Viddy-Oh! For Kids Cartoon Festivals

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The earliest series to release shorts from the pre-1948 AAP package, it demonstrated a bit of early remastering efforts that later became an example of what not to do.

Background

When Associated Artists Productions went bankrupt around December of 1957, United Artists would eventually purchase the company and absorb the Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies they had in their catalog. By 1981, MGM would end up also purchasing United Artists, becoming MGM/UA, who would bear the AAP package until Time Warner purchased Turner Entertainment in 1996.

United Artists had a bit of history of bundling Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies shorts with their collection of Popeye and live-action Warner shorts during television air throughout the 1960s. More specifically, they were targeted to children in mind, partly beginning the transition of the series catering the theatrical shorts from the general audience who leaned towards adults towards family-friendly audiences and children. Home media releases from AAP/UA were no exception; by the advent of VHS well into the 1980s, MGM/UA began to dip their feet for the first time in officially releasing shorts on VHS for the AAP library.

MGM/UA Home Video would start in 1986, intended to usurp AAP's original 8mm releases that were primarily black-and-white and silent. Announced in November 1985, the Viddy-Oh! line represented family releases from the studio that served as a catch-all for anything MGM/UA had access to, ranging from the AAP shorts to their MGM movies like The Wizard of Oz and cartoons such as Tex Avery's work at the MGM studio and the Pink Panther (who retained ownership for the latter even after Marvel bought out the DFE studio). Most of the releases retailed at $14.95 to $19.95 USD.

The VHSes aimed to be presented as a single program over the original theatrical presentation, with many keeping their AAP titles at the start. Afterward, a Blue Ribbon title card would play that would eventually fade out and cut to the first cartoon's opening titles. No opening color rings were preserved, thus being one of the earliest instances of intentionally tampering with a short from its original presentation for home media. Such a practice was quickly scrapped for later series due to poor reception of this type of presentation. As for the cartoons themselves, they were primarily taken from the best Eastmancolor 16mm/35mm material that was made available, as MGM/UA had no rights to use the original negatives. They were eventually transferred to videotape for this VHS series. These videotape prints would be used for years to come (including Cartoon Network and Boomerang broadcasts even as of today) until the 1995 dubbed versions were completed.

In terms of marketing for children, it can be pointed out by even the restoration team (particularly George Feltenstein) during the days of DVD/Blu-ray that such a practice did not fit very well, as it heavily limited the amount of shorts that could be selected. The AAP library amounted to 337 cartoons, but many didn't feature the more familiar characters in the post-1948 package. A small portion of Bugs Bunny shorts were available, alongside only a pinch of other major stars such as Tweety or Elmer Fudd, and even then, a good portion of shorts had outdated racial stereotyping that would be deemed offensive. MGM/UA barely took any regard toward the latter issue, as a handful of Inki shorts were released in the series, which were banned on television as Inki was portrayed as a stereotypical pygmy African in appearance. In the end, it was clear that only covering a small library amounting to less than 100 shorts was not going to do any favors in the long term, leading to the series being largely succeeded by the Cartoon Moviestars series that favored better prints and a collector's perspective to release more cartoons rarely seen.

Due to the Golden Age of Looney Tunes containing all the shorts featured in the AAP library, it is a lot more recommended to obtain the aforementioned LaserDisc series over any of these VHS releases.

The LOONEY TUNES Restoration Guide

LT Restoration Guide

Viddy-Oh! For Kids Cartoon Festivals

Background

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