Blu-ray Review: The Famous Studios Champion Collection

 It's time for a major blu-ray review featuring something that is about time.  A blu-ray that has been something we wanted for some time now.  And that one is The Famous Studios Champion Collection.

Famous Studios was actually the old Fleischer Studios which was legendary.  As I mentioned in previous reviews, Paramount who distributed the Fleischer cartoons wanted the entire studio for many reasons from infighting with the Flesicher brothers to the success of Popeye.  So they ousted the Fleischers and continued on without them.  While it's easy to think "what if" when it comes to the loss of Max and Dave Fleischer, but based on what I see, I'm sure the studio would have still done some of the same but with features and featurettes in mind and then some.  But the reality is that they were no more and the studio becomes Famous Studios.  They would continue with Popeye, but also start a series called Noveltoons featuring various characters over the years both licensed and original and Little Lulu licensed by Marge.

Despite it no longer being Fleischer, the cartoons deserve another look.  Through the 40's, Famous still had the advantage of having a good line of artists, directors, storywriters, and actors to bring these cartoons to life.  They tried to be on par with a Disney, Warner Bros, or MGM as much as possible whenever and whereever possible.  The studio's first original character, Blackie Lamb (or Sheep...never sure) was to directly compete with Bugs Bunny.  Some of the cartoons have a Disney touch to them.  But most of them seem to have the feel that they fit in with Paramount's movies.  This included references to their movies, actors, and using the Famous Music library that they owned.  This collection highlights some of the best cartoons that they did and many of the characters they created or adapted ranging from Raggedy Ann to Baby Huey.  Their most popular creation, Casper the Friendly Ghost, is well represented with the first 3 cartoons represented on here.

Over the years Paramount sold off the majority of their cartoon creations.  Classicflix's Blu-ray was under license from Paramount themselves.  All but a handful shown here were sold to UM&N TV Corp for syndication.  Many of their original characters themselves were sold to Harvey Comics and would become Harveytoons thus erasing any history they had with Paramount (though one could still find references).  For years we saw these cartoons in particular in less than decent shape.  UM&N was immediatly sold to NTA and finished what UM&N started......removing all Paramount logos for new titles.  UM&N made beat red bland titles, NTA kept most of the original stuff but BLACKING OUT any reference to Paramount or any color process resulting in ugly looking titles.  While these changes were not made on the negatives, thank god, this is how we saw them for years and years.  NTA also became neglectful of copyrights, so many of these films ended up in the public domain, and while that spells good news for collectors back in the days of VHS, getting good copies was another story.  Both NTA and UM&N used very cheap film stock that easily got battered with splices over the years or faded, well, ANY color you can think of.  Thus, losing their luster.  Many of these "TV packages" from Paramount's cartoon library created over the years have thier story from Popeye at AAP to Harvey's package.  The UM&N package after being sold to NTA would eventually end up with Aaron Spelling who got sold to Republic Pictures and then merged with Paramount in the late 90's bringing them back home to Paramount, but with 0 care to put them out properly in any way.............

........Until now.  Classicflix once again teams up with Cartoon Logic by Thad Komorowski who already released a set of Paul Terry's Aesop's Fables.  Paramount themselves finally decided to restore some of their cartoons or at the very least license their stuff (probably with the success of acquiring other classic properties like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Garfield).  Thad made DAMN SURE that the cartoons would look as great as they could be since the oppurtunity arose.  Years prior for DVD and video, Thunderbean put out some of the Noveltoons, but they were public domain not from Paramount and at times had to be restored from 16mm (though not always, and I still HIGHLY RECOMMEND the blu-ray release).  These all came from master material.  Wherever SENs could be used they were.  If they had to resort to a print, then they did.  All of the cartoons restored with their the original titles except for Suddenly It's Spring which had a reissue Paramount Champion title card (hence the name of the collection).  In one case for the main feature one cartoon was never sold for television probably due to some print issues (we'll get to that), so chances are very high you haven't scene every cartoon before.  And the ones you have, in varying quality; here they are in pristine condition for the first time.

The bonus features are loaded.  From audio commentaries galore to two bonus cartoons.  One is Spree for All which only exists in black and white because it was a Snuffy Smith cartoon where King Features specifically contracted ten years distribution then all master material were to be destroyed....the fact someone (Jerico Devorik) found a 35mm black and white print is a miricle in itself.  The other, Cat O' Nine Ails, is missing its audio track.  Something must have happened in the late 1940's as Cyan issues with Readin, Ritin, and Rythmatic as shown on this Blu-ray on the sing a long part and missing audio in Cat O' Nine Ails forced them to not be sold to TV and haven't been seen for nearly 80 years!  At least one Popeye also suffered a Cyan fate but somehow still managed to end up in the AAP package (Warner Bros tried to restore that as best as possible on their Popeye Blu-ray release).  But that's not all.....storyboard and layout art for select shorts and dialogue audio tracks for one cartoon as well.

Paramount Cartoons should NEVER be forgotten.  With Fleischer, they gave us innovations and techniques still being used to this day, but when you include Famous, they gave us characters we all came to know and love.  To this day you know who Casper is and you remember Popeye and Betty Boop.  You just never knew Paramount could have a nice history of cartoons because of their careless history.  I know they align with Nickelodeon, but now we know and they know, it goes further than that.  Classicflix will be back again next month with Cartoon Logic for a Fleischer set which we may cover, so the future looks bright.  Here's hoping for more from them including another specific cartoon library that Paramount owns........which yes.....THAT library just started baby steps being restored.  In the meantime, The Famous Studios Champion Collection is HIGHLY recommended