I was thinking the same thing as well. Having grown up watching the Little Rascals in the 60-70's, I'm unsure if it ends up being a deal breaker for me. I still want this set, but will await any feedback from Genius (if they even reply) first.

Ok, it's official. Someone somewhere will ALWAYS find something about ANYTHING to complain about. I'm sure there's one of those "Murphy's Law" names for it.

;)

So what's the reason not to buy this?
Because of the opening titles?

I'm still waiting on a reply from them. They may not answer if they get flooded with emails about this.

Because some of the shorts are not from the restored original negatives like they're supposed to, despite the fact the cover states "restored remastered uncut," which they're not.

Are those shorts those real old episodes that were not run on t.v.?

Well...... they were all run on tv when the tv became popular in the 50s....... if that's what you mean....

These are 1929-1938.....

I disagree. Unless you have a direct contact at Genius, they're not going to pay much attention to a single e-mail. Strength in numbers. The more feedback/complaints the better. There's a chance that they won't ignore multiple e-mails and possibly respond.

I haven't looked myself, but I'm hearing that discs 1, 2, 4, 6, and 7 have Blackhawk prints. If this is the case, it would seem to be an expensive solution to reissue corrected discs to fans. But it's still the right thing to do.

do they even have access to the mgm elements is the question. They can't reissue something they don't have, and even if they do it would take a long time to track down all of those elements do the restorations and digital imaging. Not to mention then replicating the disc. I got a feeling this is going to be what it is. You may get a disclaimer sticker on the box, but doubt they will redo the set.

should be interesting to compare these with the cabin fever shorts.

p.s. probably never would have been an issue if they had gotten Maltin involved.

They SHOULD have access to the MGM elements. That's why 84% of the set has the original prints. But just random shorts are Blackhawks, which makes no sense. I think they have duplicate copies from different sources, and someone picked out wrong copies without knowing.

They can leave the set the way it is if they want, but as you can see, they're losing a lot of sales for this screwup.

And Richard Bann was involved in this set, but even so, he more than likely wasn't monitoring what prints were being included. And speaking of Bann and Maltin, I wonder what they'll think when they find all this out (!!!!). I'll bet Maltin will be ashamed, as he was a big part of the whole Cabin Fever set (with ALL the prints being original).

I dunno. Look at that wave of Walt Disney Treasures that got released unrestored and non-anamorphic. Maltin isn't the end-all be-all. Sometimes, it's even out of his hands when he's directly involved.

But still, a lot of angry phone calls and disgruntled e-mails got Disney back on track with their restoration efforts. I plan on sending Genius an e-mail.

Even with the Cabin Fever set, I don't believe all of the shorts were sourced from original negatives; a good number of the opening title sequences appear to have been spliced back into the shorts from other sources (randomly non-roaring and roaring MGM lions and awkward fade-ins and fade-outs in the music are giveaways). Not to be presumptive, but it's possible that in remastering the shorts for a new collection, RHI didn't have access to the same materials it did in 1994 (but even if they didn't, why not copy the titles from the old masters that obviously still remained under their control, since they were releasing DVDs using those 1994 transfers well into 2005?)

It's more of an annoyance than a dealbreaker though, I think. The vast majority of the public will buy it just to watch the Little Rascals, and not know or care about the reissue titles. It's possible that Genius may start a replacement program, but then again, being a smaller company they may not.

Dialogue Edit On New Set
 

The new set contains at least one dialogue edit. It is on the episode Bear Shooters. Ironically, this is one of the episodes that contains the original MGM title cards. On the new set the dialogue is as follows:

Farina: "Hot Dog! You going with us, Spud?"

Spud: "Sure I'm going!"

Farina: "Come on, mule!"

On a public domain copy that I have of this episode the dialogue is as follows:

Farina: "Hot Dog! You going with us, Spud?"

Spud: "Sure I'm going! I suppose I'll get whipped though. Darnit! I'm going anyhow."

