Search - Classic Adventures, Vol. 1 on DVD

Some Rankin Bass releases from '72!!

Doctor Trance | MA, United States | 04/17/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"The Festival of Family Classics was Rankin/Bass's foray into cel animation of literary classics for television. They ran on ABC and were half hour shows. Nearly all of them have been released on various poor quality vhs tapes over the years. Others include Snow White, Jack O Lantern, A Christmas Tree, Puss-In-Boots (which appeared as a bonus on the 1st DVD release of Here Comes Peter Cottontail), Hiawatha, and Yankee Doodle.

While other DVD distributors are choosing to alter vintage cartoons, by taking out original openings or editing theme songs, this one is completely original, with the opening teaser before each episode, and the narrated introduction and music still intact. The picture quality is excellent, and these specials look world's away from the old vhs tapes. There is still some slight artifacting present, but the images are very sharp.

Both of the stories on this DVD happened to air as two parters back then, so we are getting a pretty long DVD here. The one hassle being that the DVD menu screen allows you to only choose one of the four episodes, with no option of playing all, or playing both parts of one of the stories. I also tried choosing part one of each story, and hoping it would just play into part 2, but no such luck, as it brings you right back to the menu screen. That's just nonsense!

With this being labeled as Volume 1, it looks like we are going to get more! Maybe they will do a holiday one with Jack O Lantern and A Christmas Tree together, or a fairy tale one with Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and Snow White. Either way, it's great to see all the Rankin Bass specials getting their DVD due!"