Customer Reviews

Cartoon Adventures Starring Gerald McBoing Boing

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I em enthralled that by some godsent miracle, you actually decided to release these wonderful films to DVD! It's certainly about time!

However four 7 minute shorts do not a DVD make!

Why couldn't you have at least included some other classic UPA entries in the Jolly Frolics series, such as the wonderfully creative and artistic masterpiece, Rooty Toot Toot, The Tell-Tale Heart, the many Mr. Magoo theatrical shorts you hold license to, etc..?

Again, I'm very happy to finally be able to own these on one convenient DVD package, but it seems like very little effort was put into this release. These cartoons were not aimed at children and I don't expect the majority of sales to come from them either. These are among the most artistic, innovative, stylized and brilliant animated film productions of all-time!

The UPA cartoons deserve their own comprehensive release so please stop neglecting your animated film library!!!

I am writing as a non native "american", so culturally McBoing Boing's influence in my life is not as deep as in many other readers or tv spectators may be. Nevertheless, I am a part of those delighted by sepcific UPA members animation work such as John Hubley and, in this particular case, Robert "Bobe" Cannon.

Cannon's visual influence in animation, according to Bendazzi's "Cartoons" (book available from Amazon.com) "born from Matisse, Picasso and Klee", certainly proves more than plain entertainment animation, in this case with 4 McBoing Boing's shorts.

The reason to miss the five stars is not because of Cannon's work, but because of Sony, as video-archive compiler and reseller.

Due to UPA's importance in animation history by rebelling to a dominant Disney's realistic style (around the mid 40's)and, ironically, turning later to a great influence for future Disney animation "experimental" styles (which turned into Adademy Award winning productions such as "Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom"), a first try to present some of Cannon's work would deserve some extras especially considering the DVD format.

The funny fact is that Sony decided to include most of McBoing Boing's shorts in this DVD as extras in their comic-cult movie "Hellboy" (just missing "Gerald McBoing Boing's Symphony") but didn't mind to add any documentary or additional data for "Cartoon Adventures Starring Gerald McBoing Boing".Woludn't it be nice for corporations to think once in a while that costumers can be interested in more than fun-pack version releases?

Anyway Robert Cannon's work is still extense and a great recommendation for future acquisitions in Sony's archives for DVD compliations would be:

Willie the Kid (1952)
Madeline (1952)
Christopher Crumpet (1953)
Christopher Crumpet's Playmate (1953)
Fuget's Budget (1954)
The Jaywalker (1956)

Along with some extras about UPS history.

great that steven bosustow's cartoons came to the market in a dvd format. The only sad part is that this great dvd contains 4 cartoons only.

The five stars are for the cartoons themselves. They took me back to the 1950's when this new, modern-style of cartoons was just beginning. At an age when I was just starting to discover myself, these cartoons were "cool" and I embraced their modernistic style and jazzy scores. The cartoons look pretty good on this DVD but they only leave you with the incomplete feeling of wanting more. The Steve Bosustow/UPA cartoons were a ground-breaking, award-winning series. Many of them immediately come to mind: The Tell-Tale Heart, Rooty Toot Toot, The Unicorn in the Garden, Madeline, and the Mr. McGoo series to name just a few. It is a crime against film history that these exiting cartoons are not available. Columbia Pictures: Wake up!!

I really enjoyed the Gerald McBoing Boing video, but I am the grandmother! I am afraid it is a little too dated for my grandchildren.

Maybe that should be the good part - singular. The first of these cartoons adapts a story by Dr. Seuss. Gerald, a small boy, speaks only in sound effects: twangy jaw-harp "boings," train whistles, and lots more. With the good Doctor's bouncy script, even the loose and somewhat sub-par animation come to life, creating a charming story.

The franchise goes quickly down hill, though. Some amusement remains in this one-joke series, as the joke is repeated in the other three `toons on this disk. This series comes from one of the less fortunate eras of animation, however, after the era when labor was cheap enough for artistic animation by hand, but before computers took over much of the drudgery in creating thirty slightly different images for each second of playing time. Good story-telling could have overcome that accident of birth, but did so only in the first of these shorts.

I'm glad I spent the half hour that these cartoons lasted, but I probably won't spend it again. Five stars for the first `toon on the disc, but less for the others. And, for the price, I would have appreciated something more than a half hour of viewing time.

-- wiredweird

Geez, it won the Academy Award!

But, the disk does not include Citizen Kane and Debbie Does Dallas. Try harder Sony!

If anyone cares, Gerald played Tiny Tim in Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol.

This was one of the first AOOGHA-AOOGHA tv shows I can recall from my RATTA-TAT-TAT-TAT childhood. I remember PUT-PUT-PUT-PUT-PUT sitting for hours NEEAAAAAAGHRRRRRRRR-BOOOOMMMMMMMMMMM watching the adventures of the CRAACCKKKLEEE-POPPPPP little boy who spoke sounds, not words. I so wanted to BBBBUUUUURRRPPP be just like him. In fact, some have even AAAuuuurrrAAAAAAuuurrrr told me that I have succeeded. One thing I must say, is RRROOAARRRRRRRRRR start with a BBLLIINNNGG-BBLLLIIIIIIING strong role model. KKKKRRRREAKKKKKKKKK. I did. Thank you.