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Show:		6.0
Picture:		6.0
Sound:		5.0
Extras:		1.0
Score:		5.0

Director(s):	Joseph Barbera • William Hanna
Writer(s):	Various
Starring:	Daws Butler • Don Messick • Mel Blanc
Genre:	Animation • Children & Family
Release Date:	October 27, 2009

List Price:	DVD - $26.98
Amazon:

Back in May, I reviewed the first volume of this collection. At the time, I pointed out how the set is aimed at adults who want to watch the cartoons out of nostalgia, but aren’t big enough fans to pursue real collections. It’s a casual set, one that aims to recreate the feel of a Saturday morning cartoon line up. As with those genuine Saturday mornings, what you’ll get is a mixed bag of the truly creative and the truly asinine.

Much of what I said about the first volume said can still apply here. I know that sounds like I’m too lazy to come up with new criticism, but to be fair, that’s because WB didn’t bother doing anything new with the release, either. In fact, it’s 12 shows on 2 discs again, but the cartoons included are mostly the same as the first volume—just different episodes of them. It gives the two volumes a sense of continuity, but at the same time, it curbs the very thing this DVD set wanted to be in the first place, which is a sampler dish of various classic—some forgotten—Saturday morning cartoons.

Instead of sampling different and more diverse cartoons, we get more Flintstones and Jetsons. More Porky Pig, this time accompanied by a few Bugs Bunny and Road Runner cartoons. More Quick Draw McGraw (El Kabong!), Peter Potamus, Magilla Gorilla and Atom Ant. Not that more of these shows are a bad thing, but they offer no variety, and the episodes shown are by no means the best.

As with the first volume, these well-known toons are mixed in with more obscure ones, primarily adventure oriented. Here we get the first episode of The Adventures of Young Gulliver, a nonsense concept that tries to modernize Gulliver’s Travels, where a kid named Gulliver and his dog are shipwrecked on Liliput Island during a treasure hunt with Gulliver’s dad. Then there’s Young Samson, an even more nonsense concept where a teenage boy named Samson and his dog Goliath (a boy and his dog were so in, apparently) can magically turn into a the biblical Samson, who is a superhero now, and a lion. Yes, the dog turns into a lion. Look, I don’t even know...

But most bizarre, I think, is The Space Kidettes. It’s a show that doesn’t have any more to it than its punning title suggests. It’s a bunch of cuddly kids walking around in outer space, chased by a space pirate. They just walk around in space. In this episode, they meet Space Hero, a generic superhero who I guess patrols space, or whatever. In case you’re wondering, no, I do not believe they are better even if you’re high.

If there was more of a general theme or gimmick to the set, anything that would encapsulate the chosen cartoons, it might have more traction. But given that it’s random samples that are included just to promote other already-released sets, this seems like a major waste of money. As with the first volume, though, I can’t chastise it completely. After all, it’s still useful to simulate a Saturday morning cartoon experience for your toddlers better than actually tuning in to current Saturday morning cartoons. As a whole, the set is actually more entertaining than the first volume, if not just from the Looney Tunes and Tom & Jerry cartoons (which includes a favorite, “Saltwater Tabby”) alone.

DVD Bonus Features

Again, like Volume 1, the features are simple 3-minute featurettes on the making and history of a certain cartoon. Or maybe I should say, “the feature is,” since there’s only one. It sucks because I would’ve liked to hear more about the absurd obscure ones like Young Samson, particularly on why they thought that was a good idea.

What we get is a feature on Magilla Gorilla, and it’s amazing how uninformative it is. I’m sure these interviewees have more interesting things to say that were left out, but what’s included instead are talks of Magilla’s premise, which anyone would’ve gotten by watching just 15 seconds of the cartoon. A mention of how Magilla was one of the last of the talking animal cartoons from Hanna-Barbera as they began to move towards adventure toons like Johnny Quest sounds like an interesting point, but it’s never elaborated upon.