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Space Ghost and Dino Boy: The Complete Series
R1 - America - Warner Home Video Review written by and copyright: Pat Pilon (31st July 2007). |
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The Show
 I never knew who Alex Toth was when I watched the old 'Fantastic Four' cartoons, the 'Flash' television show, and even 'Project X' (!), and even now after watching this set I'm not too sure who he is. All I know is that he was influential in the comic book world, and he was responsible for the characters of this show. His influence reaches us today and anybody who has ever read DC comics or seen any of the show or movies based on these comics has seen his influence. It's strange, then, that he took a job at Hanna-Barbera, where, looking at the documentary in this set, his talents seem to have been unheeded. The show is like 'Scooby Doo', 'Superman' and 'Batman' all rolled up together. Also, it completely looks like Hanna-Barbera cartoon. There's nothing about it that stands out from, say, 'The Jetsons', 'Fantastic Four' or even 'The Flintstones'. (If you don't believe me, take Bronty, colour him purple, and guess who you have.) You can tell who produced the show. If I'd watched this as a youngster, I probably would have said the vignettes are too short. They don't have time to do anything, and are over almost before they start. Truth be told, I never really like vignette shows, where the story is very short. This, to me, is a problem of the show. The episodes are three segments each: a Space Ghost yarn, a Dino Boy adventure and another Space Ghost piece. I personally would have preferred if the first Space Ghost segment was a cliffhanger, which would have been finished after the Dino Boy story. This, though, is just a personal preference, and some might prefer the swift, concise and action-packed storytelling. Many of the stories are nicely done and fun. 'The Drone' in episode four is pretty nice to watch, as is 'Hi-Jackers' in episode 6, 'The Rock Pygmies' in episode 7, and a bunch of other segments. The best story is definitely the one in the, basically, 6-part serial in episodes 19 and 20. They have very nice (though predictable) cliffhangers and you can tell the writers spent more time on this one than on any other story. One thing I like is that Space Ghost can't do everything himself. With is friends, the twins, Jace and Jan, and his space-monkey-think, Blip, he does his best to save the universe from evil-doing. He does get caught a few times, and it's the twins that have to save him. Likewise, sometimes Ugh gets in trouble, as in 'The Sacrifice', and it's up to the boy to save him. Teamwork her is important and the gang even has to rely on Blip many times! The Space Ghost segments usually go like this: Jace and Jan are just randomly flying around somewhere, and see something strange. Sometimes they immediately call Space Ghost, but sometimes they get into trouble before calling him. (The Dino Boy segments are very much in the same vein.) Then, Space Ghost comes in and saves them, using his various special tools. The Inviso-power and Power Bands, for the most part, don't really seem to do much. Every time they use it, it seems like the bad guy has some sort of way to render these things useless, except, of course, when it serves the plot for them to be useful. It's kind of like 'Sailor Moon', in that he only has one basic move: shoot the bad guy. If it doesn't work, shoot again, but with more power ('Five over five'!). Though it's kind of funny to watch, it does make the show kind of repetitive. The show also loses points for logic. In 'Giant Ants', Dino Boy deftly runs up a mountain, no problem. A couple of shows later, he tiredly climbs the kind of mountain and quips about how hard it is to climb this thing. This is a kid's show, though, and maybe I'm being a bit harsh. It's filled with action and adventure, and if the vignettes are boring, they're quickly over. I probably would have liked the show more if I'd seen it as a kid. After watching the 'Superman' and (especially) 'Batman' animated shows, there's not much new about 'Space Ghost'. The names are pretty interesting, there's no denying that. I've seen 'Attack of the Saucer Crabs' twice and I'm still not sure what a saucer crab is (though I'm sure of my friends could make a dirty joke about that). That's okay, though, because retro-nuts will