Woody Woodpecker

[EricJ]

I don't remember much of Woody since the old days when local-stations would run cheap abandoned public-domain cartoons.
I remember the local afternoon station host/announcer would always tip viewers off when they'd be showing one of the Ma & Pa Kettle cartoons, but that was it.

That, and the one where Smokey the Bear keeps showing up, and I never did find out the title of that one.

[Ben]

As Rand knows, I put my order in just over a week or so ago, although had not even known this was coming along until a couple of weeks ago. 25 shorts plus extras at under twenty bucks seemed a no brainer for me, to support classic animation and hopefully get some of the other non-Woody Lantz shorts out in these new restorations.

[Daniel]

That, and the one where Smokey the Bear keeps showing up, and I never did find out the title of that one.

Sounds like "Red Riding Hoodlum". The ending is the highlight.

[gaastra]

Smokey was in the disney cartoon "in the bag" also.

[Ben]

Disney's bear was Humphrey.

[Daniel]

Gaastra means Smokey Bear appeared in that Humphrey the Bear short.

[ShyViolet]

Random, but on the Simpsons commentary for the Burns Vampire Halloween mini-ep, David Silverman says that Homer’s excitement/hand-movements for riding the “Super Fun Happy Slide” were based on Humphrey the Bear’s.

https://youtu.be/sMkr1ePsDPM

[Ben]

Ahh, gotcha on Smokey. Yes, he was the anti-forest fire campaign "mascot", wasn’t he?

And nice reference, Vi!

[droosan]

I'd considered an excursion to one of the few remaining record/video stores in the L.A. area .. but between President Biden visiting town on Monday and the California 'recall' election today, decided against it. Traffic & people just weren't worth it .. especially since this Blu-ray set probably wouldn't have been in stock there, anyway.

So, I placed an order for Woody Woodpecker Screwball Classics with Amazon yesterday afternoon, figuring on a 1-2 month wait.

Just got notification of an expected 'early delivery' on September 23rd .. a little over a week from now.

Still ..

"if droosan had gone straight to 'pre-order,' this never would have happened."

[Ben]

Oh, I don’t know. I have been reading of people not getting their preorders and having waits for another couple of weeks. Mine — which I did preorder — is set for October 8-14!

[droosan]

I do miss being easily able to go to a local shop for this sort of thing, though.

When I first moved to the L.A. area (about 25 years ago), there were record & video stores everywhere. There was a half-dozen of 'em in Burbank, alone. Laserdisc retailers were a bit fewer & further between .. but I could drive less than 20 minutes in most directions, and find one. There were even a couple of shops in Little Tokyo (downtown L.A.) where I could buy imported japanese LDs.

Now .. even stores like Best Buy have only a single aisle (or less) devoted to CDs/DVDs, and often only carry the most 'mainstream' of new releases (and only a few copies of each).

The one remaining record store here with an extensive selection that I can still enjoy browsing -- Amoeba Music -- is about a 20 minute drive down into Hollywood .. but since being fully vaccinated, I've only managed to make the trip a couple of times; it's definitely not the fun 'spontaneous' outing it once was.

[Ben]

Totally agree. We had several such shops around London that specialised in US LD imports, as well as the massive Virgin Megastore, Tower Records and HMV, which had an LD section to rival the one in the big LA Tower store that I was lucky to visit a few times. Those have all gone, as have the several smaller DVD and Blu-ray stores that I used to sneak into whenever I could (and lost a few hours browsing through!), although now with the internet it’s less about browsing and discovering things and more about going out to shop for a specific title. And once you’re doing that, it sadly makes it easier and more attractive to just click a button online and wait for it to turn up…until it turns up all battered! Luckily my arrivals today of Thoroughly Modern Millie and Bugsy Malone are mint, but it’s always a little worrisome, and I do miss the whole being able to venture into a store to just look and bring home something special.

[EricJ]

I still blame Best Buy.

But the decline of retail physical-disc was created by the fall of retail music CD,
A) by an industry that literally couldn't tell the difference between the two (that's why Digital VOD kept bewilderingly telling us why we wanted our movies "on the go", just like MP3),
and
B ) big-box retailers cutting back on retail disc sales, citing the declining retail-disc numbers, likely due to the declining numbers of actual STORES.

While anyone who actually did own a DVD, Blu-ray or Blu3D player in the early days felt a deep sense of betrayal by the retailers who wouldn't stock them, skipped right past them in the first place, and learned early on to glue themselves to Amazon lists.

[Ben]

Actually, it’s the lack of replicators that’s the problem. Technicolor closed down two plants in the US and one in Europe, leaving essentially only a handful in the world to handle the huge rush of discs, especially at this time of year.

[Daniel]

Hearing there's some issues with a couple of shorts. "Born to Peck" for example uses the TV soundtrack which contains narration. It's one of the voice-less Woody cartoons, as there's only a few moments of gibberish. The DVD version is without it. I know the short well as it's one of my favorites, and feel having the narration completely changes the mood. Here's a comparison. (note the title card music too) Pretty big blunder.