Hanna-Barbera's Superstars 10: The Complete Film Collection Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.5

Hanna-Barbera's Superstars 10: The Complete Film Collection Blu-ray Movie Review

Ten H-B movies for the price of three.

Created for syndication and airing between 1987 and 1988, Hanna-Barbera's Superstars 10 was a run of full-length animated films starring characters from the studio's most famous franchises: Scooby-Doo, Yogi Bear, The Jetsons, The Flintstones, Top Cat, and Huckleberry Hound, all voiced by their original actors. While their notably cheaper animation style resembled that of an extended Saturday morning cartoon rather than a true big-screen production, this allowed some of the characters more room to breathe while seeing brand-new faces and places in the process. First released to VHS, all ten eventually found their way to DVD via Warner Archive, who have now re-issued them on fully remastered Blu-rays. This slim but dense ten-disc set serves up all 10 individual films (also available separately at the links below) for a drastically reduced price, making it a better deal for super-fans than the "pick and choose" approach.

They see me rollin', they hatin'

Yogi's Great Escape (93 minutes, above) - Far from the first feature-length fling for Jellystone's favorite bear, Yogi's Great Escape was preceded by several earlier long-form adventures including 1964's theatrically-released Hey There, It's Yogi Bear! and others, such as the 1972 made-for-TV movie Yogi's Ark Lark (included in this set as an extra-- see below) and Yogi's First Christmas in 1980. As for the story, it's a decent one: Yogi, Boo-Boo and their new orphaned pals Bopper, Buzzy, and Bitsy set out for anywhere in his homemade "Supercar"; it's either that or get shipped off to the zoo, since Jellystone is up for closure due to budget cuts. This episodic adventure also includes appearances from Quick Draw McGraw, Wally Gator, Snagglepuss and others as they drive (and float!) across the country.

Scooby-Doo! Meets the Boo Brothers (92 minutes) - It's not a complete sophomore slump, but this adventure -- the first of three Scooby movies on the list -- features a bit of a tonal shift from the familiar: most of the Mystery, Inc. gang is nowhere to be found, leaving only Shaggy, Scooby, and Scrappy to solve a case regarding Shaggy's recently deceased uncle, Colonel Beauregard, who has left him what seems to be a haunted estate. They reluctantly decide to enlist the help of the Boo Brothers (Meako, Freako, and Shreako) to help with the ghostbusting, but other obstacles await including creepy servant Farquard, the Headless Horseman, an escaped gorilla, feud-maker Billy Bob Scroggins and his sister Sadie Mae, and others. It's kind of fun... but as expected, this one's a bit all over the place.

The Jetsons Meet the Flintstones (92 minutes) - One of several "fish out of water" plots, this crossover begins with a surprisingly lengthy setup involving job trouble in the past and future: George Jetson is accusing of spying for a rival company when it's really the computer's fault, and poor Fred Flintstone (and Barney, of course) are fired after trying to get out of overtime when a vacation was already planned. Meanwhile back in the future, Elroy has been working on a time machine and the Jetsons set out for the 25th century... but Astro fouls things up and they're sent back to Bedrock instead. The two titular families become friends and help each other out, but soon the Flintstones end up lost in the Jetsons' time period. Like The Boo Brothers this one's meandering, but it works in spite of the speed bumps.

Yogi Bear and the Magical Flight of the Spruce Goose (92 minutes, above) - Geez, Yogi again? This one's more fanciful but follows a similar template to Great Escape, finding the lovable bear and his pals (most of those listed above, plus Augie Doggy and Doggy Daddy) on another episodic adventure. After they're locked inside of the titular aircraft, the crew decides to take an extended joyride around the globe, helping out in various situations (many involving fellow animals in peril) before facing off against Dread Baron and an army of hostile natives on the island of Moolah Moolah. It's not perfect... but it's worth a once-over, and the animation here is a step up from the first three films.

Top Cat and the Beverly Hills Cats (92 minutes) - Another fish-out-of-water tale, this diversion reunites us with Top Cat and his gang in Hoagie's Alley. T.C.'s right-hand cat, Benny the Ball, saves the life of a homeless woman during one of their get-rich-quick schemes... only it's soon discovered that the woman is actually Gertrude Vandergelt, a wealthy socialite who lives in nearby Beverly Hills. She unexpectedly passes away less than a week later and the gang finds out that Benny was added to her will at the last minute... which includes basically everything including the family mansion, as the only other benefactor -- Gertrude's teenage niece -- is nowhere to be found. This turn of evens upsets several people including Gertrude's somehow still-employed butler Snerdly, who decides to exact his revenge after T.C. and the gang move in. This one's tonally all over the place, but it's Top Cat's only starring film so I'll give it a pass.

