Oscar-worthy classic toons make their way to DVD today as Warner Bros. Home Entertainment presents Academy Award Animation Collection 15 Winners’26 Nominees. Featuring shorts available on DVD for the first time, the three-disc set arrives at stores along with an animated Batman double feature, a collection of Beatrix Potter cartoons, a pair of Scooby-Doo movies the original George of the Jungle series.
The Oscar-winning Warner Bros. shorts include The Milky Way, Yankee Doodle Mouse, Mouse Trouble, Quiet Please, The Cat Concerto, Tweetie Pie, The Little Orphan, For Scent-Imental Reasons, So Much for So Little, Two Mouseketeers, Johann Mouse, Speedy Gonzales, /I>Birds Anonymous, Knighty-Knight Bugs and The Dot and the Line. This is the first time Warner Bros. is featuring cartoon characters from the Merrie Melodies, Hanna-Barbera, MGM, Max Fleischer and Warner Bros. catalogs in one release.
A special feature titled Drawn for Glory: Animation’s Triumph At the Oscars focuses on the history of the Academy’s animated short subject category. The three-disc set retails for $44.98, and a single disc including only the 15 winners is available for the suggested retial price of $19.98. The discs are being released in conjunction with the 85th anniversary or Warner Bros. and the 80th Academy Awards ceremony.
Also from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment comes a caped crusader double feature with Batman & Mr. Freeze: Subzero and the much-loved Batman: Mask of the Phantasm together on one DVD. In the first film, first released in 1998, Mr. Freeze kidnaps Batgirl and it’s up to the Dark Knight and loyal sidekick Robin to save the day. Released theatrically in 1993, Mask of the Phantasm finds the haunted superhero accused of murder and out to clear his name as The Joker hatches new horrors. The disc lists for $14.98.
Warner keeps the animation flowing with The Beatrix Potter Collection, a set of nine animated adventures based on the author’s popular children’s books ($29.98), and a Scooby double feature offering the full-length movies Scooby-Doo and the Alien Invaders and Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island ($14.97).
Following the recent debut of the all-new George of the Jungle series on Cartoon Network, Classic Media and Genius Products today released George of the Jungle: The Complete Original Series. The two-disc set offers all 17 episodes produced by Jay Ward Prods. between 1967 and 1968. The set retails for $19.98 and includes the never-before-seen pilot episodes of both George of the Jungle and companion toon Super Chicken.
