Emergency!:
The Complete Series
(1972 - 1979/Blu-ray Set*)/Huckleberry
Hound
Show: The Complete Series
(1959 - 1961/Hanna Barbera/Warner Archive Blu-ray Set)/Jurassic
World Rebirth 4K
(2025/4K Ultra HD Blu-ray w/Blu-ray/*both Universal)/Spencer
For Hire: The Complete Series
(1985 - 1988/Warner DVD Set)
4K
Ultra HD Picture: B+ Picture: B/B/B-/C Sound: C+*/B-/A-/C
Extras: C-/C+/C+/D Main Programs: C+/B-/C+/C+
PLEASE
NOTE:
The Huckleberry
Hound
Blu-ray set is now only available from Warner Bros. through their
Warner Archive series and can be ordered from the link below.
Now
for three TV series that are at least minor classics, a new one based
on some other classics and the latest installment of one of the most
successful movie franchises around....
Emergency!:
The Complete Series
(1972 - 1979) has been the biggest TV show about fireman ever made,
even with Chicago
Fire
logging about the same run so far, it has not produced as many shows
per season, plus no tie-in comic books, action figures, six TV
movie/telefilms (actually included here) or even an animated spin off
(Emergency
+ 4)
giving you an idea about how successful this was in its time. That
does not mean it is spectacular TV, but it is not bad, but started to
wear thin midway into its run.
Still,
like CHiPs,
Dragnet
and
Adam
12,
the shows remained popular long beyond if they could come up with
anything new, all veering into a little more comedy, depending on how
much they started with. Either way, this is for fans of the show,
the very curious and just to have it available this way in the
highest quality yet. Better than any other way to see the show, hope
Universal continues to mine their TV classics in this way.
We
have covered a few of the previous DVD season releases, which were
issued a very long time ago, but pretty much cover what you get from
the show, what I further think about it and you can read all about it
at these links for the following seasons:
Two
https://fulvuedrive-in.com/review/3373/Emergency!+-+Season+Two+(Universal+DVD
Five
https://fulvuedrive-in.com/review/8055/Emergency!+%C3%A2%E2%82%AC%E2%80%9C+Seas
Extras
do not include the six telefilms because they were the final entries
in the series the way I
Love Lucy
became The
Lucy Desi Comedy Hour,
so the only real extra here listed is the crossover they did with
Adam
12.
No bonus episode of the animated Emergency
+ 4
series or featurette on al their memorabilia, so that's all, unless
we get a Blu-ray release of the animated show.
The
Huckleberry Hound
Show: The Complete Series
(1959 - 1961) is one of the earliest and most important shows Hanna
Barbera ever made because they created a fun, entertaining,
child-friendly group of lovable animal charterers that they could do
many things with and create entertaining situations with. Also
including segments featuring and including (beyond the title
character's segments) Yogi Bear, Mr Jinx, Pixey and Dixey, Hokey Wolf
and so many more, the show was an immediate hit that the company
built wisely on and helped the new medium of television start to
establish its own identity in animation separate from theatrical
feature films and theatrical animated shorts.
In
another smart move, Hanna and Barbera made the show in full color
despite barely any color TV existing when they started production in
1958, much like the George Reeve Superman
and other early productions anticipating color TV's eventual boom.
The writing is amusing, use of color really good, limited animation
pushing itself to be as good as it could be considering the budgetary
limits and such wonderful work by the voice actors that put the show
over.
So
successful, the show here takes up 11 (!!!) Blu-ray discs, but the
quality is consistent and for the young viewers that has always been
the show's intended target, all kinds of fun. Even in an era of CGI,
big budget animation and all kinds of other alternatives, this all
holds up and this upgrade by Warner Archive brings out a freshness
and energy that will surprise most viewers and even fans who at best,
might have seen these shows on a 16mm or 35mm color film print if
they were lucky. Some Regular 8mm and Super 8mm reels (sometimes
silent, in color and black and white) and sometimes as part of toy
film viewers, will also be impressed.
That
makes Huckleberry
Hound
at least a minor classic, certainly a groundbreaking TV show in ways
many might not have originally considered and now delivering some
entertainment, surprises and laughs for adults who might not expect
it to be more than a 'kids show' when it is more. The result is one
of the best back catalog TV releases of the year!
