Bazooka Classic Bubble Toons: Classic Cartoons

...or How Bazooka Joe Ripped Me Off

DVD Review by Jon Cooke

Bubble trouble...

Now Genius has licensed the Bazooka bubble gum name from Topps and have put Bazooka Joe and his gang on the covers of a few new compilations of public domain cartoons. The titles, which include DVDs devoted to Betty Boop, Popeye, Felix the Cat, and The New Three Stooges, are currently available at Wal-Mart, K-Mart and at various online sources for about $6-$10 each. At some Wal-Marts they are available on the shelf right beside the cheaper Digiview "Cartoon Craze" collections which feature exactly the same material for only $1 per DVD!

Today I will be looking at the "Classic Cartoons" collection in Bazooka Joe's line of Classic Bubble Toons DVDs. There are no contents listed on the back (there are, however, pictures from Famous Studios' "Little School Mouse" and an unidentified dog who looks like he came from a Terrytoon of some sort --- neither of them appear anywhere on the actual DVD). There is also no source on the Internet that lists the contents. Of course, I gave into the temptation and bought the DVD. I figured the disc might include some sort of long-lost treasure unavailable on any other public domain DVD and, if not, I could at least warn Golden Age Cartoons readers not to waste their money. While the DVD does contain a couple titles that don't normally pop up on releases like this, I don't recommend anyone shelling out six bucks for it.

The front cover looks professional enough. Woody and Mighty are both drawn fairly decently and with the addition of the Bazooka logo I can easily seeing it fooling an unsuspecting buyer into thinking that it's an official release of some sort (either that or have them at least expecting Mighty and Woody will be making more than one appearance each on the DVD). As I said earlier, no contents are listed on the back. However, Bazooka Joe does promise a "showcase of some of the funniest American animation around!" Justifying the six dollar price tag are the bonus material: a "great interactive game", the history of Bazooka Bubble Gum, a collectible card and a stick of sugarless gum. Bazooka Joe really went all-out for this DVD as you can see. I can hardly wait!!

Woody says: "You can never have too many copies of "Pantry Panic"!"

Now let's take a look at what Bazooka Joe considers to be the funniest American animation around. Well, we soon find out he hasn't included a single appearance by Bugs Bunny, Popeye or even anything by Tex Avery. Yet he gives us two in a row by Raggedy Ann. Joe definitely has an odd idea of "Funny". Bazooka and his little dog greet us on the DVD's main menu as cartoon clips pass by behind them and annoying generic "cartoony" synthesizer music plays. The disc kicks off with the Woody Woodpecker cartoon "Pantry Panic" (a staple of public domain releases and pretty much the only Woody Woodpecker cartoon most people have access to these days). At this point, I can just hear the folks who bought the DVD realizing they've been duped and all they'll be seeing are the same old PD shorts that are on so many other releases.

Little Lulu meets somebody who just paid full price for a Bazooka Bubble Toons DVD.

Next up, Little Lulu goes golfing in Famous Studios' "Cad and Caddy". Lulu is followed by another much-used PD cartoon: Mighty Mouse's "Wolf! Wolf!". Like with Woody's situation, "Wolf! Wolf!" has become one of the only Terrytoons available to the general public. Mutt and Jeff are next in two cartoons in a row: "Westward Whoa" and "Sick Sleuths". Bazooka Joe must think kids are going to go nuts for Mutt and Jeff. Especially cheaply-redrawn-in-color Mutt and Jeff. I don't think I've ever been able to sit through either one of these cartoons and didn't attempt to try now. Let's move on... next up, we have two Baby Huey cartoons from Famous Studios in a row (whoever compiled this DVD sure loves Famous, either that or those were in the stack of cartoons that were grabbed at random and put onto this disc). First, it's Huey's very first appearance in "Quack-a-Doodle Do". This cartoon has full, original Paramount Noveltoon opening/closing titles. Huey returns again in our next cartoon, "Pest Pupil" with Harveytoons TV titles replacing the original.

A sample of the "funniest American animation around".

We then get two of theatrical Raggedy Ann cartoons from Paramount back-to-back: "The Enchanted Square" and "Suddenly, It's Spring". The source of "The Enchanted Square" is obviously a poor old VHS copy, the distortion is very noticeable throughout the cartoon. A Porky Pig classic is presented in its poorly redrawn-in-color-1960s form for the next cartoon: "Porky's Cafe". Now you can enjoy seeing Porky who, thanks to the wonderful folks in Korea, is wearing his trademark hot pink jacket and yellow gloves.

Next up are two shorts that don't normally show up on public domain collections as often as the other cartoons we've seen so far. This was actually the first time I'd seen the WB Beaky Buzzard short "The Lion's Busy" on a PD collection. The picture quality on this cartoon is the best on the disc. Walt Disney's "Susie the Little Blue Coupe" is next. For some reason, this short didn't make it into the Disney Rarities DVD set in this year's wave of Walt Disney Treasures. This overly bright, splicy print is probably close to the same quality that Walt Disney Home Video would have used on their latest wave of Treasures.

Finally, we get two more from Famous Studios (what a surprise!): "Teacher's Pest" with Junior the Owl and Wolfie and a rather poor print of "Ups 'n Downs Derby" with Lightning.

Poor Susie. Didn't make it onto Disney Treasures, but made it onto THIS DVD.

Not surprising is that the "special features" turn out to be completely worthless. The history of Bazooka Bubble Gum is a text-only history of the gum and there's an "interactive" Can You Spot the Differences?-type game. In the end, I came away feeling that this was not worth anywhere what I paid for it, but didn't feel ripped-off (since, hey, I got a decent looking DVD copy of "The Lion's Busy" out of the deal). I didn't feel ripped-off, that is, until one week later until I came across a DVD collection at the Dollar Tree store featuring the EXACT SAME CONTENTS as this DVD! On top of that, it was released by Genius Entertainment (minus the Bazooka label and packaging)! I had pretty much paid the extra money for a stick of sugarless gum.

I hope this review will be able to keep some unsuspecting classic cartoon fans from spending their hard earned money on one of Bazooka Joe's rip-off DVDs.