TVSquad

Here are the new TV DVDs, in stores tomorrow.

I started watching The Fairly OddParents a few years ago and completely fell in love with it. I have a couple of the DVD sets, but I was never sure how the DVD sets were organized. Sometimes they're by a "theme" and sometimes they're by a season or volume. But now we have actual complete season sets for seasons one and two, and I'm really looking forward to having them. Funny, though, how no one can agree whether it's Fairly OddParents or Fairly Odd Parents. I see it spelled both ways everywhere.

I won't be buying the Highlander: The Animated Series set though., There can be only one animated set to buy this week and I'm going with OddParents.

Here are the new TV DVDs, in stores tomorrow.

Question: how many freakin' versions of the original Star Trek are there on DVD? It seems like there's a new released every six months. And the funny thing? I bet hardcore Trek fans will buy all of them.

(Note: the Frost/Nixon set is not the Ron Howard movie, it's the original interviews between the two men.)

• American Dad - Vol. 4
• Fallen Angel - Compete Miniseries
• Frost/Nixon - Complete Interviews

I got the Flintstones complete series DVD set for Christmas, and I've been thinking about getting the complete set for The Jetsons too. The two shows are compatible. Not only were they made by the same people (Hanna-Barbera), but The Jetsons always seemed like a space age version of The Flintstones. The Jetsons had video telephones, The Flintstones had washing machines run by elephants.

FailOften.net has a fun piece about the technology of The Jetsons and how it predicted (or in some cases didn't) predict the world of 2009. One thing they got right was that video phone/video chat. The above pic shows a screen which is probably bigger than the computer screen you have in your home, but it's basically accurate. I particularly like that the animators remembered to include a camera on top of the screen. That could have easily been a bit of detail that could have been overlooked.

To a good portion of us both The Flintstones and The Jetsons were mainstays of our afterschool and Saturday morning television viewing. However, back in the 1960's both of these Hanna-Barbera creations were part of the ABC prime-time lineup. The Flintstones were a mainstay on the schedule from 1960 until 1966 while The Jetsons appeared in only the 1962-63 season.

Of course, being on the prime-time schedule there was bound to be some promotion of both shows. And, that's what you'll see after the jump: promotions for both The Flintstones and The Jetsons during their first run. Both of these clips are in black-and-white, even though both shows were produced in color. The Flintstones' promo is for the show's fourth season. The episode featuring Ann-Margret as Ann Margrock was the season premiere. Yes, Virginia, stars lent their voices to cartoons long before The Simpsons.

Sad news in the world of animation tonight: Joseph Barbera, half of the mega-successful animation team of Hanna-Barbera, died today of natural causes. He was 95.

As most people know, Barbera and his partner William Hanna were responsible for creating the most endearing cartoon characters of all time. From their first major creation, Tom and Jerry, they went on to create memorable characters like Yogi Bear, The Flinstones, The Jetsons, Huckleberry Hound, Scooby-Doo, and Jabberjaw (well, the last one was only memorable to me, I think). Hanna died in 2001, so this is the end of an era.

The AP obituary for Barbera mentioned that his strengths, according to Leonard Maltin, were comic gags and the ability to capture emotion with subtle drawing techniques (never thought HB cartoons were subtle, huh?), while Hanna was good at timing and conveying warmth. Say what you will about how they cheapened animation with their TV cartoons, especially the ones from the seventies; they've inspired many an animator in the last fifty-plus years.