Technicolor Dreams and Black and White Nightmares Blu-ray

This is edited from my review on my Wizard of Oz-centric blog... The set has two discs: the featured cartoons (including Oz) are both on Blu-Ray and DVD, as well as some bonus features. (I haven't looked these over thoroughly, but there don't appear to be any Oz-specific features.) The DVD also includes additional cartoons in good to rather rough shape. The title is very well earned. All of these cartoons date from 1917 to 1947, a very different time in cartoon animation. Without strict regulations, animators let their imaginations go wild, and in such an experimental time, you can see many styles develop. Thus, you have beautiful cartoons such as "Mendelssohn's Spring Song," to some with disturbing undertones, such as "The Magic Mummy." Some of the DVD-exclusive cartoons get quite disturbing, such as a Mutt and Jeff cartoon featuring a long line of stray cats and dogs being caught and fed to a sausage grinder. Oz is not the only (Ted) Eshbaugh short on the set. Two other cartoons by him—"The Snowman" and "Tea Pot Town"—appear. "The Snowman" I had seen before in black and white, but here it appears, restored in two-strip Technicolor. (In fact, when Sam and I discussed Oz on the podcast, I mentioned the cartoon as another example of Eshbaugh's work.) Both are a little disturbing: a happy Eskimo boy and his friends build a snowman, only for it to come to life and terrorize them. Tea pots go out into the world to battle the "Droops," which are little gloomy men who are vaporized by the tea pots' steam. The presentation on all the cartoons is excellent. Using Blu-Ray's resolution of 1080p, the entire frame of each cartoon is presented so every detail can be seen and appreciated. Each cartoon looks sharp, and you feel sure that any color inaccuracies you see are due to the source, not the transfer. In addition, the sound is very clearly restored as well. Dorothy's cries for Toto sounded so out of place on Warner's presentation, but now they sound much better. The music is very clear as well. You might even find yourself singing, "Hail to the Wizard of Oz! To the Wizard of Oz! He'll lead the way!" And don't worry. The DVD offers you the same thing, just with a smaller picture size. The Blu-Ray will show you the original photography's texture, giving you a real feel of how these were originally presented. There is one of the Disney Alice Comedies, featuring a live action Alice in an animated environment. She doesn't feature heavily in this one, but her feline friend has to deal with a rat infestation! And a longtime favorite of mine, "Raggedy Ann in the Enchanted Square," is the final cartoon on the set. A sweet little cartoon, a policeman gives a thrown away Raggedy Ann doll to a blind girl named Billie, which inspires her to see her neighborhood with her heart and use her imagination to turn it from a city block into a metropolitan fairyland. I shamelessly sang along with the song "You Can See With Your Heart" as I watched. The 1933 Wizard of Oz cartoon ... has three ... distinctions: it is the first animated adaption of Oz, the earliest existing color Oz film, and the first complete existing Oz film with sound. And ... it had a motif that later appeared in the MGM film. ... (It) looks even better than ever on this Blu-Ray/DVD set. (I gave a lengthy plot description in my blog, but I'll cut it short: Dorothy and Toto are whipped to a Technicolor Land of Oz from a monochrome Kansas, where they meet the Scarecrow and Tin Woodman, who join them to the Emerald City, where they are greeted with a parade before seeing the Wizard work some magic!) So, should you put down the $18 + shipping for this set? I already have, but the fact is clear that the Oz cartoon is one of many featured cartoons on this set, so Oz fans who aren't too interested might be giving this a pass. Diehard Oz fans will snatch it up just for the Oz content alone, while Oz fans who also enjoy classic animation will find the set a treat. List of featured cartoons... Dolly Doings (1917) The Wrong Track (1920) Alice Rattled by Rats! (1925) Playing With Fire (1925) Goldilocks and the Three Bears (1928) Mendelssohn's Spring Song (1931) The Bandmaster (1931) The Snowman (1931) A Swiss Trick (1931) The Wizard of Oz (1933) The Magic Mummy (1933) Tea Pot Town (1935) To Spring (1936) The Enchanted Square (1947) Bonus cartoons The Hasher's Delirium (1910) The Great Cheese Robbery (1920) Dog Gone (1926) The Wild Goose Chase (1932) Simple Simon (1935) Bonus features Tea Pot Town Booklet Bosko the Talk-Ink Kid (pitch film) Posters and photos gallery (a few Eshbaugh-specific ones now that I've looked further, but not Oz-specific) Coke Theatrical Ads & Commercials

BUY THIS! If you have ANY interest in animation whatsoever and you have a big screen tv with a blu ray player, YOU NEED THIS! I made the big mistake of thinking that ALL of the dvds and Blu Rays out there are just going to be the same ole blurry/mushy public domain stock like all the others. Well, PLEASE do not make that mistake. There is this wonderful man named Steve Stanchfield that owns this company and has been restoring the best animation besides WB Golden Collection. We are talking out of his OWN POCKET! Yes, he has been collecting and trading and searching the world over for prints, negs, 16, 35 and everything else in order to scan these Van Beruen, Fleischer, Bray, you name it, in HD! Then he removes damage, color corrects, grades, fixes sound issues, and puts cartoons that are WAY MORE important than whats seen on adult swim theses days into High Definition! Let me tell you something, when you turn off the lights, sit back, and To Spring BLASTS OFF THE SCREEN it will make you cry. Yes, the work Steve has put into this and other releases is truly an outstanding achievement in archival restoration. The Snowman is incredible in HD. You still get that beautiful film grain, NO Digital Noise Removal here to ruin the color definition! Get this, NOW! If saving the great animation of the early 1900s is important to you and your friends, please help Steve do this by purchasing his wonderful products.

I like this Thunderbean Blu Ray in particular because it has an assorted selection rather than focusing on a single studio or character. This collection has a good dose of black and white cartoons and color cartoons. The color cartoons in particular look amazing. I’ve always been particularly impressed by Thunderbean’s restorations of color cartoons as they tend to look really bad unrestored. I also love how this Blu Ray has scarcely known cartoons that I didn’t know about until buying this Blu Ray. The Snowman, The Wizard of Oz, Mendelssohn’s Spring Song, and Teapot Town are worth owning and seeing in their original glory and would have probably never received this type of treatment from other studios/companies.

Great product, great speedy shipping!

It's not outside the realm of possibility that I've finally gone nuts, but I swear the soundtrack on the first b & w short, involving animated dolls, sounded like it had been mastered by a dog high on nitrous oxide. First there was an annoying whistle or similar steady tone that could be heard over the music. After many minutes of this even the music, which had been fine, started skipping and repeating like a broken 78 you're trying to play on Grandpa's victrola in the garage. Then the music seemed to stop, and...well, you get the idea. Is there intelligent life out there that has experienced this?

The cartoons on this disc look simply amazing! It's worth the price for the classic cartoon To Spring in its amazing Technicolor glory. It would look fantastic on a large screen television. Thunderbean did an amazing job restoring these classics; I've been used to seeing older cartoons in poor shape, thanks to public domain DVDs. That's certainly not the case here. The Wizard of Oz from 1933 is a revelation compared to how it appears on The Wizard of Oz film DVDs. From showcasing early examples of animation to the stellar closing cartoon featuring Raggedy Ann, this is a fantastic collection for those who want to dig a little deeper into animation history than just Disney and Warner Brothers. The quality of the transfers truly make this an outstanding release, and here's hoping for more!