Search - Johnny Legend Presents: The Complete Weird Cartoons on DVD

Define weird

Steven Hellerstedt | 04/25/2004

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Well, it ain't complete and most of `em ain't weird, but THE COMPLETE WEIRD CARTOONS is fun. In fact, the only thematic glue here is the age of this collection - none were made later than 1945.
Still, there are a few gems and semi-precious stones here. There are two very early Walt Disney cartoons, "Alice's Eggplant" and "Alice the Toreador." They're a charming combination of live action and black-and-white animation. Alice was a young girl who was featured in a number of Disney's early works.
There are a few I suppose you could call weird. Charle's Bowers' "It's a Bird" and Wladyslaw Starewicz's "Frogland" and "The Devil's Ball" both employ stop-action animation rather than the usual pen-and-ink stuff. Starewicz's stuff defies brief description, Bower's "It's a Bird" is a live action/animation combo about a man who discovers a metal eating bird. If they wanted to include a really weird Betty Boop they could have done better than "Betty Boop's Crazy Inventions." They could have used "Snow White" (the Betty Boop one with Cab Calloway), or "I'll Be Glad When You're Dead, You Rascal You," which features live-action cut-ins of a very young Louis Armstrong.
There are a few here you'll never see on Saturday morning, cut for their racist content. Ub Iwerks "Little Black Sambo" and Chuck Jone's "Inki & the Minah Bird" seem fairly tame even by today's standards. Walter Lanz's "Scrub Me Mama With a Boogie Beat," on the other hand, is pretty bad. Jone's Inki seems no more a stereotype of a black male than Elmer Fudd is a stereotype of a white male. "Scrub Me..." will take your breath away with its overt racism.
In all, this is a fun and interesting collection. These are NOT cartoons you'll want to plunk your unattended children in front of, though."

Weird cartoons

Salvador Fortuny Miró | Tarragona , Spain | 12/23/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This DVD includes all the stuff that was previously edited in the two VHS tapes. This is: " Hasher's delirium " ( 1910 ), a one minute silent cartoon by french cartoon pioneer Emil Cohl; four surreal pieces from Fleischers' studio : " Betty Boop's crazy inventions " ( 1932 ), " Crazy town " ( 1932 ), these both starring Betty Boop, and the colour cartoons " Cobwell hotel " ( 1936 ) and " Small fry " ( 1939 ), all of them directed by Dave Fleischer and produced by his brother Max; one of the gems of the compilation: " Scrap happy Daffy ", a black & white Daffy Duck's cartoon from the Second World War period by Frank Tashlin, who would later direct Jerry Lewis in some of his finest movies; an early cartoon of Chuck Jones titled "Inki and the Minah bird " ; two other gems, two examples of russian puppet-animator Ladislaw Starewicz: " Frogland " ( 1923 ), an excellent adaptation of La Fontaine's famous fable and an excerpt from "Fetiche" ( 1923 ), collected here as " Devil's ball ", about a puppet dog who descends to hell while it's trying to recover its toy-ball; Charley Bowers' first talkie " It's a bird " ( 1930 ), a bizarre stop-motion masterwork; Pat Sullivan's " Felix the cat in Non-stop fright " ( 1929 ); " In a cartoon studio" ( 1931 ) from Van Beuren studio; two Walt Disney's cartoons from Alice series: " Alice toreador " and " Alice's eggplant ", produced for his first studio in Kansas City ; Walter Lantz's " Scrub me mamma with a boogie beat "; Ub Iwerks colour cartoon " Little black Sambo " ( 1936 ); " Hold anything " ( 1930 ), starring Bosko and animated by Isadore Freleng; and various bizarre vintage cartoon commercials .

Not all the prints are of the same quality, but the compilation is very recommendable."

A few interesting toons but a few clunkers...

Big Joe '83 | Melbourne, VIC Australia | 11/16/2004

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Firstly to address the reviewer below. Scrub Me Mama With A Boogie Beat is way more racist then any of the cartoons on the Warner Bros. Censored 11 list including Coal Black. Coal Black actully did what a lot of films did NOT do back then and actully acknowledged the blacks contribution to WWII, while Scrub Me Mama just shows them to be awfully lazy. As for Inki And The Minah Bird, this is one of Chuck Jones best cartoons and the all the gags in the film have nothing to do with Inki's ethnicity even if characiture is offensive.

Those are still instresting to see along with Betty Boop, Walt Disney's Alice Cartoons and Scrap Happy Daffy but there are a few cartoons on there which are very boring. The video and sound quality is so-so, absolutely nothing near the Looney Tunes Golden Collection or such but if you really want to see some of these cartoons which are entertaining for buffs only then it's pretty good value for money."

A Decent Collection of Weird Classics

Salvador Fortuny Miró | 02/29/2004

(3 out of 5 stars)

"This is a DVD release of two old compilations originally released by Rhino. It's an interesting collection to say the least. The most interesting shorts on this disc include "Scrub Me Mama With A Boogie Beat" a cartoon filled with racist stereotypes from Walter Lantz (Woody Woodpecker), "Inki and The Minah Bird" from Chuck Jones (Looney Tunes, Tom & Jerry) and extremely strange "It's A Bird". The biggest complaint is the prints used are horrible and vary from Good to Down-right Poor. Also of note not all openings are cut but most of the closings are gone. Mildly Recommended."