Film producer Amadee J. Van Beuren partnered with legendary animator Paul Terry in 1920 to create their Aesop's Fables cartoons. In 1929, Terry quit to go on his own, and the Van Beuren Studio was born. The nineteen rare cartoons in this collection were produced between 1928 and 1933. In 1929 John Foster headed animation and with bandleader Gene Rodemich handling sound recording and synchronization, the studio churned out scores of classic Aesop's Fables cartoons until 1936, when they could no longer compete with industry giant, Disney, for distribution."Skating Hounds" (1928): Directed by Paul Terry & Mannie Davis"House Cleaning Time" (1929): Directed by Paul Terry"Laundry Blues" (1930): Directed by John Foster & Mannie Davis"Circus Capers" (1930): Directed by John Foster & Harry Bailey"Midnight" (1930): Directed by John Foster & Mannie Davis"The King Of Bugs" (1930): Directed by John Foster & Harry Bailey"The Animal Fair" (1931): Directed by John Foster & Mannie Davis"Radio Racket" (1931): Directed by John Foster & Mannie Davis"College Capers" (1931): Directed by John Foster & Harry Bailey"The Fly Guy" (1931): Directed by John Foster & Harry Bailey"Love in a Pond" (1931): Directed by John Foster & Mannie Davis"Spring Antics" (1932): Directed by John Foster & Mannie Davis"A.M. To P.M." (1933): Directed by Harry Bailey"Tumbledown Town" (1933): Directed by John Foster & Harry Bailey"Love's Labor Won" (1933): Directed by John Foster & Mannie Davis"A Dizzy Day" (1933): Directed by Harry Bailey"The Last Mail" (1933): Directed by Mannie Davis"Runaway Blackie" (1933): Directed by Harry Bailey"Fiddlin' Fun" (1934): Directed by George Stallings; Animation by Steve Muffati
E**N
Five Stars
EXELLENT
R**N
No-frills reference copies, iffy replication
This set provides poor-to-fair reference copies of some older, lesser-known cartoons from the Van Beuren studio. There's no pretense of restoration—many are blurry, jittery, and scratchy, and nearly all are mercilessly cropped—but these transfers are still better than the majority of what you'll find floating around the Internet. For $11, I can't complain too much.A few notes:* These discs are made on-demand. That means they're DVD-R. If you have a finicky DVD player, you might want to reconsider purchasing this set.* The cartoons are indeed black and white, despite the deceptive packaging. Color cartoons didn't really become common until the mid-1930s, when Disney's exclusivity deal with Technicolor lapsed.* The second disc has a production fault that causes one cartoon ("Love in a Pond") not to play. I don't know how Alpha Video images their discs, so I'm not sure if this was a replication issue (i.e. an issue with my copy only) or an issue with the master disc image itself (i.e. an issue with all copies). At any rate, buyer beware.
J**S
Four Stars
Glad I added this to my collection.
N**E
Not in color
They went to great lengths to make the box all in color. The cartoons are all in black and white, I did not look closely at the description but this is deceptive advertising on the part of the manufacturer
T**Y
GIft
Gift
L**M
Disappointed
Although I received this product on time and in good condition, I was very disappointed to find that every single cartoon was in black and white, unlike the front of the DVD jacket that shows all the cartoons in color, which is what I thought it contained. I wished I knew that before I bought it, as I would not have.
Trustpilot
2 months ago
2 months ago
