Underdog: The Complete Series

More info for the 9 Disc Set
We finally have some sort of description of this upcoming release from SHOUT!Factory. This info was posted on TVShowsondvd.com. Let's keep our fingers crossed this all comes to light!

The long-awaited legendary cartoon arrives on DVD from Shout! Factory this coming January 24th with every episode of Underdog, plus original shorts featuring characters such as Go Go Gophers, Klondike Kat and Commander McBragg. This all comes enclosed in "high-end packaging" with all-new DVD extras that will entice fans to jump on this release! While Shout! hasn't finalized the supplements for the set, the preliminary info sent to retailers (may be subject to change!) shows these bonus items they hope to have will include:
Commemorative book; Bonus cartoons: Tooter the Turtle and The Hunter; Alternate episode openings and closings; Featurette; Commentaries with writer/producer/co-creator W. Watts Biggers, voice actor George S. Irving, producer Treadwell Covington, animation historian Mark...

The most Underdog we'll likely get, but there are some shortcomings...
I had been looking forward to the release of the "Complete Collector's Edition" of Underdog from the time it was announced. And while this set does have quite a lot going for it, there are many aspects that keep it from being the absolute definitive version fans of the show had hoped for.

This set *does* give you every episode of Underdog, Go Go Gophers, and Commander McBragg. You also get 14 episodes of Klondike Kat, 12 of Tooter Turtle, and two featuring the Hunter.

And unlike past Underdog/Total TeleVision Productions DVDs that omitted the original theme songs for the supporting cartoons, this set has them intact.

Unfortunately, this is also where this set suffers from a visual standpoint, as many of the opening sequences were mastered from rather low-quality bootleg video tapes as opposed to the original film elements that the producers were not able to include.

Klondike Kat's two different openings are from a video source, as are the...

I Love the Underdog DVD Set!
I got my advance copy of this, and I have to say that it turned out quite well. There are always problems always inherent in these sorts of things where all of the film elements had to be compiled from different sources. As a result (I'll go through the negative first), some of the opening and closing elements are of a rough bootleg quality, because they are! I supplied them. Somehow, even though these shows had aired endlessly for about 30 years, things got lost. The audio wasn't even transferred on many cartoons, so that we have many cases where audio from bootlegs is supplied to be reconnected with pristine video images.

Now for the positive, this is the most complete Underdog set that has been issued, and that you will probably ever find. Episodes are presented in chronological order and overall are very well. Unfortunately, some of the episodes have the updated titles, but this is very minor considering the excellent picture quality of a lot of these items. And the...

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