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Loopy De Loop: The Animated Series
Warner Archive // Unrated // September 23, 2014
List Price: $29.99 [Buy now and save at Warnerarchive]
The Show:
Warner Archives has dug deep into their vaults and found a nearly forgotten theatrically released cartoon: Loopy De Loop. This was the only series that Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera released after they left MGM (where they worked on Tom and Jerry). It lasted from late 1959 until 1965 (roughly the same time that Hanna/Barbera's The Flintstones were airing on prime-time TV) and there were a total of 48 shorts in the series. If you're dismayed that you aren't familiar with the series, don't be. You're not the only one who has trouble recalling the series. In both Bill Hanna's autobiography (A Cast of Friends) and Joe Barbera's (My Life in Toons) it is mentioned exactly once: in the middle of a list of cartoons that had characters with accents. If even the creators skipped over Loopy De Loop, it's not too surprising that the rest of the world did too.
The series revolves around a French-Canadian Wolf (with a heavy French accent), Loopy De Loop, who is on a mission: he wants to improve the reputation of wolves. He's a 'good wolf' who travels from town to town doing good deeds and trying to help people. Things always seem to backfire however... often the very people he is trying to help attack him just because he's a wolf.
Most of the shorts involve fairy tales where Loopy assists (or at least tries to assist) a well-known character: Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White, Cinderella, or Three Little Pigs, to name a few. The rest involve pretty standard carton plots: Loopy helps a very tired stork by delivering a baby gorilla to his mother, the wolf helps hide a turkey from a farmer right before Thanksgiving, and he encounters a scientist who changes into a monster (and back again) at random. There are also several cartoons where Loopy catches someone in the act of stealing an animal, and tries to return it only to be mistaken for the thief.
It turns out there's a pretty good reason why even Hanna and Barbera forgot about the Loopy De Loop cartoons: the series it entirely forgettable. It's not that it's bad; it's just that it doesn't bring anything new or memorable to the table. The cartoons feel like a check list a standard cartoon gags at times: Loopy gets beat up by someone much smaller than he is - check! Loopy gets blamed for someone else's misdeed - check!
That would all be forgivable if the jokes and gags were funny, but they aren't. They run from painful to mildly amusing. For example, in one cartoon Loopy knocks on a door and a woman (who doesn't seem at all bothered that a wolf is on her doorstep even though everyone freaks out when they see him) yells to her husband "There's a wolf at the door." After muttering about how much the wife spends, the man yells "Beat it stupid!" Loopy walks off and says to the camera "He must think I'm somebody else. My name is Loopy, not Stupid." That's about par for the course.
The DVD:
All 48 Loopy De Loop theatrical shorts (running about 7 minutes each) arrive on two DVD-Rs that are housed in a single-width keepcase.
Audio:
The original mono soundtrack is fine. Nothing outstanding, but there aren't any flaws that distract either.
Video:
The shorts are presented with a full frame, 1.37:1 aspect ratio. Since these were intended for theatrical release in the 60's, it is possible that these were matted to 1.85:1 for the original exhibition. I'm not convinced that this was done as the title screens don't look like they were composed for a wider image (especially the "Columbia Pictures Corporation Presents" card which is included at the beginning of each short). In any case, I would be surprised if Hanna and Barbera weren't thinking of an eventual television release (which eventually happened) and the full frame image would be suited to that.
The picture hasn't been restored, but it doesn't look bad. There is some grain and an occasional fleck, and the image is a tad on the soft side, but the presentation is overall pretty good.
Extras:
Unfortunately, there are none.
Final Thoughts:
While this isn't a bad cartoon, there's not much that's great about it either. Made on the cheap when theatrical cartoons were being phased out, there are a couple of gags that made me smile, but I couldn't remember them after the short ended. An obscure series, but still of historic interest because of when it was made and the creative team behind it, this would make a good rental.
Warner Archives has dug deep into their vaults and found a nearly forgotten theatrically released cartoon: Loopy De Loop. This was the only series that Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera released after they left MGM (where they worked on Tom and Jerry). It lasted from late 1959 until 1965 (roughly the same time that Hanna/Barbera's The Flintstones were airing on prime-time TV) and there were a total of 48 shorts in the series. If you're dismayed that you aren't familiar with the series, don't be. You're not the only one who has trouble recalling the series. In both Bill Hanna's autobiography (A Cast of Friends) and Joe Barbera's (My Life in Toons) it is mentioned exactly once: in the middle of a list of cartoons that had characters with accents. If even the creators skipped over Loopy De Loop, it's not too surprising that the rest of the world did too.
The series revolves around a French-Canadian Wolf (with a heavy French accent), Loopy De Loop, who is on a mission: he wants to improve the reputation of wolves. He's a 'good wolf' who travels from town to town doing good deeds and trying to help people. Things always seem to backfire however... often the very people he is trying to help attack him just because he's a wolf.
Most of the shorts involve fairy tales where Loopy assists (or at least tries to assist) a well-known character: Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White, Cinderella, or Three Little Pigs, to name a few. The rest involve pretty standard carton plots: Loopy helps a very tired stork by delivering a baby gorilla to his mother, the wolf helps hide a turkey from a farmer right before Thanksgiving, and he encounters a scientist who changes into a monster (and back again) at random. There are also several cartoons where Loopy catches someone in the act of stealing an animal, and tries to return it only to be mistaken for the thief.
That would all be forgivable if the jokes and gags were funny, but they aren't. They run from painful to mildly amusing. For example, in one cartoon Loopy knocks on a door and a woman (who doesn't seem at all bothered that a wolf is on her doorstep even though everyone freaks out when they see him) yells to her husband "There's a wolf at the door." After muttering about how much the wife spends, the man yells "Beat it stupid!" Loopy walks off and says to the camera "He must think I'm somebody else. My name is Loopy, not Stupid." That's about par for the course.
The DVD:
All 48 Loopy De Loop theatrical shorts (running about 7 minutes each) arrive on two DVD-Rs that are housed in a single-width keepcase.
Audio:
The original mono soundtrack is fine. Nothing outstanding, but there aren't any flaws that distract either.
Video:
The shorts are presented with a full frame, 1.37:1 aspect ratio. Since these were intended for theatrical release in the 60's, it is possible that these were matted to 1.85:1 for the original exhibition. I'm not convinced that this was done as the title screens don't look like they were composed for a wider image (especially the "Columbia Pictures Corporation Presents" card which is included at the beginning of each short). In any case, I would be surprised if Hanna and Barbera weren't thinking of an eventual television release (which eventually happened) and the full frame image would be suited to that.
The picture hasn't been restored, but it doesn't look bad. There is some grain and an occasional fleck, and the image is a tad on the soft side, but the presentation is overall pretty good.
Extras:
Unfortunately, there are none.
Final Thoughts:
While this isn't a bad cartoon, there's not much that's great about it either. Made on the cheap when theatrical cartoons were being phased out, there are a couple of gags that made me smile, but I couldn't remember them after the short ended. An obscure series, but still of historic interest because of when it was made and the creative team behind it, this would make a good rental.
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