Time-Warner finally gives the Cartoon Network’s first major hit the proper DVD treatment! Yes, I know this came out last Summer but I only watched it all the way through recently and 2008 is the 10th anniversary of the show’s debut; the two shorts in the Mid-Nineties don’t count because it wasn’t an ongoing series. On the two-disc set (painted to look like Blossom’s eyes) are all 13 episodes, the two shorts I mentioned earlier, all the promos CN did at the time and a good trove of extras (more on these later). I guess Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends hasn’t been around long enough for Craig McCracken’s other creation to accumulate such stuff. It was great to see this show again after CN ended it a few years back and then stopped showing it ad nauseum which they and Nickelodeon do. I had forgotten how funny the girls’ recurring enemies were, other than the redundant, can’t-be-succinct, verbose, prone-to-digressing, Mojo Jojo. Who else? The Gangrene Gang, Sedusa, the Amoeba Boys, Fuzzy Lumpkins and the creepy…Him, a cross between the Devil and Dr. Frankenfurter. One-shot foes were in the first season: the Roach King, some manipulative telepathic cat (Mark Hamill), the Boogie Man (my personal favorite) and their male counterparts, the Rowdy Rough Boys. The show’s humor and pop-culture references range from the obvious: the Star Wars Death Star sequences; to the obscure: mostly from Japanese monster movies/shows. It was also the most action-packed, ultra-violent superhero cartoon on the air in its day. This was something I didn’t realize until I read an Onion interview of McCracken. In it he commented on how the current Batman cartoon was mainly just talking. When I watched and compared the two shows, he was right. Batman usually jawed his foes into submission like the old, lame Superfriends while three little girls beat the snot out of their foes. So maybe it’s best not to share this program with children who demonstrate imitative tendencies.
When it comes to extras, a real make-or-break factor, this one was given more thought. The original student films McCracken made are here, Whoopass Stew or what most people refer to as the Whoopass Girls. These originally made the rounds through the annual Mike & Spike festivals (I’ve never been to one) and then the Internet. I didn’t pay attention to the credits until now though; a classmate named Lou Romano helped (he’s the voice of Linguini from Ratatouille and other Pixar movies). The best extra is the special contest episode of Space Ghost: Coast to Coast with McCracken being interviewed by the fictional host along with four other directors pitching their shows. Afterwards, you can watch how the writers recorded his original responses before fleshing out SG’s lines around them, it was hilarious, especially his last reply.
This is a highly recommended set. It’s not quite on par with The Simpsons which is the standard of a good DVD seasonal package. It’s pretty close. Besides, there’s a whole new bunch of kids such as my nieces and nephews who are under 10. Now I’m wondering when there will be a second season set which better include the Legion of Doom rescue mission gag; and the new, made-for-TV movie as Tara Strong (the voice of Bubbles) stated earlier this year.