratchy, but some of the cartoons really do a number on the characters. But there are downsides to this collection. One of them is that many fans who see the cover will think of later Casper cartoons which aired as "Casper the Friendly Ghost" in syndication, beginning in 1953. That show featured Casper, Wendy the Good Witch, Nightmare the horse, Spooky the Mischevious Ghost, Casper's girlfriend Poil, and the Ghostly Trio. And as one of the people involved in the production of the "Harveytoons" show (which most viewers may have seen syndicated from 1998-2001 on the Fox Family Channel) has pointed out, there were more of the Harveytoons cartoons that didn't make it on the air. Those aren't included here, so "complete" ends up being a term that needs qualification. This DVD purports to present the complete "Harveytoons" series of 52 installments that was syndicated at one point, for a total of 312 shorts.

Here's the other downside for Casper-lovers: I tried counting yet lost track somewhere along the way, but it turns out that a full third of the "Harveytoons" cartoon shorts (which at six minutes are shorter than most cartoons) are generic cartoons on various topics lumped under the heading "Modern Madcaps." There were at least 108 of them, and they ranged in topics from a rich guy and his butler to a bunch of hillbillies. As kids, we thought of these cartoons as filler-the cereal you had to eat to get to the prize at the bottom of the box. While I can appreciate them more as an adult, the Modern Madcaps just don't have the personality of the character cartoons. I found myself wanting to skip over them to get to the good stuff, same as when I was little.

But the third downside of this collection is that it's hard to get to the cartoons you want to see. There's no printed or onscreen index of episodes, just 52 "shows" that you can't click on to get any sense of their content. You can only play them, and it's a real grab-bag. What's more, it would obviously be quite an undertaking to incorporate 312 scene selections, so when you press "next" or "skip" you're bypassing more than that one cartoon that doesn't interest you. So, resigned, you just pop one of these four double-sided discs that overlap in a book-style box and hope you get lucky. If Samsung can issue a firmware update via the Internet, maybe Classic Media and Sony Wonder productions can compensate fans who purchased this set by posting a complete index on their website that we can all download and tuck inside the box. I tried writing down all the episodes, but gave up because, frankly, people, it was too much of a pain in the butt-and I got to where I wasn't even able to watch the cartoons and review them. Besides, I couldn't even count the episodes properly.

While my tally could be wrong (I admit it!), at least it gives you a ballpark figure of the ratio of cartoons that are included in this set. Modern Madcaps topped the list at 108 cartoons, followed by 89 or so Casper cartoons, 39 Herman and Katnip cartoons, 21 Baby Huey cartoons, 19 Little Audrey cartoons, close to a dozen Tommy Tortoise and Moe Hare (who?) cartoons, and around a half-dozen Katnip and Buzzy (who's a crow). Some of the people who have been talking it up on the internet that there are Richie Rich cartoons on this set, but unless I was taking a bathroom break I flat out missed them. Plus, the little rich kid doesn't appear on the cover or in promotional literature, so I'm guessing I didn't miss a thing. He's just not here.

So how do these cartoons play for kids today? Well, my eight year old and four year old liked them well enough. Predictably, Casper was their favorite, followed by Baby Huey (that oversized duck that talked with a "duh!"), Little Audrey (one of the few cartoons to star a little girl, and therefore a favorite of little girls today), and Herman and Katnip, which they saw as another Tom & Jerry rip-off. Just as predictably, those Modern Madcaps didn't appeal to them at all. To them, they were generic exercises in animation. To me, there were extremely uneven. Some were quite clever and funny, while others were throwaways that reflected little thought or invention. But even they were better than the Tommy Tortoise and Moe Hare cartoons, which seemed as generic as the early Disney cartoons.

As for Casper, the old cartoons retain the charm that they had when they were made around 1950, and the little guy looks pretty good for his age. The Casper cartoons are pretty sweet and kid-friendly, too. The formula was that Casper would be looking for a friend, see something advertising "friendly" and go there, scare the bejesus out of everyone except one ostracized loner. He'd make friends with that little guy or girl, some calamity would befall the society, and Casper would save the day-and everyone would accept him. "Grown-ups don't understand, why children love him the most," the theme song goes, but it's clear that these cartoons were aimed at children. They're feel-good cartoons about inclusion and friendship. Now, the complication comes if parents are sensitive to cartoon violence, because all of the other Harveytoons entries are a little more hack'em than the Casper shorts. So one minute the cartoons are parents' approved, and the next minute there's a Modern Madcaps featuring smoking or liquor, or a Herman and Katnip cartoon that's extremely violent.

That's the caution for parents, and the way this is organized there's no way to just get to the Casper cartoons. You just pop in one of the sides on one of the discs and hope for the best. Still, there are 19 hours of cartoons here from the Forties and Fifties, and given what kids see these days on Cartoon Network, parents might think this stuff fairly mild and tolerable.

Video: Though there's the slight graininess you'd expect on these old cartoons and the color saturation isn't what I remember it being when I watched them as a kid, they're still in pretty good shape and transferred with apparent care. If you're like me, though, you worry about handling these double-sided discs for fear of accidentally clipping one side or scratching it. The cartoons are presented in 1.33:1 aspect ratio.

Audio: The audio is predictably a Dolby Digital Mono in English, and it's not bad. There's a slight hiss to many of the cartoons, but nothing that the kids will notice. Only audiophiles who are into vinyl and the best turntables will be bothered by it.

Extras: There are no extras. But come on, Classic Media/Sony Wonder, how about coming up with an index, at least?

Bottom Line: Casper the Friendly Ghost and Baby Huey were marketing sensations, with merchandise like plush dolls and puppets and lunch boxes showing up in all the toy catalogs. They're the reason for buying a set like this, though the other character cartoons are also worth watching. It's just that you have to sit through an awful lot of "Modern Madcaps" (ironic, given how Forties and Fifties the humans look and dress) in order to get to the good stuff. And there's no index to help you with a bypass.