When will Paramount or Warner Bros (hopefully!!) or whoever currently owns the rights to these utterly delightful and totally surreal animation gems (?)release a definitive set of the early Betty Boop classic cartoons on a DVD Special Edition Boxset?

The French set is gorgeous and the package it comes with one of the best produced for the R2 market:




Ciao,
Pro-B

Whoa. Does that set have every cartoon on it?

Please use a question mark! How much does that French Set cost? I couldn't find it on Amazon France.

Yeah, I'd like more info.. all I can find are the same 8 episodes copied over half a dozen public domain discs.

I found it on this Dutch site, but I'm not sure if they ship to the US...

http://thuisbios.nl/default.asp?intProductID=97208

I believe Amazon.fr for some reason decided not to stock it (I seem to remember a friend asking by email), but it's available at Fnac, which is where I believe is where I got my set from.

It's 5 DVDs, 840 minutes, and they call is the definitive collection. I'm thinking it really does have all the cartoons featuring Boop...even her early dog years.

by the way, you can rent this set at Nicheflix.com now, in their "a la carte" program.

http://rental.nicheflix.com/category_s/2.htm

Pixy Junket...sorry I did not see your post, i rarely hang in here, I could be found in the International forum ...so buzz me if you need any info.

A cheaper Benelux version is available:

http://www.mediadis.com/dvd/detail.asp?id=138612

Ciao,
Pro-B

Does anybody have a listing of the cartoons on the set? In 1996 Republic Studios released a set of 8 VHS tapes called The Definitive Collection and it wasn't complete. I'm wondering if the tapes' content was ported over to disc. Cartoon historian Jerry Beck grouped the cartoons on each tape according to theme. He wrote an article/description that appeared in The Whole Toon Catalog in 1997.

Also absent from the VHS set is the Betty Boop cartoon Popeye the Sailor (1933). Not because it's missing, but for the same copyright issues that are keeping the classic Popeye cartoons off home video.

The Whole Toon entry lists the total running time for VHS at 798 minutes, whereas the links to the French DVD's give their running time as 840 minutes.

42 minutes divided into 5 cartoons is a bit over 8 minutes a pop.. don't these shorts run 5-6 minutes a piece?

Yes, it's exactly the same contents as that Republic set (I've got it on LD), complete with the DVNR overused erasing some finer details which were visible in earlier Republic transfers. It's not awful, but that's what it is. It is certainly NOT complete, but it's not so incomplete either. A few less of the late 30s cartoons wouldn't have killed the deal for me either. 5-6 minutes? don't know of many cartoons of that era that are less than 7 minutes. That, coupled with the spoken introduction to each "program" accounts for the running time. Oh, I see, you mean for the whole set. That's probrably due to the LAST disc of the set being a cd with various audio only items extracted from the cartoons. At least I think that's how they put that cd together... haven't heard it.

Geez, this set has to be one of the WORST looking things I've seen in a long time. Ok, it's not public domain bad, but the horrible overuse of DVNR erases almost all of the fine detail in the drawings, thinking it is video "noise"! These lazy bastards, used the same crappy transfers issued about 10 years ago on LD, and they sucked then. And every time ANYTHING moves onscreen, there is absolutely hideous combing and ghosting.

Absolute trash..........wait (until hell freezes over??) for something better to come along. I'm glad I rented this first, because having it on LD is already one too many of this travesty to have around!!