The Good, the Bad, and Huckleberry Hound (95 minutes) - This Western adventure, complete with illustrated chapter cards, follows everyone's favorite blue pup as he dreams of finding a little patch of land for farming. Riding into the town of Two-Bit, he immediately meets trouble in the form of the Dalton gang (Dinky, Finky, Pinky, and Stinky), but he beats the cheating brothers in a series of matches to win a valuable gold nugget. Naturally, they spend a lot of time seeking revenge and the story takes a few other strange turns, including a bout of amnesia for Huckleberry, a potential sweetheart in the lovely Desert Flower, and a daring rescue to take back Two-Bit from the Daltons. This one's again a bit messy (especially in the second half) but features tons of guest appearances by Snagglepuss, Quick Draw, Baba Looey, Hokey Wolf, Magilla Gorilla... and even Yogi and Boo-Boo. (Geez, three movies isn't enough?)

Rockin' with Judy Jetson (92 minutes, below) - AKA Judy and the Rockers, this all-futuristic adventure (no Bedrock this time) stars daughter Judy who's over the moon for handsome Sky Rocker after seeing him perform at the Cosmic Coliseum. Also in attendance are hapless Quark and Quasar, servants to the villainous Felonia Funk, who plans to ruin rock music with a mind-controlling device. There's a kidnapping, George dresses as a punk rocker, and of course a few obligatory jam sessions and dance parties. It's like Bill and Ted except not good... but it features plenty of great voice work by H-B regulars and others including Rob Paulsen, Pat Fraley, Charlie Adler, and Peter Cullen.

Scooby-Doo and the Ghoul School (92 minutes) - No Fred, Velma, or Daphne again... just red-shirt Shaggy, Scooby, and of course Scrappy, who's again surprisingly tolerable in this format. This time our heroes travel to "Ms. Grimwood's Finishing School for Girls", where they've been somehow hired as gym teachers... except what they didn't realize is that it's actually home to the daughters of well-known monsters including Dracula, Frankenstein, and The Wolfman. Things actually go better than expected as our crew settles in (even when Parent's Night rolls around), but trouble arrives once the villainous witch Revolta and her minion the Grim Creeper hatch a plot to kidnap the girls. Ghoul School, like some of the better Scooby-Doo outings, is just barely silly enough to work... but this still falls short of original recipe Where Are You! standards, in my opinion. Like several others in this set, it's a good 20 minutes too long.

Scooby-Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf - The lesser half of this third-act Scooby double feature (and the last appearance of Scrappy as a main character until the 2002 live-action movie), Reluctant Werewolf concerns the annual "Monster Road Rally" -- a contest in which Frankenstein, The Mummy, Swamp Thing, and others compete at Dracula's castle for "Monster of the Year" honors -- and one surprise entrant in Shaggy, who has unwittingly been turned into a wolf and must win the race to be changed back. This one could've been OK with better writing and (again) a slimmer runtime, but it's just kind of a misfire and the visual format -- more on that later -- is sorely lacking.

Yogi and the Invasion of the Space Bears (90 minutes) - Our last outing takes place where every franchise out of ideas ends up: in outer space, of course. It's a pretty lightweight endeavor, to be sure, as this one finds poor Yogi and Boo-Boo kidnapped by aliens -- after hiding out in Siberia under the direct orders of one Ranger Smith -- where the two bears are unceremoniously cloned. A swarm of look-alikes invades Jellystone Park, much to the horror of Smith, so his sidekick Ranger Roubideux and Yogi's main squeeze Cindy get involved. Speaking of sweethearts, Boo-Boo even finds one in lovely Snulu, who may be able to help him and Yogi find their way back home. But is the end result any good? Yeah, this one's fun in a dopey kind of way, and also earns sentimental bonus points for featuring the last in-character performance of Daws Butler, who died after production but months before the film's TV debut. Sadly, like Scooby-Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf, this film also makes use of a terribly lackluster visual format detailed below.

So as with most multi-film collections, we've got a couple of great ones, a few decent ones, and of course one or two clunkers just for good measure. The common thread here is that many of them would've been better suited to an hour-long format at most, as 90+ minutes for plots that probably could've been resolved in half that time is simply too much of a mediocre thing. Those with nostalgia goggles won't agree with me, naturally, and they're the exact target audience for Warner Archive's reasonably priced "all in" set. The good and bad news is that a similar hit-or-miss spread also applies to the visual presentations, but luckily the former outweighs the latter by a wider margin here.

Hanna-Barbera's Superstars 10: The Complete Film Collection Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The good news is that most of Hanna-Barbera's Superstars 10 holds up fairly well to close scrutiny, as the first eight films listed above easily surpass earlier VHS and DVD counterparts while landing a notch below what I'd consider the boutique label's strongest animated presentations. Lowered expectations arrive with this source material: these 1980s films were clearly made on the cheap and most lack even the mid-level visual appeal of Hanna-Barbera's earlier work, with a noticeably stiff and flat-as-a-pancake "Saturday morning" appearance that doesn't allow much room for artistic excitement. (Some, like Yogi Bear and the Magical Flight of the Spruce Goose and Top Cat and the Beverly Hills Cats, at least try to break up the monotony a bit.) Regardless of my feelings about their visual designs or the animation quality, all eight look uniformly clean and pleasing with decent fine detail, good color saturation, and no obvious compression-related problems such as combing, macro blocking, or banding thanks to WAC's reliably great encoding.

