Saturday, November 17, 2012

Saturday, November 3, 2012

CARTOON CAVALCADE!!

A lot of people equate Warner Archives as a handy way to get those hard to find films, but did you know they also have some pretty cool cartoons available. Here's a sample;

The Flintstones Prime Time Specials Volume 1



The Flintstones are a cartoon institution and many forget that it was a prime time show in it's heyday. After that they were delegated to Saturday Mornings, but it wasn't always that way. This double feature gives us two, prime time specials. First up is The Flintstones Meet Rockula and Frankenstone. When the gang wins a game show and winds up in Rocksylvania it isn't long before the guys awaken Frankenstone who, in turn, awakens his vampiric master, Rockula. Rockula develops a case of the hots for Wilma and the hijinks ensue. Then it's the world of kids baseball with Flintstones Little Big League and Fred and Barney are coaches on opposing teams and Mr. Slate wants Fred to win the series no matter what.
And one of the coolest parts of this? It's just Volume 1! More to come.

Snorks: Complete First Season



Most people will remember the annoying third season opening theme song and cringe. Others will consider it to be nothing more than an underwater version of The Smurfs. A lot of people don't realize that this show actually ran for five years and the first season was probably one of the best. Anchored in reality by it's opening it gave the show more depth than you got from a lot of Saturday Morning fare. Here, check out the opening;



See! Not as stupid as you remember, was it? And for all you Snork completists out there you know you will get them all.

Heathcliff and Dingbat



The cartoon cat who predates Garfield by 5 years got his own show. Well, half of his own show. The other half deals with monster animals who have their own brand of misadventures. While this only ran for 13 episodes, hopefully Warner Archives will run the second half that has Heathcliff sharing his air time with Marmaduke, the great Dane.

This is a wonderful way to introduce kids to cartoons that weren't there to just sell you toys and whatnot. Just some good old Saturday Morning fun and, with The Flintstones, proof that prime time cartoons aren't just the offensive stuff we see today.