I have finally been able to see these cartoons restored and oh my, they are stunning, I have to say. For instance, I must have watched "The Royal Four-Flusher" so many times I know it by heart, but seeing the restored version was like watching an alternative, better version of it.
That being said, there is always something for nit-pickers, and I'll take that role here and point out some things which haven't been yet discussed. Leviathan has already stated that "Rocket to Mars" and "All's Fair at the Fair" look a bit worse than the other cartoons. The truth is that the quality varies from title to title, but Mars is definitely the worst-looking cartoon. Don't get me wrong - it's nowhere near bad, but also nowhere near "Wotta Knight", for instance. The colors are all there, but not the clarity. Can anyone confirm whether there were different elements used or the negatives just vary in coniditon?
The sound quality has definitely taken a turn to the worse compared to Vol. 1. That release had only three cartoons whose audio stood out: "The Anvil Chorus Girl" (very distorted original track which should have been replaced), "She-Sick Sailors" (presumably the same element which Turner used in the 1990s) and "For Better or Nurse" (you know about that one).
Here, almost every cartoon seems to sound different as if its audio was sourced from a different place. "Service with a Guile" has its original audio but does not sound so well with a lot of hissing noise in the background. "Peep in the Deep" and "Rocket to Mars" sound no better than they did on old TV prints so they also definitely weren't sourced from the originals. The biggest offenser is "All's Fair at the Fair" as it's so fuzzy and low - you actually have to up your volume after the tacked on title theme ends. As for the other cartoons which miss their original cues, Rodeo and Flusher sound fine while the other two not so much and were probably sourced from TV prints we are used to seeing. That's especially obvious on "The Island Fling", whose bloated soundtrack is the same that can be heard
here.
Another word on the sound editing. The recreated closing cues are really lame. They just took the closing from "Abusement Park" and used it all four times. A little bit of inventiveness would have been appreciated, especially since the majority of the cartoons end with a rendition of The Sailor's Hornpipe. That's obvious on "The Island Fling", whose ending completely doesn't fit. There are many things you could do with it: for instance, take Peep in the Deep's ending and scale the pitch higher a bit. Voila, you have something that fits. This is just lazy editing. Also, to better fit the iris outs, they cut a snippet from Rodeo and echoed the ending for Fling.
I should also mention that several cartoons have subsituted audio on the openings and for two reasons. It's off-sync on "Abusement Park" by a few frames and I find it a bit hilarious that instead of plastering the whole theme on "Rodeo Romeo" like they did on the others, they decided to use the a.a.p. master for the titles' opening and closing and use another source for the credits title. I hope the sound editing gets a bit better and more original materials are found for the next volume because those Polacolor titles really sound worn out.
Some of you may see this audio rant the post has turned into as completely unnecessary, but I would disagree. These cartoons' visuals are represented immaculately, so when the sound does not follow suit it does stick out. I hope the three cartoons which Thad
(btw, Thad, the story of how you found them would probably make a great blog post) has found cues for get them when they eventually get rereleased on some platform, but that would really be a surprise as most people disregard the sound in the overall presentation, even though they shouldn't.
Edited by user Sunday, August 11, 2019 6:35:58 AM(UTC)
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