Any Max Fleischer collections out there?

[ajmrowland]

I've been meaning to see if his old shorts are available. So far a search has gotten me little more than popeye, superman, and Gulliver's Travels.

[disneyboy20022]

I found these

Betty Boop

http://www.amazon.com/Betty-Boop-Origin ... +fleischer

Max Fleischer's Color Classics: Somewhere in Dreamland (1936)

http://www.amazon.com/Max-Fleischers-Co ... +fleischer

It's probably the second one that might interest you

[my chicken is infected]

It also looks as if Olive Films is going to start releasing Betty Boop shorts to DVD and Blu-Ray very soon. Volume 1 of The Essential Collection has already been announced. Seems like they're sticking to non-public domain titles, sadly. :\

http://blogs.indiewire.com/animationsco ... collection

[Jules]

Max Fleischer's Color Classics: Somewhere in Dreamland (1936)

http://www.amazon.com/Max-Fleischers-Co ... +fleischer

I'm afraid I have to advise against that set, ajm. I have it, but I haven't watched it yet. I've sampled some of its content however, and the AV quality is a bad as it gets on DVD. These Max Fleischer shorts are gems, but the DVD production house that put together that set doesn't seem to have properly scanned the 35mm film materials. The image is faded and worst of all, the artwork looks like it's been photographed through 5 layers of frosted glass. It's that bad. The figures on screen are literally indistinct.

Hopefully, a serious restoration house / DVD studio may one day pick up these public domain cartoons and give them the treatment they deserve.

Also .. avoid the Koch Blu-ray edition of Gulliver's Travels like the plague. The image is DVNRed within an inch of its life and stretched to fill the 16:9 frame. I believe there's an old 60th Anniversary WinStar DVD of Gulliver's Travels which is much better. I don't have it though, because it's out of print now, and insanely expensive.

[my chicken is infected]

I fortunately have a decent DVD from the $1 bins at the stores of Gulliver. I believe it simply lifted the transfer from the old Image Entertainment release.

I doubt most Fleischer DVD collections actually come from negatives, as there probably aren't many good negatives out there that these independent companies can access. They're probably really lucky if they can ever get access to decent videotape copies.'

For right now, the best collections of any Fleischer cartoon are probably the Superman and Popeye DVD sets from Warner Bros. and the 8-VHS set Betty Boop: The Definitive Collection from Republic Pictures Home Video in '98, and it's not perfect either. DVNR has been applied with a fairly heavy hand to the point where lines get thinner or disappear entirely, especially during fast motion. In addition, one cartoon is taken from a truncated 60's re-colored version, then converted to black and white, but you can still tell something's off, because motion isn't as fluid, words are changed to something that makes no sense, and everything has shades instead of just black and white. Despite these issues, these are probably the best copies out there of Betty until Olive Films releases their collections, and from what I'm hearing, they're ONLY releasing the ones that aren't in the public domain. "Poor Cinderella" is even presented in beautiful color.

[milojthatch]

The Superman shorts released from Warner are the best versions I have ever seen! In my opinion, worth the purchase!

[Little Red Henski]

I'm a big fan of this Out of the Inkwell set. http://www.inkwellimagesink.com/pages/c ... ell1.shtml

A SONG CAR-TUNES set is also available. http://www.inkwellimagesink.com/pages/c ... unes.shtml

[Mickeyfan1990]

Thunderbean is planning a Blu-ray/DVD combo pack release of Gullive'rs Travels that also contains 8 Fleischer shorts (Betty, Popeye, and Gabby) in HD!