Part 1: The First 150 Cartoons

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The first thing I recalled while trying to grasp the very existence of this ultimate Public Domain (and then some!) cartoon package was an old favorite book, published in 1968 - Seven Glorious Days, Seven Fun-Filled Nights: One Man's Struggle to Survive a Week Watching Commercial Television in America, by Charles Sopkin (Simon & Schuster). Long story short, Mr. Sopkin plunked himself down in a New York City easy chair surrounded by six TV sets (one for each commercial VHF channel in NYC at the time), and proceeded to fulfill the mission declared in his book's very title.

From all accounts, he not only survived but thrived on the challenge. But, I've always firmly believed that at the instant he turned off the last of those six sets at week's end, Mr. Sopkin's eyes must have been playing a spirited game of ping-pong in their sockets.

Which brings me back to the Giant 600 Cartoon Collection from Mill Creek, at 12 jam-packed DVDs, every bit as daunting a viewing adventure as that late 1960s exercise...and one I'm sure nearly all of us in the GAC community would approach v-e-r-y gingerly.

Yes, I said nearly all of us. Read on if you dare.

Disc 1: Popeye and Betty Boop (52 cartoons)

Wisely, the Mill Creek crew chose to begin this trek with a mellow moment to put on your most comfortable old shirt and jeans, and fetch the soft cushion. Yes, these 30 assorted Fleischer and Famous Studios Popeye shorts are among the usual suspects found on many, many other PD sets, and about evenly divided here between A.A.P. prints in various stages of wear and the later uncut Paramount versions. For instance, if you're partial to "cheater" entries that make PD ever so deliciously sneaky, here are "Customers Wanted," "Popeye's 20th Anniversary," "Assault and Flattery," and "The Crystal Brawl" - plus "Big Bad Sindbad," which cheats the cheaters since, of course, it draws entirely upon an already PD Fleischer entry. But just for the sake of some distinctiveness, "Me Musical Nephews" appears here in its A.A.P. form, yet with much better sound than the "re-created" version in the 2004 VCI set! (There had to be a trade-off for the standard truncated ending, after all.)

Meanwhile, in Betty Boop's corner of Disc 1, we similarly find a solidly packed 22-title NTA/U.M.&M Corp. TV print festival, with most well-traveled shorts in good to excellent condition and no redrawns allowed (hooray!). For at least a few deviations from the "been there, watched that" school, also included here are the somewhat-less-often-compiled "Hot Air Salesman" featuring Wiffle Piffle, "Making Friends" (Pudgy), "On With the New," and "So Does an Automobile."

Disc 2: Tom & Jerry, Audrey, Lulu, Felix, and a Host of Others (45 cartoons)

And, you might say the voice of Mae Questel is the bridge to Disc 2, which includes the first of two handfuls of early appearances by Little Audrey, U.M.&M. style. If only her sharing the same neighborhood with Little Lulu didn't remind us that Audrey will forever be just a poseur...but here's Lulu in "Cad and Caddy" and, better yet, the truly classic "Bargain Counter Attack" to do just that. (It's a sentimental thing with this writer, too, having first seen "BCA" on New York City TV back in 1964.) Here's where fans of the Van Beuren studio can get started, too, with five Tom & Jerry (here, occasionally a.k.a. "Dick and Larry") entries, all three color Toonerville Trolley misadventures, and one color Felix short ("The Goose that Laid the Golden Egg"). Plus a smidgen more for B&W Felix fans: "April Maze" (Copley Pictures style).

Also on hand here: Three selections each of Casper (such as "Boo Moon" with a surgically attached Harveytoons intro) and Herman; four Gabby titles; seven fairy-tale-inspired Mr. Piper entries (caution: the live-action host in these could possibly make younger children feel uneasy at best, but some of you already knew that); and 14 New Three Stooges episodes ("The Noisy Silent Movie" among them).

Disc 3: Various Characters (53 cartoons)

Memo to Mill Creek re Disc 3: "More" does not always equal "better."

Let's get the downside out of the way first: Four Fleischer Color Classics in "NTA red" with severely flawed sound, one Mel-o-Toon, four Hoffnungs, a very poor video transfer of "Boy Meets Dog," and eight completely unidentifiable shorts (here, anyway - kindly PM or e-mail me if you'd like to help fill in the blanks).

Meanwhile, on the bubble, we have a finely crafted but seriously-out-of-place, French sci-fi-flavored entry, "Les Escargots" (1965; produced by S.O.F.A.C.), as well as the 10,499,364th appearance on PD DVD of "Wolf! Wolf!" (Mighty Mouse) and "The Talking Magpies" (Terrytoons though they remain, which is forever their saving grace).

Now, on to the bountiful upside: Much of Disc 3 is given over to a potpourri of Famous Studios Screen Songs and Noveltoons, Van Beuren Rainbow Parade entries ("The Sunshine Makers" among them), and more Fleischer Color Classics, all in fair to good viewing shape. Van Beuren's B&W output is also represented here by "Along Came a Duck" (Toddle Tales) and what appears to be a home-use-only print of "Sultan Pepper" (The Little King). And finally, two B&W anomalies are tossed in for good (?) measure: "Toby the Pup: In the Museum" (yep, everyone's favorite doctored fragment of Mintz) plus a monochrome copy of "Mendelssohn's Spring Song" (1931; Sy Young; originally Brewster Color).

Having mentioned that last pair of shorts, I can sense at least two GACers of some renown suddenly reaching for their phones...

To Be Continued... in Part 2: The Next 149 Cartoons

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