Ultimate Underdog Collection, Vol. 1 DVD: Review By Mushy

The Ultimate Underdog Collection, Vol. 1 features the world's favorite mutt fighting crime and battling injustice wherever it may rear it's ugly head. There are 6 episodes for a total run time of 120 minutes. The episodes in this set are:

- The Big Dipper

- The Gold Bricks

- Fearo the Ferocious

In The Big Dipper, the evil Simon Barsinister wants to dry up all the water in the world. The Gold Bricks features Underdog's nemesis Riff Raff attempting to pull off the biggest gold heist ever. Lastly, Fearo the Ferocious has Fearo, a giant monster that has set his sites on Underdog's sweetheart, Polly Purebred. Also mixed in with these episodes are shorts featuring the likes of Tennessee Tuxedo, Tooter Turtle and others.

While these cartoons are quite simple and the outcome is never in question that Underdog is going to find a way to succeed, there is also something comforting about seeing this canine in action. No matter what he is doing, no matter who he is going after, Underdog always seems to be doing his best by any and everyone.

Interview With Underdog's Co-Creator

Joe Harris, the co-creator of this cartoon sits back and gives us a nice historical look at this show. It began in 1963 and he wanted to make sure that Underdog's expression only got mean when he was dealing with the bad dudes. Harris then talks about modeling Polly Purebred after Marilyn Monroe, and how the voice of Riff Raff was modeled after the famous actor George Raft. He then focuses on the popularity of the show and how the phrase "There's no need to fear, Underdog is here," is still universal today.

The Underdog Show's Family of Characters

Full Screen. Digitally Remastered. For this DVD, I very much think that it's a case of the DVD compression really helping the look of this show. Not that I think these things would look that bad in their analog form, I just think that in this digital format they played stronger. Everything about the drawings seems like it was bumped up in quality. The colors weren't rich but they seemed to be more contained than might normally be the case on TV. Also, there were times where things got a bit shaky, especially with certain camera moves, but all in all things looked pretty decent here.

Sadly, they don't list out what kind of audio this release has. I found that I had to level things about halfway on my TV but once I did that things were okay. I didn't find that there was anything about the sound that really blew me away, but for what it did do it seemed to underscore and accentuate the stories of the episodes in a nice way.

They have clearly bumped up the front cover images here so that they have an extra degree of shine. Underdog flies through the air with his fist outstretched while Polly runs around below him. The back cover features another shot of Underdog, another shot of Polly, as well as images of Underdog's foes. There is a description of what this DVD contains, episode descriptions and a Special Features listing. Very good packaging all the way around.

There are probably a lot of people that will find The Ultimate Underdog Collection, Vol. 1 hard to watch. I say this, not because I did, but because these cartoons are quite old. They are showcasing a different style of animation that probably looks quite primitive by certain standards. However, I think when one examines the richness of these hand drawn episodes they will be quite pleased to see how well this DVD has treated them. Sure, there were moments where things seemed to get jittery or some dirt seemed to creep up on the images. Yet, as purely a piece of animated history, this DVD does serve a bigger purpose.

At the same time, I will admit that I wished this set had contained more episodes. I think Classic Media, the manufacturer of this DVD, probably would have been better served to include a lot more episodes. In fact, I believe they released two other DVD volumes to compliment The Ultimate Underdog Collection, Vol. 1, why didn't they simply release all of them together?