Just a quick note before the weekend to say that we’ve been beavering away on our Comic-Con reports and should have them all up over the weekend, so keep checking back.
The big news this week to squeeze through the animated grapevine is that the long-delayed US release of The Man Called Flintstone, Hanna-Barbera’s 1966 feature outing for our favorite modern stone-age family, is finally set for December 2! The movie was released to DVD previously, but rights issues meant it could only be sold in Canada, from where most toonheads have already picked up a copy. So for them, and perhaps even better, the word also comes that Hanna-Barbera’s first feature, Hey There, It’s Yogi Bear! from 1964, is also set for release on the same day! First put out to capture the attention given to their first major television star, the Yogi Bear movie is actually a lot of fun. Ironically enough, I just dug out my old VHS copy from the attic for a nostalgic view, but maybe I’ll wait for the disc to show up. All this comes as Warner Home Video have started to exhaust their Hanna-Barbera catalog and are looking at some choice re-issues: if you haven’t seen that Flintstones: Complete Series set yet, you’d better hop on over to Amazon (remember that purchasing titles though our links supports this site!) – it’s going for a steal at the pre-order price, with apparently four and a half hours of new bonus features packed in.
The Flintstone and Yogi movies will go for $19.98 a pop, and thanks to our friends at TV Shows On DVD for highlighting the news. I can only hope that other hard to find Hanna-Barbera gems such as the Gene Kelly Jack And The Beanstalk and the ambitious feature Heidi’s Song are not too far behind!
We’re back Monday – stay tooned! – Ben.