Search - Freakazoid - The Complete First Season on DVD

A must-buy, but a little overpriced

S. Shelley | Mandeville, LA | 05/23/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"When Warner Bros. started up their own Saturday morning programming block in the form of the now-retired Kids' WB!, new shows were needed to fill up its schedule. One of those shows was "Freakazoid!", named for its zany titlular superhero. An example of this guy's wackiness is that, in the first episode, he draws a face on his right hand and calls it his new sidekick, then has it engage in a romantic relationship with his other hand. In a piece of irony, given the huge fandom it's gathered, fans of this show were reportedly hard to come by back when the show was originally airing. The show would eventually gain its cult status through its Cartoon Network reruns, but unfortunately for the fans, production on the series was now cancelled. "Freakazoid!" briefly reappeared on In2TV, during which Warner Home Video hinted that it was being considered for the DVD format, and now, about two years later, we're getting that in the form of this.

As with Tom Ruegger's other productions for WB Animation, I'm a big fan of the show, so you're probably wondering why I gave it four stars instead of five. Well, the answer lies in a problem I have that has suspiciously not been mentioned in any of the other reviews posted thus far. "Freakazoid!" only ran for 24 episodes, and as we've seen with some of their other DVD sets, Warner Home Video is clearly capable of putting that many episodes on one four-disc set. But for whatever reason, they decided to split this up over two seasonal sets. That doesn't make much sense to me, and it kinda puts the kibosh on a theory I'd been going with last year (that a "Freakazoid!" Complete Series set would be released alongside "Animaniacs"' final volume). I'm told they're doing this in the hopes of generating a lower price tag, which would supposedly make it easier to sell more copies. But if this is how they're going to go with releasing this and "The Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries", I may have reason to worry when they get around to releasing "Histeria!" Plus, since the second season had only 11 episodes, one can only wonder how they're going to handle that set.

But that doesn't bother me as much as an even bigger oddity on the set itself, in the form of the last episode on the first disc. That particular episode contains the segments "The Cloud" and "Candle Jack", both of which are already featured in episodes 10 and 2, respectively. In other words, this set is including one of those re-arranged filler episodes that Kids' WB! aired early on in the show's run ("Animaniacs" and "Histeria!" had a few of these as well). The "Pinky and the Brain" sets didn't overcharge us for the same material by including the filler episodes compiled from segments originally featured on "Animaniacs", so why is "Freakazoid!" saddled with a similar problem?! Is it so that they can both parts of the two-part episode, "The Chip", right at the beginning of disc two? If so, I think it's a rather farfetched excuse. The adjacent "Tiny Toon Adventures" DVD set contains eight episodes per disc; therefore, WHV could've just as easily put both parts of "The Chip" at the end of disc one if they'd just gotten rid of that giant waste of disc space that is this stupid filler episode. Maybe then they wouldn't have had to make disc two a flipper disc. But no, instead they're giving us a 13-episode set incorrectly advertised as having 14 episodes and making us pay more money for it than we need to, which kinda dilutes the intent of this set being cheaper to buy. This is why I am going to preorder this set here instead of purchasing it at Best Buy.

That's right; despite those above-mentioned flaws, I'm still buying and recommending this set. "Freakazoid!"'s probably the most popular of WB Animation's collaborations with Amblin Entertainment today, in spite of having a shorter run than its predecessors. And I have to admit, I subscribed to the show on In2TV's now-defunct Hi-Q Video service, but I didn't really watch it much there since I was busy focusing on the woefully-neglected "Histeria!" (which, along with "Road Rovers", also seriously needs to be released on DVD, in case anyone from Warner Home Video is reading this review). And since the AVI files of all the episodes would probably take up too much space on one's hard drive, this and the eventual second season set is pretty much the best route to go. Besides, in addition to the obligatory retrospective featurette, which will apparently be highlighting the original concept of the show (Freakazoid wasn't always planned to be the crazy guy we know), we're also getting audio commentaries on three episodes (I'm hoping we'll find out who Freakazette was supposed to be) and, unless I'm mistaken, actual TV promotional spots (something previously unheard of on DVDs of Kids' WB! shows). So yes, this DVD set is definitely a recommended purchase; just be sure you get it for a cheaper price like I'll be doing."