Harvey Toons - The Complete Collection DVD Credits:

Region: 1

Harvey Toons - The Complete Collection DVD Release Date: 7th November 2006

Our Rating: Extras Rating:

User Rating:  Log in to rate this DVD

Harvey Toons - The Complete Collection DVD Review:

Disc one starts with Casper the Friendly Ghost, by far the most well known Harveytoons character, beginning with Boo Moon from 1953. All of the Casper cartoons show the difficulty an innocent and friendly ghost has making friends. Casper is lonely for friends, but it never prevents him from being his cheery self. Casper is a great role model for kids, because even though he is misunderstood and lonely, by the end of the episode his special abilities make him friends who are no longer scared of him.

Although Casper is certainly the best known of the cartoons, Harveytoons had a number of other great characters that reappear episode after episode. Herman and Katnip fulfill the battling animals cartoon as a cat and mouse that have prop-filled battles with each other. Herman wants to eat the mice and Katnip is the brave mouse willing to fight back. Like Tom and Jerry of The Roadrunner and Wylie Coyote, the hunted is always the one to come out on top. Since these cartoons are from a much simpler time as far as cartoons are concerned it may even surprise some viewers to see Harvey die and turn into an angel at the end of certain cartoons. It certainly isn’t Itchy and Scratchy, but still is far more violent than cartoons are permitted to be these days. Another cartoon along these lines is Inchy the Worm who battles a persistent hawk looking to make a meal out of him.

Other popular characters include Baby Huey, the mischievous and large baby duck without a lot of intelligence but a large appetite and Little Audrey, a tiny girl with a great mind for imagination. The largest thing about Audrey is her laugh, which was a trademark of Harveytoons. There are an assortment of other characters which appear from time to time in the 52 cartoon episodes included in the set. Often there are so many characters that it is difficult to keep track of them all. There are nineteen hours of cartoons on the four disc set, which should be enough for any fan of classic cartoon fun.

Making use of a popular children’s tale, The Tortoise and The Hare, another cartoon makes many situations where a turtle and a rabbit are in competition and despite the speed of the rabbit, the turtle finds a way to come out one top. Each cartoon is a reworking of the classic tale, putting the cartoon animals in modern situations, such as Turtle Scoop, which has the two of them competing animals as reporters both trying to get to a story first. There is also a parody of Edward R. Murrow’s Person to Person interviews, which are ironically released for the first time on DVD the same week as this set. Harveytoons is an obvious product of the times, which only makes it that much more valuable upon viewing now.

Our Rating: Extras Rating: User Rating:  Log in to rate this DVD

Harvey Toons - The Complete Collection DVD review written by: Ryan Izay