Extras
include three vintage featurettes from the older DVD set including
Huckleberry
Quotes: The Remix Video,
The
Legendary Sounds Of Daws Butler
and Huckleberry
Hound:A Linguistic Masterpiece,
plus Warner combed very thoroughly through their Hanna Barbera vault
holdings and found all kinds of extra bits, especially animated TV
ads for many Kellogg's Cereal brands in both color and black and
white, left into the various episodes as you would have seen them
then, so enjoy that too!
Gareth
Edwards' Jurassic
World Rebirth 4K
(2025) lived up to its name by reviving the franchise by having some
of the best sound design of the year, best (or very little good) CGI
work of the year and the coup of landing Scarlet Johansson
as its lead with the usual results (mixed but with its moments) and
doing very well at the box office, reviews notwithstanding. After a
flashback scene of more deadly disaster related to one of the
dino-facilities, Johansson leads an ace team to go back and see what
they can salvage.
Of
course, live deadly dinos will be the 'surprise' result and the chase
begins, but the audience knows what they want and the film just
delivers the usual, but updated with a big budget to back it up,
competent and efficient, if nothing new or truly surprising. The
rest of the decent cast also participate in the supplements as listed
next.
Extras
are many as expected and
include, Digital Code, while the discs add an ALTERNATE OPENING
RAPTORS
featuring Mahershala Ali, Jonathan Bailey, Rupert Friend, Manuel
Garcia-Rulfo, David Iacono, Luna Blaise and Audrina Miranda
MUTADON
ATTACK featuring Scarlett Johansson, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, David
Iacono, Rupert Friend, Luna Blaise and Audrina Miranda
THE
WORLD EVOLVES Journey into a reimagined Jurassic
World
with Scarlett Johansson, Jonathan Bailey, Mahershala Ali and the
rest of the cast and filmmakers.
OFF
THE DEEP END Dive into the thrilling ocean sequence and learn about
the challenges of shooting on open water, the one-of-a-kind gimbal
used to toss around the Essex and Mariposa, and the VFX wizardry
that brought the Mosasaurus and Spinosaurs to life.
TREKKING
THROUGH THAILAND Follow the cast and crew's footsteps as they
navigate the challenges of shooting in exotic jungles, beaches, and
tall grass fields that become home to the Titanosaurs.
REX
IN THE RAPIDS Brace for a T.rex encounter that's different than
anything experienced before with a nail-biting river chase recreated
from Michael Crichton's original Jurassic
Park
novel.
DON'T
LOOK DOWN Soar into the Quetzalcoatlus sequence with Scarlett
Johansson, Jonathan Bailey, and Bechir Sylvain as they train for and
shoot their cliff rappelling scenes.
MINI-MART
MAYHEM Go inside the heart-stopping third act of Jurassic
World Rebirth
and witness the process of crafting sets that allow the movie's
mutant dinosaurs to step out of nightmare-inspired designs and stop
on an exhilarating rampage.
A
DAY AT SKYWALKER SOUND Actress Audrina Miranda guides a personal
tour of Skywalker Sound in California to meet the audio editors,
foley artists, and mixers who design the movie's wide array of
sounds.
For
more on the
series, here's our coverage of the previous films in 4K:
The
first four films
https://fulvuedrive-in.com/review/15174/It+Takes+From+Within+(2014/First+Run+DVD)/Jurassi
Jurassic
World: Fallen Kingdom 4K
https://fulvuedrive-in.com/review/15253/Altered+Perception+(2018/Cinedigm+DVD)/Horror+Of
Jurassic
World: Dominion 4K
https://fulvuedrive-in.com/review/16168/Black+Phone+(2020/Blu-ray+w/DVD*)/Flying+Guillotin
Spencer
For Hire: The Complete Series
(1985 - 1988) is one of several hit TV shows the late, great Robert
Urich was the star and co-star of. They also included the original
S.W.A.T.,
Soap,
Vega$,
The
Lazarus Man,
a Love
Boat
revival and a few other shows that did not last as long as was hoped,
like the TV version of Bob
& Carol & Ted & Alice,
Tabitha,
Gavilan,
American
Dream,
Crossroads,
It Had
To Be You,
and the strange Emeril
series. Even without adding his telefilms and appearances on other
TV shows over the decades of his too-short career, does he not hold
some kind of record for one of the most successful TV leading men of
all time?