really enjoy the show and its companion series, 'Birdman and the Galaxy Trio'. About 25 years after the last episode, Space Ghost had a resurrection of sorts, as a talk-show host. Even superheroes can retire. That's okay, because I liked that show better, so Space Ghost is ultimately enjoyable. Because the name of the segment is basically the bad guy of the segment, I'll omit the plots because they would just be redundant. Here's a breakdown of the discs and the episode. Disc 1, Side A 1. The Heat Thing / The Worm People / Zorak (21:07) 2. The Creature King / The Treemen / The Lizard Slavers (21:08) 3. The Web / The Sacrifice / Homing Device (21:10) 4. The Drone / The Moss Men / The Sandman (21:07) Disc 1, Side B 5. The Robot Master / Marooned / The Energy Monster (21:06) 6. Hi-Jackers / Giant Ants / The Lure (21:07) 7. The Schemer / The Rock Pygmies / The Evil Collector (21:06) 8. Lokar - King of the Killer Locusts / Danger River / Brago (21:08) 9. The Cyclopeds / The Fire God / Space Sargasso (21:08) 10. The Iceman / The Vampire Men / The Time Machine (21:08) 11. The Space Birds / The Wolf People / Attack of the Saucer Crab (21:09) 12. Nightmare Planet / Valley of the Giants / Space Armada (21:11) Disc 2, Side A 13. Ruler of the Robots / The Bird Riders / The Challenge (21:07) 14. Jungle Planet / The Marksman / Revenge of the Spider Woman (21:08) 15. The Space Ark / The Terrible Chase / Glasstor (21:07) 16. The Space Piranhas / The Spear Warriors / The Sorcerer (20:35) 17. The Ovens of Moltor / The Ant Warriors / Transor - The Matter Mover (20:40) 18. The Looters / The Mighty Snow Creature / The Gargoyloids (20:37) 19. The Meeting / The Clutches of Creature King / The Deadly Trap (21:10) 20. The Molten Monsters of Moltar / Two Faces of Doom / The Final Encounter (21:08)
Video
1.33:1 full screen. Though the show is about 40 years old at the time of the DVD release, the picture looks mighty nice. The colours may seem a bit faded, but they're accurate and fairly bright. They do flicker a tiny bit, but most of the time the're very nice. The contrast is very good and even in the more loaded layers of the DVD, the transfer shows no sign of compression problems. The print also shows almost no wear and tear, with the exception of small scratches and lines in a few episodes. The transfer is a bit soft, though, and the print looks old. It's a very nice transfer and I'm sure the picture looks like what it did when the show played on tv all those years ago.
Audio
The only audio track is the original English Dolby Digital 2.0 mono track. It's more than adequate, believe me. Though the shows are mostly action and adventure, the range is pretty nice, if missing a bit in the lower end. The dialogue is very clear, and is well mixed with the score and sound effects. Hiss and pops are all gone, which, though the track does sound a little bit used at times. It's a very nice, if dated, track. English (hard of hearing) subtitles are provided.
Extras
The extras are relegated to disc 2, side B. The biggest and best extra is a terrific documentary called Simplicity: The Life and Art of Alex Toth (78:52). I honestly liked it better than the show. It tracks the life and career of Alex Toth,. It starts off by talking about how he got into comics, what he learned at Dell, then at DC. It also talks about his work for Hanna-Barbera and beyond. With interviews from various family members, comic book historians and artists, you learn about his life and his work. The first half is better than the second half, but it's very enjoyable and well worth watching, especially if you're one of his fans. It's informative and entertaining. One thing they fail to mention, though, and I thought would have been nice is that, when he passed away in December 2006, he was sitting at his drawing table. After that, you get a couple of Trailers to finish the set. 'Wait Till Your Father Gets Home' (1:23), 'Popeye the Sailor 1933-1938 Vol. 1' (1:51) and 'Classic Cartoons from the Vault' (1:22) have trailers. The last one is about 'Space Ghost', 'Birdman' and 'Droopy', and they make a mistake, saying 'Space Ghost' has 24 episodes, when it only has 20. The other trailers are good and seem to be very interesting in terms of their history.
Packaging
Warner packed this in an ultra-slim, 2-disc digipak, with both dual-sided DVDs overlapping on one side.
Overall
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