While the first season’s amazingly uneven, a lot of the individual cartoons are brilliant, and it is definitely a prototype for most of what’s been interesting about television animation since.

To get to the point, I’m very curious about who designed Bat-Bat. Was it Lynne Naylor? It kind of looks like it, but Kricfalusi said that the story had been in developement for some time, and lots of the crew not in the credits worked on it.

The influence on Timm’s Batman design is obvious. Not to take anything away from what Timm did. I love the DC animated stuff, and I know Naylor was a lead designer on Batman. But whew, if I didn’t know the dates, I’d swear Bat-Bat was a parody of the animated Batman, both in appearance and the way he moves!

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Some other stuff I was happily reminded of:
A poster for the movie “Howard the Man” pasted on a fence in “Mee-ow!”
“This stuff is thicker than Country Music!”
Mighty’s father, “Le-Roj” (nudge, nudge) is actually Little Rocquefort with a cheesy mustache.

I did not have to be reminded of my all-time favorite line: “No wonder they call television a ‘medium!’ Nothing about it is rare or well done!”

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When I think back to one DVD set that impressed me far back, it was the Clerks cartoon series with the way each episode had a commentary track, plus animatics for each episode that was selectable by the angle function, not to mention the DVD-Rom features. Prior to that release, we hadn’t really see a DVD devoted to a cartoon series, let alone one that lasted only two weeks on ABC, give that much attention via home video. Getting back to Mighty Mouse, it would’ve been nice if more money had gone into at least the commentaries themselves if they had let them continue on with more episodes to enlighten us on the creative process at work on this show, or perhaps try to get Bakshi in to do an episode or two where he tells the viewers of his days at Terrytoons or how he got the classic 80’s show off the ground and the people who help shaped it and gone on to successful careers themselves. Heck, even Rev. Wildmon doing The Littlest Tramp by himself would’ve made for laughs just off the bat.

Again, we all should be thankful the series is finally out and ready for consumption once again. Now if they can get Muppet Babies out on DVD too, that will complete the menagerie of CBS’s Saturday mornings in the 80’s! I often felt this show, plus Pee-Wee’s Playhouse and Garfield & Friends were the ones that dared to be different among others on schedule during their time on the air. Some or all of them shared in clever writing, effective use of stock footage and weren’t afraid to try a few things like break the fourth wall for a laugh.

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Now, suppose that Mighty Mouse does well or Jerry Beck convinced Paramount enough that they wanted to open the vault (and buy out the rights from Lionsgate). What Paramount cartoon series from the 30’s and 40’s would do better in needing extra restoration?

One option would be to save Paramount trouble and restore cartoons originally filmed in color- because UCLA has more of those cartoons. I ain’t sure what condition the negative to a certian farm cartoon is in, because the one thing that I want to see on that particular one is the Paramount logo- not re-created, but in its original pristine as-is condition.

I know their video budget, even for their heavily marketed shows and movies, is lower than Disney’s or Warner Home Video’s budget.

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