See, HBO Max has restored cartoons but they are missing a lot of shorts because a certain character who appeared in several of the early shorts. I'm very reluctant to buy the set because the discs may not be the uncensored replacement discs and we all know what happened to the Tom & Jerry Golden Collection Vol. 2... "sigh"

Personally speaking, I think the picture and audio quality on those sets are just fine. One could argue that those old sets, with awesome cartoon selections and some great bonus features, are better than the Blu-Ray. But I digress…if you aren’t too nit-picky with your choice of restorations, definitely get the Spotlight sets if they’re cheap.

A few things:

- The repackaged version does include the replacement disc versions with the uncensored cartoons and original soundtracks (His Mouse Friday and Feedin' the Kiddie are still censored). However, they are compressed to unwatchable with something ridiculous like 30 cartoons per disc.

- The individual sets can still be found on eBay and third-party sellers, and it's more than likely you'll get the corrected discs.

- The masters are generally OK for '90s quality with a few egregiously DVNR'ed cartoons. And of course, some of the cartoons that have looked notoriously awful in HD (Zoot Cat, Bowling Alley Cat, Heavenly Puss) look much better in the old versions.

My advice: get both the individual sets and the repackaged version just in case... They are pretty cheap at this point.

Thanks. I'm definitely getting the individual sets for the commentaries.


Edit: Got all three individual sets, the Spotlight sets have significantly better extras than the "Golden Collection", everything is uncensored except "His Mouse Friday" of course. I was lucky to get all three volumes with the first two having corrected discs.

The irony is that the His Mouse Friday crop is rendered ineffective on any monitor without overscan. You can STILL see most of the little cannibal.

I am all for getting the Spotlight Collection sets for the sake of completion. But I think it's weird to argue that they have "better" extras than the Golden Collection. The first and only release of the Tom and Jerry Golden Collection series reused a lot of the Spotlight bonus features, and also had some new special features produced exclusively for the Blu-ray. Obviously, the planned Volumes 2 and 3 with the rest of the H-B shorts would have continued to use the Spotlight extras sprinkled with some newly-produced stuff.

The repackaged set also has some of the worst packaging and blandest cartoon selection menus to ever grace DVD, in my opinion. Four DVDs are stacked on top of each other, what a genius idea! Not, unless you like breaking discs. I'm sticking with the individuals.

And depending on how crazy you want to make yourself, "Tom and Jerry's Greatest Chases Vol. 3" is (to the best of my knowledge, everyone correct me if this is out of date) the only U.S released DVD version of "Touché, Pussy Cat!" that includes as an audio option the original MONO mix containing the little mouse singing "Frere Jacques", the song that somehow didn't make it into the stereo version on the Spotlight DVD's. His voice was accidentally omitted in the stereo mix, and you just hear the background music while he's painting.

The Spotlight disc only has the stereo mix, the Greatest Chases 3 gives you both.

In fact, the Greatest Chases 3 is unfortunately the only way to watch the MONO version as all US copies of "Touche, Pussy Cat!" have the stereo version of it. Even Amazon Prime has the stereo mix AND is in pan-and-scan. Ugh.

Can anyone tell me what does "repackaged" mean on individual spotlight releases on Amazon? Does it mean that it includes the uncut cartoons? Or does it mean that it's no longer a tri-fold/bi-fold case like the originals were?

Here's someplace you can order it from for only $14.95 (plus $4.00 for shipping, plus sales tax):

http://www.hamiltonbook.com/tom-and-jerry-spotlight-collection-volumes-1-3-dvd 

Also:

http://www.hamiltonbook.com/tom-and-jerry-the-gene-deitch-collection-dvd 

(I've been ordering from their print catalog for nearly 30 years so I think they can be trusted.)

Also, here are some low-priced DVD sets of early Hanna-Barbera TV shows:

http://www.hamiltonbook.com/the-huckleberry-hound-show-season-1-volume-1-dvd 

http://www.hamiltonbook.com/the-yogi-bear-show-the-complete-series-dvd 

http://www.hamiltonbook.com/the-flintstones-the-complete-first-season-dvd 

http://www.hamiltonbook.com/top-cat-the-complete-series-dvd 

http://www.hamiltonbook.com/the-jetsons-the-complete-first-season-dvd_4 

I really wish that the entirety of Huckleberry Hound was released on Blu-ray, but Warner's excuses along with David Zaslav will ensure that will never happen. Top Cat and Yogi Bear on Blu would be awesome as well.