Well,
this was his fourth big hit TV series and watching it now, you can
see why, the right amount of energy, ease in delivering the lines,
camera likes him, has chemistry on his own and with the other actors,
seamlessness in moving through each show and some real personality.
This new Warner DVD Set of the show is a reprint of the three seasons
Warner Archive issued years ago (down to the menus) and this is what
I had to say about the debut season:
https://fulvuedrive-in.com/review/12997/Dynasty:+The+Final+Season,+Volume+One+++Volum
The
show never sold its fans out and a few even had some controversy, so
the show never condescended to its audience or went soft on it,
though the show fell victim to the weekly TV grind more than I would
have liked it to. However, it was one of the few mature such shows
TV was offering in its genre in the 1980s and that is an
accomplishment in itself.
There
are sadly no extras, though there were TV movies that are not
included here for some reason.
Now
for playback performance. The 2160p HEVC/H.265, 2.35 X 1, Dolby
Vision/HDR (10; Ultra HD Premium)-enhanced Ultra High Definition
image on Jurassic
World Rebirth 4K
is as solid as you would expect for a big budget blockbuster backed
by Spielberg, shot on 35mm Kodak Vision 3 color negative, real
anamorphic Panavision and using most state-of-the-art Ultra HD
equipment around for the best CGI you can get and though stylized to
be dark (and darker than I would have liked at times) is the best
performer on the list, of course. However, the repetition got to be
a bit much at times, some detail and depth is better than others more
often than it should be and its fine for the genre, but I miss how
good the early films (at 1.85 X 1, by the way) looked.
The
1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image on the Blu-ray is softer
and a little more color-challenged than I expected, so it is here for
convenience at best. Both
discs offer a lossless Dolby Atmos (Dolby TrueHD 7.1 mixdown for
older systems) mix that is one of the best of the year, active and
truly using all the channels to best effect, something that is more
lacking in current films lately than it should be.
*The
1080p 1.33 X 1 digital High Definition image transfers on the
episodes of Emergency!
are a huge improvement over the DVDs with some nice color with some
pretty good depth and detail, the show never looking better outside
of some pristine film prints few people ever got to see, but the
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Mono lossless mixes are another matter.
Until you get to the later telefilms, the sound is surprisingly
limited, a little lower in volume than I would have liked and so much
so that I recommend being careful of high playback levels and volume
switching. They are clean, but should sound a bit better. Still, it
is better sound than the DVDs just enough, but it should have been on
par with similar Universal TV series on Blu-ray from the time like
Kolchak:
The Night Stalker
and Buck
Rogers,
which look even better than this set.
The
1080p 1.33 X 1 digital High Definition image transfers on the many
episodes of Huckleberry
Hound
tend to defy their age when in the beautiful color used, but we also
get more than a few black and white segments that do not look bad
either, all involving sponsorship as noted above. There are small
flaws here and there, but these are really impressive and (again
outside of seeing pristine full color film prints, which very few
have) will surprise and impress just about anyone who gets to see
them. The DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Mono lossless mixes are
varied in that the oldest shows sound boxy and old, with the newer
ones a little boxy, but offer comparatively better dynamic range.
In
this, you can tell the older segments from newer ones (older ones
sometimes repeat later) form the newer ones, but in all cases, are as
god as they will likely ever sound.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.33 X 1 image (bookended) on the Spencer
episodes have the same slight softness their earlier pressing had,
while the lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono on all the shows tend to be
weaker than they should be and the combination shows the age of the
transfers. They'll do for now, but the show was shot on 35mm film
and some mighty want a Blu-ray set at some point, along with those
telefilms.
To
order the Huckleberry
Hound
Warner Archive Blu-ray set, go to this link for it and many more
great web-exclusive
releases at:
https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/ED270804-095F-449B-9B69-6CEE46A0B2BF?ingress=0&visitId=6171710b-08c8-4829-803d-d8b922581c55&tag=blurayforum-20
-
Nicholas Sheffo
