A diverse set of animated TV offerings arrives with this week’s batch of home video releases, including Todd McFarlane’s 1997 HBO series Spawn and classic episodes of Underdog and Woody Woodpecker and Friends. Both Spawn and Woody come in multiple-disc collector’s sets, while the Underdog installments are packaged as three separate volumes.
Todd McFarlane’s Spawn: Animated Collection is a four-disc set featuring all episodes of the critically acclaimed animated series about a double-crossed government assassin who is killed and sent to Hell, where he makes a deal that returns him to the surface as a caped avenging demon with supernatural powers. DVD bonus features include audio commentary, documentary featurettes, interviews with cast and crew, production sketches and storyboards. The set carries a suggested retail price of $39.98.
Each of the three volumes of The Ultimate Underdog Collection offers up six digitally remastered episodes of the 1973-1974 cartoon show about a dog with super powers who always spoke in rhyme while rushing to the rescue of Sweet Polly Purebred and foiling the fiendish plots of mad scientist Simon Bar Sinister. Listing for $12.95 each, the discs arrive just ahead of Disney’s live-action feature film, which will be released in theaters on August 3.
The Woody Woodpecker and Friends Classic Cartoon Collection is comprised of 75 theatrical shorts from Walter Lantz Prods. The three-discer from Universal Home Entertainment offers more than an hour of vintage bonus materials, including behind-the-scenes footage of Lantz and the documentary Walter, Woody and the World of Animation. It will carrie a suggested retail price of $39.98.
