Here are a few items that I have available to buy from my Amazon store. Click the links or the pictures if you are interested. All the DVDs are region 1, so Aussies will need to make sure that they have a region free DVD player in order to play these films.
$37.99
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Were some of your first friends named Grover, Mr. Hooper, and Bob? Do you remember the Ladybug Picnic? How about Pinball Number Count? Sesame Street Old School is a time capsule of the early days of the ground-breaking series you grew up on. Take a trip back in time with Bert, Ernie, Big Bird and Snuffleupagus. Sing along with classics like “C is for Cookie,” “I Love Trash,” and “Rubber Duckie.” For the first time on DVD, the music, memories, and mayhem from Sesame Street’s first five seasons can be enjoyed again and again!
Amazon.com
When the Children’s Theater Workshop’s Sesame Street first aired on television in 1969, it was a revolutionary new show aimed specifically at preschool children–an audience previously untargeted by television programming. Exhaustively-researched and tested on real audiences of preschoolers, this “experiment in kid programming” aimed to teach preschoolers the alphabet, numbers, body parts, rhyming, and basic reasoning skills while thoroughly entertaining them. Through the use of humor, the amazing puppetry of Frank Oz and Jim Henson, animation, the incredibly catchy music of Joe Raposo and Jeffrey Moss, and a fast-action pace borrowed from the television commercial format, Sesame Street was, and still is, more successful at educating and entertaining children than anyone initially imagined. What’s more, the lessons learned by generations of preschoolers went far beyond simple school-readiness skills to include values like acceptance, cooperation, and inclusiveness because the urban Sesame Street was a place populated by people and monsters young viewers could identify with, where anything could happen, and where every ethnicity, generation, and species co-existed and interacted harmoniously
Sesame Street: Old School Volume 1 1969-1974 offers a sampling of the first five seasons of Sesame Street and includes the first episode of each season in its entirety as well as a large selection of classic segments from each season highlighting some of the most memorable sketches (“Bein’ Green,” “Rubber Duckie,” “Whistle a Happy Tune,” and Super-Grover in “Telephone Booth”), favorite human characters like Bob and Mr. Hooper, and guest appearances by celebrities like Bill Cosby, Lena Horne, Jackie Robinson, Carol Burnett, and Jesse Jackson. Adult viewers will be transported back in time as they witness Bert’s frustration with his ever-noisy roommate Ernie, chuckle at the antics of Grover and his demanding customer in Grover’s Restaurant, and wonder if Snuffleupagus will ever show himself to someone besides Big Bird. Other well-remembered moments include pinball number count, the baker who inevitably tumbles down the stairway with a handful of cream pies, the ever-munching Cookie Monster, “Here is Your Life” segments, Bert “Doin’ the Pigeon,” and the inevitably grumpy Oscar the Grouch. Post-Elmo preschoolers and their parents will laugh, learn, grow, and connect with one another as they share this classic compilation of Sesame Street moments. Bonus features include the original sales pitch reel (introduced by Joan Ganz Cooney and hosted by Kermit the Frog and Rowlf the Dog) and a thick booklet rich with history, trivia, and a pullout activity section for children. (Ages 2 and older) –Tami Horiuchi
$34.99
Product Description
Can you dig it? Sesame Street: Old School Volume 2 picks up right where Volume 1 left off, including all the grooviest Sesame Street memories from 1974 to 1979! You’ll see cats like Don Music and Roosevelt Franklin, Guy Smiley and Fat Blue. Break out your boogie shoes for far out classics like “What’s the Name of That Song?” and “Telephone Rock!” Rediscover the Sesame Street of the 1970s — the place where you learned about letters, numbers, and loveable furry monsters. Catch you on the flip side!
$26.49
Product Description
The plot lines in the animated cartoons tended to be simple. A villain, usually Bluto, makes a move on Popeye’s “sweetie”, Olive Oyl. The bad guy then clobbers Popeye until Popeye eats spinach, which gives him superhuman strength. The fundamental character of Popeye, paralleling that of another 1930’s icon, Superman, also invokes traditional values possessing uncompromising moral standards and resorting to force only when threatened, or when he “can’t stands no more”! The first volume includes 58 (7-10 min) theatrical blk & white shorts from 1933 to 1938 and 2 two-reeler 20 minute color cartoons. (Notable shorts: * POPEYE THE SAILOR MEETS SINDBAD THE SAILOR was an Academy Award� Nominee. Betty Boop appears in a cameo as a hula dancer in the 1st short “Popeye The Sailor”)
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
In 1933, a squint-eyed sailor with outsized forearms danced a hula with Betty Boop–and began one of the great series in American cartoon history. Popeye had made his debut in Elzie Segar’s comic strip “Thimble Theater” four years earlier, and the jump to animation only increased his popularity: by 1938, he rivaled Mickey Mouse. During the ’30s, when Disney was creating lushly colored, realistic animation, the Fleischer Studio presented a gritty black-and-white world that was ideally suited to the bizarre misadventures of Popeye, Olive, and Bluto. The animators ignored anatomy, with hilarious results: Olive Oyl’s rubbery arms wrap around her body like twin anacondas, and her legs often end up in knots. Exactly what Popeye and Bluto saw in this scrawny, capricious inamorata was never clear, but they fought over her endlessly. As the series progressed, the artists grew more sophisticated: in “Blow Me Down” (1933), Olive does some clumsy steps to “The Mexican Hat Dance;” one year later, in “The Dance Contest,” she and Popeye perform deft spoofs of tango, tap, and apache steps. The stories are little more than strings of gags linked by a theme: Popeye and Bluto as rival artists; Popeye and Olive as nightclub dancers or café owners. But the minimal stories allow the artists to fill the screen with jokes, over-the-top fights, and muttered asides from the characters. Cartoon fans have waited for years for the “Popeye” shorts to appear on disc, and the Popeye the Sailor 1933-1938 was worth waiting for. The transfers were made from beautifully clear prints with only minimal dust and scratches. The set is loaded with extras, including eight “Popumentaries,” numerous commentaries, and 16 silent cartoons. It’s a set to treasure. (Unrated, suitable for ages 10 and older: violence, tobacco use, ethnic stereotypes) –Charles Solomon
* The good thing about the Popeye set and any DVDs from Warner Home Video is that they are region free and can be played on a region 4 DVD player.
