| Saturday, October 10, 2009 |
06:26 - Roses R Red, Roses R Blue
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How time flies. In the modern era, it's almost unheard-of for a TV series—old or new—to not be available in its entiredy on a boxed set of DVDs, available for anyone to watch from beginning to end in a single days-long sitting if one wants. It seems almost laughable to recall a time when, if you wanted to see a certain episode of Star Trek or Arrested Development or the first few Simpsons seasons, you had to sit around and wait for the networks to get around to broadcasting it.
Even the most obscure of shows are now available, from Are You Being Served? to Blackadder to a zillion weird anime series. (Really: this blows my mind.) And yet there are a few series that, because of their odd pseudo-licensable format and/or limited interest, just aren't likely ever to see the light of DVD.
Among those, lamentably, is Cartoon Planet.
Why no DVD release for what is arguably the purest expression of the goofy ironical humor that gave rise to the modern Adult Swim phenomenon? Presumably because of all the Turner-library video clips interspersed with the ultra-limited animation. They seem to have combed through the series and come up with a handful of skits to include on one of the DVD releases of The Brak Show, but that's a poor substitute for the whole series of stream-of-consciousness ramblings served up in 22-minute segments with the unforgettable "Good night, good night, goodnight, everybody!" closing credits that always left a living room full of geeks feeling simultaneously refreshed and bewildered. To the point where you just have to share it. (I'm sure my friend Dave remembers coming home to his apartment one day to find a sign reading LA PORTA È FATTA DI ZUPPA taped to it.)
Imagine my delight, then, to find that there's a site dedicated to the capture and underground dissemination of Cartoon Planet and other seemingly "lost" series, unlikely ever to be released officially, but not jealously guarded either by corporate entities: The Digital Art Project. It's a torrent listing of shows like MST3K and other such "Keep Circulating the Tapes" shows, and Cartoon Planet is one of only a handful of series they have listed. Thanks to enterprising and foresighted individuals who fired up their VCRs in the mid-90s, the series is not, in fact, as lost as it could have been.
Legal? Probably not. But you can bet that every person dedicated enough to seek this stuff out would also be more than willing to drop $25 on an official DVD copy if one were ever to surface.
Chances are they've put more than that into the cause already.
Ahem.
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Brian Tiemann
