Post by StevieB. on Jan 3, 2008 20:26:39 GMT -5
hey gang,
over at Animated Views.com thay point out that on the Universal Studios relased dvd of "Woody Woodpecker" there are a few Owsald the lucky Rabbit shorts as a BONUS on disc 1.
from the site...
The Sweatbox Review:
I’m going to come clean from the off and say that, for everything I know about animation, I knew diddly squat about Woody Woodpecker. Yes, of course I knew the character, and had even seen a few of the later shorts, but I could never be persuaded to seek out anything more than a single LaserDisc put out a good few years ago now, and wasn’t particularly interested in the Walter Lantz story on the whole. Some of this – most, actually – was the “unique” way Universal Studios handled their classic animation catalog, by way of electing to do scant all with it. Part was my own misguided feeling that the Lantz studio never amounted to much, ran off with Walt Disney’s Oswald The Lucky Rabbit character, and made some pretty substandard cartoons to boot. And it’s the plain fact that we haven’t been able to see the good stuff that didn’t help in changing my mind over the years.
Until now.
The two Walters’ early careers are very much interlinked: Disney was directing the Oswald The Lucky Rabbit cartoons until producer Charles Mintz ordered a budget cut, which he refused only to find that Oswald was anything but lucky for him. Disney was fired from the series, with half his staff already stealthily signed up by Mintz to continue under a new director…Lantz. Born in New York at the turn of the century to Italian immigrant parents, Walter Lantz was well positioned to join the burgeoning animation industry, and on joining the Bray outfit he soon debuted his first original creation, Dinky Doodle, in 1924. When Bray Studios went bankrupt in 1927, Lantz moved to LA, where the coming of sound had also pulled the gravitational center of the entire film industry to Hollywood. Mintz set him up directing the new Oswald cartoons (also reissuing earlier Disney efforts with freshly-recorded soundtracks) before he himself got a taste of the treatment he’d shown Disney when distributor Universal ousted him from his intermediate role and decided to move Lantz and his operation directly onto the studio lot.
At Universal, Lantz now had completely free reign, and attempted to compete with the now successfully independent Walt Disney, as well as the now legendary cartoons coming from Warner’s Looney Tunes unit and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, by introducing new characters unique to Universal Studios. Out went a tired Oswald and in came the nutty Woodpecker, joined by other, not-quite A-List characters Chilli Willy, Andy Panda and Wally Walrus. It must be said that Woody isn’t the most rounded or likeable of characters. He’s a one-note gag without the nuances of a Daffy Duck, the mischievousness of Bugs Bunny, or the warmth of a Mickey Mouse. But he is also loonier than all of them put together, as this stunning new collector’s set shows
for the rest of the story go to the link: animated-views.com/2007/woody-woodpecker-and-friends-classic-cartoon-collection/
I think I just MIGHT buy this dvd set JUST for the owsald shorts!
over at Animated Views.com thay point out that on the Universal Studios relased dvd of "Woody Woodpecker" there are a few Owsald the lucky Rabbit shorts as a BONUS on disc 1.
from the site...
The Sweatbox Review:
I’m going to come clean from the off and say that, for everything I know about animation, I knew diddly squat about Woody Woodpecker. Yes, of course I knew the character, and had even seen a few of the later shorts, but I could never be persuaded to seek out anything more than a single LaserDisc put out a good few years ago now, and wasn’t particularly interested in the Walter Lantz story on the whole. Some of this – most, actually – was the “unique” way Universal Studios handled their classic animation catalog, by way of electing to do scant all with it. Part was my own misguided feeling that the Lantz studio never amounted to much, ran off with Walt Disney’s Oswald The Lucky Rabbit character, and made some pretty substandard cartoons to boot. And it’s the plain fact that we haven’t been able to see the good stuff that didn’t help in changing my mind over the years.
Until now.
The two Walters’ early careers are very much interlinked: Disney was directing the Oswald The Lucky Rabbit cartoons until producer Charles Mintz ordered a budget cut, which he refused only to find that Oswald was anything but lucky for him. Disney was fired from the series, with half his staff already stealthily signed up by Mintz to continue under a new director…Lantz. Born in New York at the turn of the century to Italian immigrant parents, Walter Lantz was well positioned to join the burgeoning animation industry, and on joining the Bray outfit he soon debuted his first original creation, Dinky Doodle, in 1924. When Bray Studios went bankrupt in 1927, Lantz moved to LA, where the coming of sound had also pulled the gravitational center of the entire film industry to Hollywood. Mintz set him up directing the new Oswald cartoons (also reissuing earlier Disney efforts with freshly-recorded soundtracks) before he himself got a taste of the treatment he’d shown Disney when distributor Universal ousted him from his intermediate role and decided to move Lantz and his operation directly onto the studio lot.
At Universal, Lantz now had completely free reign, and attempted to compete with the now successfully independent Walt Disney, as well as the now legendary cartoons coming from Warner’s Looney Tunes unit and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, by introducing new characters unique to Universal Studios. Out went a tired Oswald and in came the nutty Woodpecker, joined by other, not-quite A-List characters Chilli Willy, Andy Panda and Wally Walrus. It must be said that Woody isn’t the most rounded or likeable of characters. He’s a one-note gag without the nuances of a Daffy Duck, the mischievousness of Bugs Bunny, or the warmth of a Mickey Mouse. But he is also loonier than all of them put together, as this stunning new collector’s set shows
for the rest of the story go to the link: animated-views.com/2007/woody-woodpecker-and-friends-classic-cartoon-collection/
I think I just MIGHT buy this dvd set JUST for the owsald shorts!
