Customer Reviews

MGM Cartoon Magic - Featuring Barney Bear and King Size Canary (Volume 1) [VHS]

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I'll be honest... I bought this tape in order to get to the Tex Avery episodes!

This tape has 3 Tex Avery toons; "Screwball Squirrel", "Little Rural Riding Hood", & "King Size Canary". These toons are pure gold!

The remaining flicks... "Unwelcome Guest" (a Barney Bear toon), "The Lonesome Stranger" (a sort of downtrodden Lone Ranger), "The Captain's Christmas", and "The Blue Danube" (an MGM FANTASIA-type short) are something I endured to get to Tex's work. To be fair, I am NOT a Barney Bear fan, and I was not familiar with the Captain character. The Lone Ranger parody was kind of fun, but I have seen too many of the Daffy Duck send ups recently to fully enjoy this one. The animated rendition of The Blue Danube was very well done considering the budget these guys were working in... technically impressive for the time period.
I offer one more word of advice on this subject... not all of these toons will appear on Cartoon Network due to the presentation of the subject matter. I have seen many Warner Bros cartoons edited for modern viewing audiences (read censored), so it is a joy to collect a copy as unedited as possible to appreciate the original form of the film.

For an actual recap of the individual episodes, I would heartily endorse checking the Internet Movie Database for your own benefit.

No one could do the absurd as well as animator Tex Avery and three of his best are represented on this compilation. Although "Little Rural Riding Hood" was recycled in other Avery offerings, the 'toon never loses its hilarity. Like many of the shorts from the period, this cartoon has enough bawdy humor to satisfy the adult while maintaining enough sight gags to keep the little ones in stitches, too.

"Screwball Squirrel," a lesser-tier MGM cartoon star, holds his own as one of the great over-the-top creations ever to appear on the big screen.

But, the masterpiece is the roll-on-the-floor amusements of "King Size Canary". One of the piece's great scenes involves the canary rearranging another character's facial features, a true example of Avery's off-the-wall brand of animated humor.

The 7 cartoons on this tape are some of the best ever made, and 3 are by the great Tex Avery. The stars of individual cartoons include Barney Bear and Screwball Squirrel. This may be the only place you will ever find the cartoons on this tape in uncensored form, as times have changed. These are not available on DVD. The first 3 titles are the Tex Avery, the first 6 titles are comedies. The last is based on the Strauss piece by the same name. This tape is so rare, I have seen it sell for hundreds of dollars. If this is Volume 1, I sure wish MGM would release them all on DVD, but folks say that is not likely, at least not the ones that may offend. Here are the individual titles on this tape in order.
Screwball Squirrel
Little Rural Riding Hood
King Size Canary
Unwelcome Guest
The Lonesome Stranger
The Captain's Christmas (katzenjammer Kids)
The Blue Danube

This was my favorite cartoon tape when I was a kid, and I lost it by the time I grew up. I can't believe I finally found it! It's wonderful! I hope to share it with my kids. The cartoons are peaceful, funny, clever -they cover every emotion and are always engaging and fun. However, looking back on it, some of them are pretty racist, so I'd be careful about which ones you show your children.