WB Archive Collection: Discs On Demand!

[Ben]

Gee, some people sure do hold a grudge, don’t they?

[Dacey]

Yes, Eric, this is all about a movie which—as you say—came out eighteen years ago, and literally has nothing whatsoever to do with this (and, no, it’s not part of a massive conspiracy to “trick the public” into thinking the show had fans when its fandom is still alive and well to this day).

[gaastra]

Liked the groovies. Still do. Liked some of the classic cn promos and shorts then.

[EricJ]

El Kabong Rides Again

Yes, CN's early-00's obsession with informing the public that H-B Was Better Off Dead did seem to centrate on their three main fixations with A) Quick-Draw McGraw, B ) Aquaman from the Superfriends (oh, did they mention he talks to fish?), and C) Ranger Smith.

B ) is the obvious whine of DC fanboys, and C) is probably another one of John K's old demons, but as for their psychological Quick-Draw obsession, I never could understand why CN felt the need to vent such spleen at a character they couldn't even show anyway, from the music rights.
Best I can figure, they wanted to continually hold up Baba Louie as Public Annoying Sidekick #1, as straw-man for the crimes of all H-B annoying-sidekicks...

(And as for their fixation with Scrappy-Doo, well, that's too obvious to go into.)

[Ben]

Anyway...back to Warner Archive releases...

[EricJ]

And all the desperate fan-smooching therein. Time to bend over and point smugly.

[Ben]

He says...

[Otis8]

I never thought I would say this but I miss George.

[Daniel]

I can top that, I miss Special Ed! Aside from a few posts, most notably his last, he wasn't that annoying. Plus, I never felt I lost brain cells trying to unscramble his messages...

[Ben]

Ed...? Ouch!

[Daniel]

A few clips of Flintstones can be seen from the New York Comic-Con panel:



Nice, although perhaps a little too clean? And bright. Looks like no grain. Colors look odd.

[Ben]

Definite color boosting! And don’t forget that these won’t be using the same compression as the BDs. Still waiting for definitive reviews but will still likely pass on this.

[EricJ]

The Digital Bits review of the BD set seems to see a bit of difference between episode to episode, and suggests some might have had different sources:
https://thedigitalbits.com/item/flintst ... te-bd-2020

[Ben]

Definite pass for now. From the tail of Bill Hunt's review for The Bits...

The highlight of the extras you do get is definitely The Man Called Flintstone (1966) feature film. But rather than including it in HD, they’ve just upsampled the previous SD DVD master. At least its in anamorphic widescreen, but compression artifacting abounds. The other film included here is the 2015 direct-to-video The Flintstones and WWE: Stone Age Smackdown! (also in upsampled SD) which is properly terrible, and also has compression artifacting and other analog image artifacts. On the whole, it’s safe to call the special features on this set a big disappointment.

But… nobody is buying this set for the extras...

Well, actually, I kind of *was* wanting the film in nice HD! I’m more likely to revisit that on occasion rather than 166 episodes of the series. And there are some disappointing words on some of the episodes and some extras dropped, ending with a note to keep the DVDs for the extra content. Missed opportunities, again...

[Randall]

The films are in SD?!?! Very lame. Obviously, no Wilma Columbia lady in MCF, either, then. Of course, that was always a pretty long shot.

I may still get this set eventually, but I can't say it is a big priority. The DVDs were pretty decent already.