$24.99
Product Description
Experience the wonder of Walt Disney’s groundbreaking nature series for the first time on DVD! These acclaimed stories, fully restored to their original beauty, offer previously unssen looks into the magical world of our animal friends. Enjoy a collection of Disney’s award-winning TRUE-LIFE ADVENTURES, including “The Living Desert,” and the very first film, “Seal Island.” It’s a classic collection of animal adventures your whole family will treasure.
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
There was a time when Walt Disney produced mesmerizing nature films for family audiences. Walt Disney Legacy Collection: True Life Adventures, Vol. 2 reaches deep into the studio’s vaults to pull together a selection of those remarkable little movies, a television staple for baby boomers who watched Disney’s variously-titled series in the late 1950s and ’60s.
Listen to our interview
with director emeritus
Roy E. Disney.
|
Basically, teams of roving cinematographers and other technicians were sent into the field, working under the general guidance of a well-researched script, a director, production group, etc. Ingenious editing, creative uses of music, and even touches of animation resulted in marvelous pieces such as the ones in this collection. Among the six titles here are “Living Desert,” set in the American southwest; “Vanishing Prairie,” an overview of what were once endless grasslands between the mountainous west and the full forests east of the Mississippi; and “Seal Island,” shot on a remote Alaskan island. Nature programs are, of course, plentiful on contemporary television. But the Disney shows were unique at the time for applying high cinematic standards (the Technicolor on “Islands of the Sea,” set in the Galapagos, is something to see) to the task of filming lizards, road runners, sandstorms, and exotic flowers. These programs are also tailor-made for young audiences. The more harrowing sequences of predators stalking their lunch, say, or seal pups getting separated from their mothers aren’t censored, but they are softened in the editor’s room and via anthropomorphic narration. True Life Adventures stands up today as good family viewing, though they are also fodder for nostalgia for viewers of a certain age. –Tom Keogh
$24.99
Product Description
Experience the wonder of Walt Disney’s groundbreaking nature series for the first time on DVD! These acclaimed stories, fully restored to their original beauty, offer previously unseen looks into the magical world of our animal friends. Enjoy CREATURES OF THE WILD, the third volume of Disney’s award-winning TRUE-LIFE ADVENTURES. Journey inside the worlds of some of nature’s most magnificent creatures with “The African Lion,” “Jungle Cat,” “Bear Country” and much more. It’s an unforgettable collection of animal stories that the entire family will love.
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Long before Animal Planet existed, Walt Disney’s True-Life Adventures awakened viewers to the wonders of the natural world. Disney began the series in 1946 with Seal Island, and the six features and seven featurettes won eight Academy Awards.
Listen to our interview
with director emeritus
Roy E. Disney.
|
One winner was Bear Country (1953), which is included in Creatures of the Wild, along with The African Lion (1955), Jungle Cat (1959) and The Olympic Elk (1952). Each film traces the course of one year in the life of its subject. Lionesses hunt to feed their cubs (and their glorious but idle mates) on Serengeti Plains. A pair of jaguars in the Amazon and a mother bear in Yellowstone Park raise their cubs, teaching them to find food and avoid predators. Magnificent bull elk fight for mates in the high meadows of the Olympic Mountains. Except for the narration occasionally seeming a little forced or obvious, these documentaries wear their age lightly. The prints have been lovingly restored: scratches and dirt have been removed; the color looks pristine. Artists and scientists will find useful reference material here, and children will enjoy the pageant of nature. Sadly, many of the ecological communities that seemed as inexhaustible as they were beautiful in the 1950’s have been severely damaged during the intervening decades by human encroachment, poaching, and climate change. The two-disc set is loaded with extras, including two black-and-white Disneyland shows from the 1950’s. (Rated G, suitable for ages 6 and older: some hunting sequences may be too intense for very small children)–Charles Solomon
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