by John Chidley-Hill
With Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen tearing up box offices, and GI:JOE: The Rise of Cobra rolling into theatres later this summer, there’s a sense of nostalgia in the air.
Conveniently, several production companies have released DVD sets of popular retro cartoons perfect for rainy-day marathons this summer. Warner Brothers has released two sets in late May, appropriately titled “Warner Brothers Presents Saturday Morning Cartoons”.
Both collections cater to people in their late 30s and early 40s, with the first volume featuring cartoons of the 1960s, and the other set is the first in a series of 1970s cartoons.
Obviously, they include shorts from the main stable of Warners Brothers characters like Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig and Daffy Duck. But there are some other kitschy characters featured in these boxes.
The 1960s volume includes the Flintstones and the Jetsons, Atom Ant, Space Ghost (before he went Coast to Coast) and broad southern caricature Quick Draw McGraw.
The 1970s release has an even quirkier line-up. The Batman/Tarzan Hour, Hong Kong Phooey, Goober and the Ghost Chasers, Speed Buggy and…. wait for it… Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan. I won’t go so far as to say that this was a golden age of cartoons, but as the American networks were trying to hold the attention of the baby boomers and young Gen-Xers, they produced a variety of crazy ideas, hoping that some of them would stick, and the results are fantastic.
That’s why you’ve got the adventures of Charlie Chan and his family, Lord Greystroke teaming with Batman, and a kung-fu fighting dog. It’s little wonder that Harvey Birdman and Space Ghost From Coast to Coast have so successfully mined these cartoons for their shows.
It’s wild stuff and even people too young to remember these cartoons can appreciate these idiosyncratic shows. But if that doesn’t appeal to twenty-somethings, there’s an exciting option released this spring that captures their childhood: X-Men the Animated Series.
The incredibly popular comic book franchise was a mammoth hit for FOX, and for many defined the 1990s animation scene with its complex multi-part storyline and iconic characters, particularly Wolverine and Gambit. For many, the series defined Saturday mornings in the 1990s, and was so successful that earlier this year IGN.com named it the 13th best animated series of all time.
The two box sets, also released in late May, collect the first 33 episodes of the series, including the first major storyline of season three: the Phoenix Saga.
The show is about as 90s as you can get, including with dated references to the fall of the Iron Curtain, pink and white spandex, and the coming of the year 2000. It is radical.
The X-Men Animated Series as well as the Warner Brothers collections from the 60s and 70s are all a lot of fun, and well worth investing some time and money into in case these wet summer days continue.