Even so, there are mild drawbacks to be found; for example, it's still fairly obvious that a degree of grain management has been applied on the whole. It's not not overwhelming, but those floored by the perfect film-like appearance of Hey There, It's Yogi Bear! will find that these don't quite reach that high threshold. Yet these first eight films at least look very good on their own terms, so I'd imagine that anyone who grew up watching them will be quite happy.

Noticeably less impressive are the final two films, Scooby-Doo! and the Reluctant Werewolf and Yogi and the Invasion of the Space Bears, both of which are prefaced by text screens describing (excusing?) the situation. Paraphrasing their words: "Both were produced using an early form of digital ink and paint and were output to a final 1" videotape master with no film protection of any kind. Therefore, they have been up-converted from their original SD masters to digital HD, with every effort made to improve the visual quality of the programs." As seen in screenshots #33-38, these two cartoons appear quite waxy and filtered as egregious amounts of smoothing, noise reduction, and digital sharpening have clearly been applied to mask several of their inherent shortcomings. Several static shots even fluctuate between "overly sharp" and "Vaseline", and others suffer from filtering anomalies that drastically affect line edges. Some fans may be more forgiving of these types of "solutions", but I would have greatly preferred something closer to raw video files rather than ones totally drained of texture. They're simply awful looking and, while I might agree that even an untouched presentation would have yielded disappointing results, this is bound to ruffle a few feathers.

Hanna-Barbera's Superstars 10: The Complete Film Collection Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Thankfully there are no surprises in the audio department, as all 10 films feature uniformly good to very good DTS-HD 2.0 Master Audio tracks that preserve their one-channel roots. Obviously these aren't rich, dynamic, or creative sound mixes, since no tangible sense of directionality could be conjured from what's essentially a series of flat, front-forward presentations that sound relatively narrow regardless of the situation or location. Even so, dialogue and sound effects are nicely blended and given the appropriate amount of priority, with many of the sporadic music cues -- some all-new, but many either recycled from previous cartoons or re-used ad nauseum -- enjoying a nice presence in the mix as well. Similarly, volume levels are largely maintained from one outing to the next, ensuring you won't have to constantly adjust during marathon viewing. Overall, this is a fine, straightforward effort that gets the job done.

Optional English (SDH) subtitles are included during all 10 main films, not the bonus features listed below.

Hanna-Barbera's Superstars 10: The Complete Film Collection Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This ten-disc set is divided into two five-disc cases with multiple double-sided hinges to ensure no overlapping. Both cases are tucked inside an outer slipbox featuring the titles for each film and artwork that somehow leaves out Scooby and the gang. No booklet or other material is tucked inside, but all ten discs are adorned with colorful artwork from each film. Only two include extras, which arrive in the form of two earlier H-B extended-length cartoons.

DISC NINE (Scooby-Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf)

• Scooby Goes Hollywood (49:37) - Nope, it's not that wack-ass 2002 film -- this 1979 animated adventure originally aired on ABC to celebrate the franchise's 10th anniversary. Unlike the other Scooby films included in this set, Hollywood feels closer to the classic series due to it featuring more familiar elements: the whole gang, Shaggy's green shirt, and no Scrappy (who had incidentally just debuted as a character only months before). Story-wise, it's slight but at least fits the hour-long format, with Scooby struggling to find success in Tinseltown until his friends persuade him to stick to a Saturday morning timeslot. A cautionary tale, perhaps? Regardless, this one's kind of fun and the rare Scooby outing that doesn't feature many scares or a real villain.

  Fully remastered in HD (screenshot #39), Scooby Goes Hollywood looks so much better than Scooby-Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf that it's almost funny. It might even be the best-looking one on this whole set.

DISC TEN (Yogi and the Invasion of the Space Bears)

• Yogi's Ark Lark (42:49) - Mentioned earlier, this curious 1982 made for TV special was apparently made to raise ecological awareness, beating Captain Planet and just about every other like-minded cartoon to the punch by a decade or more. It's also more of an all-star outing than a standard Yogi adventure with appearances by Quick Draw McGraw, Baba Looey, Augie Doggie and Doggie Daddy, Magilla Gorilla, Huckleberry Hound, Wally Gator, Snagglepuss, and at least a dozen others. As for the story? Yogi and company's search for "the perfect place" is a bit scattershot but its heart is certainly there, which makes Ark Lark a decent curio.

  Similar to Scooby Goes Hollywood, this one's also been nicely restored in HD (screenshot #40) and likewise outpaces Yogi and the Invasion of the Space Bears by an extremely wide margin.

Hanna-Barbera's Superstars 10: The Complete Film Collection Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Hanna-Barbera's Superstars 10 isn't exactly a high point of the studio's animated output but, for a certain age group, this set of feature-length adventures will bring back a lot of childhood memories. Even so, if you care for most of these characters at all they're worth a run-through, and what better way than this reasonably-priced ten-disc set? The A/V presentations are mostly very good with two rather large exceptions (see above for details), and the addition of two bonus H-B animated rarities helps to sweeten the pot a little. Those only interested in two or three of these films may want to just purchase them individually, but most will rightfully opt for the "all-in" approach. Recommended.