Famous Studios Champion Collection Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		4.0
Overall		4.0

Famous Studios Champion Collection Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman April 20, 2026

Hollywood's so-called Golden Era supported what became known as the "big five" studios, i.e., Metro Goldwyn Mayer, Paramount, Warner Brothers, 20th Century Fox and RKO Radio Pictures, along with the "little three", Universal Pictures, United Artists and Columbia Pictures. Of those eight, though, it's arguable that for the unwashed masses only Warner Brothers' studio produced animated efforts are easily identifiable as a particular studio offering. Warner's stable (kind of a literal term, considering its reliance on animals) of animated "stars" is so iconic that it's almost hard to realize there was a time when there wasn't Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd, Porky Pig, Sylvester and Tweety or any of the other lovable if often irascible types that marauded through fare courtesy of such real life icons as Chuck Jones, Friz Freleng, Tex Avery and Bob Clampett. Rather interestingly for a number of reasons, then, armchair historians might be surprised to find out that Warner's animation department only officially became part of the parent studio in 1944, a full decade after Columbia had founded Screen Gems animation, and at least a couple of years or more after MGM founded its in house studio in 1937, and Paramount more or less co-opted the erstwhile Fleischer Studios in 1942 to form Famous Studios.

If Warner Brothers in particular had a gaggle of famous characters at their animators' beck and call, the pickings were arguably at least a bit slimmer at some of the other studios, including Famous. Those above referenced armchair historians are encouraged to seek out what (to me, anyway) is often fascinating information about various characters' histories at the non-Warner studios, and there are some especially interesting tidbits vis a vis the transformation of Fleischer into Famous. In that regard, while there are some ostensible "stars" in this collection like Casper the Friendly Ghost and Little Lulu (and/or Audrey), it's probably not too unfair to relegate some of the characters here to a slightly less esteemed echelon than the best known Warner characters.

Some of the really excellent audio commentaries accompanying each and every short on this disc somewhat hilariously state how a lot of the early Famous animated shorts were frankly not about much other than "violent animals", but some of those same early efforts in particular traffic in something approaching a Jones-ian or Avery-esque surreality, as is also addressed in the commentaries. That said, it probably has to be admitted outright that the Famous shorts probably never quite rise to the giddy heights of hilarity that some of the Warner productions do.

This collection includes the following shorts:

• No Mutton Fer Nuttin’ (1943)
• The Henpecked Rooster (1944)
• Suddenly It’s Spring! (1944)
• A Lamb in a Jam (1945)
• The Friendly Ghost (1945)
• Bargain Counter Attack (1946)
• Sheep Shape (1946)
• Sudden Fried Chicken (1946)
• Much Ado About Mutton (1947)
• A Bout with a Trout (1947)
• There’s Good Boos To-Night (1948)
• Butterscotch and Soda (1948)
• Readin’, ‘Ritin’, and Rhythmetic (1948)
• Hep Cat Symphony (1949)
• A Haunting We Will Go (1949)
• Campus Capers (1949)
• Our Funny Finny Friends (1949)
• Quack-a Doodle-Doo (1950)

A couple of sidebar notes are probably in order. Some of the shorts in the collection feature some prefatory disclaimer verbiage about the depictions of black characters. There's also some prefatory information about Readin', 'Ritin', and Rhythmetic that gets into some of the kind of weird nooks and crannies that the Famous library encountered as it got licensed for television broadcast in the fifties. While not overtly addressed in this information, the licensing and divvying up of various Fleischer / Famous properties is one reason why you don't see characters like Popeye or Superman here.

Finally, the disc sent to me would not allow me to access Our Funny Finny Friends either via the Play All mode or in attempting to play it individually. This anomaly persisted in several different players I tried. I've alerted ClassicFlix to this situation and a replacement disc is being sent, and I will update things here after that disc arrives.

Update 4/25/2026: The replacement disc sent by ClassicFlix did not exhibit the above problem.

Famous Studios Champion Collection Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Famous Studios Champion Collection is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Cartoon Logic and ClassicFlix with AVC encoded 1080p transfers in 1.33:1. Not much technical information is offered on the back cover of this release, with "4K scans of original studio materials" the only indication of the provenance of source elements. "Original studio materials" and not "original camera negatives" may be a "tell" of sorts, but on the whole this is a really gorgeous accounting of these early Famous shorts, and of the ones I had the most prior familiarity with (the Casper cartoons), these are certainly the best I've ever seen them look. As some of the commentaries address, the design ethos and even the colors of the palette can be quite different from either the Warner or Disney templates, but things pop quite agreeably throughout. There are some noticeable variances in clarity but on the whole things like line detail are precise looking. Grain remains intact and gives the presentations an organic appearance.

Famous Studios Champion Collection Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Famous Studios Champion Collection features LPCM 2.0 Mono tracks for the shorts. The audio side of things may not be able to escape the vestiges of time and tide quite as well as the video side of things on this release, and there's kind of thin, tinny sound along with some high frequency hiss evident in many of the tracks. That said, some of the boisterous music is surprisingly full bodied and dialogue and effects are all presented without any major issues. Optional English subtitles are available.

Famous Studios Champion Collection Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Commentaries are offered on all of the shorts by a revolving cast of knowledgeable folks, including Jerry Beck, Bob Jaques, Will Friedwald, Thad Komorowski, Mike Kazeleh and Rob Waldman.


• Spree for All (HD; 8:02) is a black and white short from 1946 that comes with some interesting prefatory text information about its rarity.


• Cat O' Nine Ails (Picture Only) (HD; 8:23) is from 1948 and also has some contextual prefatory text.


• Readin', 'Ritin', and Rhythmetic - Vocal Track (HD; 4:17) oofers the original vocal track courtesy of Mark Newgarden.


• Cat O' Nine Ails - Storyboard Reel (HD; 7:07) also comes courtesy of Mark Newgarden.


• There's Good Boos To-Night - Layout Selection (HD; 3:44)

The keepcase sleeve contains an inner print offering information on each of the shorts and the bonus material.

Famous Studios Champion Collection Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

If you grew up on after school cartoons like I did, you'll probably recognize many of these characters, even if none them is arguably as legendary as some of the Warner characters. The restoration work done of the video side of things is especially impressive, and the aggregated commentaries are a treasure trove of information on the production of the shorts and also what might be called institutionally regarding Famous Studios. Recommended.