complete series

Well, I suppose that heading could have been a little more specific, since our ol' pal Flash has been seen in several live-action and animated incarnations since he first debuted on the comic pages in the 1930s. In this case, I'm talking about the animated series from Filmation that aired from 1979 to 1981, which IMDb has listed as The New Animated Adventures of Flash Gordon. I was quite young, so I don't remember this particular cartoon, but apparently it ran for a total of twenty-four episodes, all of which will be included on Flash Gordon - The Complete Series. You know, cause otherwise it would be called Flash Gordon - The Incomplete Series, and nobody would want to buy that. Tom Ruegger, a writer for the series, would later go on to write and produce for Steven Spielberg's Tiny Toons, Animaniacs, and Freakazoid. The DVD set will include a documentary and some audio commentaries. It comes out July 18.

There are two cartoons I remember very fondly and distinctly from my days as a youngster. Both of them ceased production before I was born, but I gobbled them up in reruns. The first was Underdog, and the second was Hong Kong Phooey. So, naturally, I was ecstatic when I found out that all thirty-one episodes of Hong Kong Phooey, a Hanna-Barbera cartoon which featured Scatman Crothers as the voice of an inept crime-fighting dog who knows kung fu, would be coming out on DVD on August 15. Of course, when Phooey wasn't fighting crime he worked as mild-mannered (all super hero alter egos are mild-mannered) janitor Penrod "Penry" Pooch.  The DVD set will also feature a documentary on the making of the series.

Oh yeah, and the complete series of Magilla Gorilla comes out on the same day, but I never watched that.

[via ToonZone]

I consider myself a huge fan of Jim Henson and all of his work, from The Muppets to The Dark Crystal and beyond (but not so much Labyrinth, it was good but not great). However, I could never seem to get into his series The Storyteller, which aired in the late 1980s. The series, about an elderly man who would recite old folktales, was just too slow and monotonous for my young tastes. Perhaps if I watched it now as a learned and mature adult I'd appreciate it more. Anyway, the series is coming out on DVD.

"But wait," you say, "isn't it already out on DVD?"

Yes, actually, it is, but now both DVD sets have been combined into a 2-disc set titled Jim Henson's The Storyteller: The Definitive Collection. So you can either rejoice that the complete series is available as one set, or complain that they didn't just do this in the first place. Either way I'd say you're right on. The set comes out May 23.

[via Muppet News Flash]