I'll be getting this DVD in the mail any day now, and I can hardly wait (hey, that sounds like a good title for a Stooges short). I like the Keaton Columbias a lot, so if the Educationals are in the same league I won't be disappointed. The "problem," if it is one, with both series seems to be the low budgets, but at MGM Buster had the opposite situation: plenty of money was spent on the look of the films, but he had almost no creative input— which literally drove him to drink (that, and the state of his marriage).
According to his autobiography, Buster tried to talk Harry Cohn into spending more money on the shorts, but Cohn wasn't interested, and that was when Buster quit making what he called "crummy two-reelers" and returned to MGM as a gagwriter and script doctor... for less money. But approaching middle age, he must have been sick of the grind of crankin' em' out on a three-day shooting schedule.
To say that these shorts are better than the ones L&H made for Roach is a pretty strong claim; I've always found that budgets don't matter much if you've got truly great comedians. All of the studios that were making comedy shorts in the early sound era were low-rent: not only Educational, Columbia, Paramount, and Roach, but also Mack Sennett (who was about to close his studio for good, but not before he turned out four classics with W.C. Fields). The days when Joseph Schenck would let Buster spend as much money as he wanted on his films were long over.
