There are fan sets of the MGM cartoons out there, I just haven't made it past the Tom and Jerrys at this point. I know there's the Region 2, complete Tom and Jerry that, despite some QC issues, is quite complete with even the Gene Deitch cartoons (which certainly won't get a decent release here!). And I've heard rumblings that there may be a really good Harman-Ising fan set in the works. I'd hope it includes the lavish musical cartoons as well as the stuff like Barney Bear. "Bottles" is a very favourite of mine from the Happy Harmonies series.
Mostly, recently, it's just been Stooges for me.
Something I would also love to see is/are complete episodes of the Bugs Bunny/Road runner show as seen on CBS in the 70's. I know they're out there...
Wishful thinking, for the most part. Some of these cartoons will never see the light of day on DVD's because they just aren't very good; the Gene Deitch Tom and Jerrys are a perfect example. This wasn't Deitch's fault, as he was given the skimpiest budget imaginable and the animation was farmed out to a Czech studio that had no idea of what the characters were about, or even how to draw them correctly. I can't see that there would be much demand for low-rent cartoons like this, if any... when I was a kid watching cartoons on TV and one of these came on, I'd cringe and change the channel.
Hugh Harman-Rudolf Ising cartoons
look good thanks to MGM's money, but most of them are pure kiddie fare that wouldn't entertain anyone over the age of six. They were trying to compete with Walt Disney for the juvenile audience, and in fact were ex-Disney men who quit and went off on their own, so it's no surprise that their product comes off as second-rate Disney. Again, who would
want these? Probably only the "completist" type of collector who wants to own every Hollywood cartoon ever made, and that's not a very big market. Personally, I'm not into buying anything just for the sake of owning it— above all, I want to be entertained, so I'll never buy a film or a music album or a book that I know won't entertain me and will only take up space on my shelves.
For Avery fans (
now we're talking), right now there's a Droopy DVD available, with all 24 cartoons beautifully restored. I think that's all, but I haven't checked lately for new releases.
Looking at the big picture, in this economy a lot of marginal, special-interest DVD's that might have otherwise come out by now have been shelved by the manufacturers because there's a lot less disposable income around. That's the grim reality of the situation.