Farina: "Come on. Let's Get going. Come on, Mule!"

Oh, and that title for "Bouncing Babies" is the very same one used for the Cabin Fever set. I don't think it's recreate inasmuch as it's been salvaged from a beat-up print which had the original title (albeit with the MGM lion blacked out of the bottom part of the card).

As many times as these "Little Rascals" shorts have changed ownership between 1938 and today, I don't presume that the original negatives - whoever has them - still have the original opening titles.

Is "Washee Ironee" on Disc Five complete? There's a (horribly tasteless and racist) gag with a Chinese boy teaching the gang to wash clothes by drinking water and spitting on the garmets. On the Cabin Fever set, this sequence was edited slightly. On TV, it's edited more heavily. On the last Hallmark DVD, it's complete (and threw me for a loop when I saw the whole thing).

Well, what could have possibly happened to them in the last few years? Genius bought the rights to the Hallmark Library (which owned Cabin Fever, RHI, etc). At the very least they could have taken the titles from their old dvds.

Someone hasn't read my review I see... :)

lol. Thanks (I admit to skimming the review).

I figured the scene would still be there (it's there in some form or fashion even in the TV print), though. I was just curious how complete the version of "Washee Ironee" in the set is.

It seems complete, right down to the spitting and Buckwheat speaking "chinese" to the kid.

I looked at these at Best Buy today. This has got to be the cheapest looking packaging I have ever seen on such an expansive set. It looks very flimsy. Awful.

I'm under the impression that the films were re-remastered for this set (which I'll determine when the set arrives at my door). It may be that, as with the Cabin Fever set, the titles on many shorts came from one source, and the film proper came from another, and the DVD producers ran out of either time or money to finish everything (note that five of the missing titles are, save for "Three Men in a Tub," the final five shorts in the collection.) Or, unlike what Warner Bros. did with "Popeye Vol. 3", they preferred to go ahead and release the set before the holiday season instead of delaying it for enough time to fix the errant titles (which _should_ have required them to pull up the 1994 masters, de-interlace them, bring them into Final Cut Pro or Avid, splice the titles into the video file for that particular short, and send the edited file on its merry digital way.)

I sound like I'm copping pleas, though. I don't suppose Genius will explain themselves in some sort of press release?

This is part of my e-mail sent to Genius Products

This e-mail concerns the newly released DVD set "The Little Rascals: The Complete Collection". In the 1990's RHI and Cabin Fever released a wonderful collection "The Little Rascals Remastered & Unedited" on laserdiscs of 84 Our Gang shorts. The material was remastered and unedited as advertised. The chapter points were accurate and the quality was excellent. These laserdiscs became the standard to which other Little Rascals releases were compared. It was announced that "The Little Rascals: The Complete Collection" was on its way remastered, restored, and uncut. Fans were ecstatic! Genius Products should be ashamed! The actual set "The Little Rascals: The Complete Collection" uses inferior Blackhawk prints without the original title cards for at least 13 of the shorts. Some dialogue has also been edited. While it is very nice to have the new set in chronological order with the extra features, I believe that most fans would have much preferred it if all the masters used on the RHI/Cabin Fever laserdiscs had been used to make "The Little Rascals: The Complete Collection". Why were these masters not used? The present DVD set is not uncut without the original title cards and was not made from the best quality masters available to you! The right thing for Genius Products to do would be to issue replacement DVD sets to present DVD set owners that are truly uncut and use the RHI/Cabin Fever laserdisc masters. Such a set would sell many more copies and elevate Genius Products in the eyes of fans and customers.


I hope to receive a reply soon,
Mack Heustess

I like your letter. I wonder if HTF would have let you post it.

I actually liked the "look" of the packaging. But you're right, once that cellophane comes off, it's really flimsy. The inner part is almost guaranteed to pull away from the outer shell if you don't take the care to hold it with 2 hands. It's not attached to the spine if the outer packaging.