Admittedly, I am but a newcomer to collecting public domain VHS tapes, so I apologize for this post. Hopefully, this will stir up some conversation.
I have two VHS tapes from this company called New Age Video: their “Foghorn Leghorn” tape and their “Heckel [sic] and Jeckel [sic]” tape. Now, the weird thing is that these tapes have completely different cartoons on them that don’t match what’s listed on the box.
While the Foghorn Leghorn tape claims to contain:
- Crowing Pains
- Play Safe
- All’s Fair at the Fair
...it doesn’t. Not even close. Instead, it contains three Little Audrey cartoons:
- Tarts and Flowers
- Butterscotch and Soda
- Song of the Birds
The Heckel and Jeckel tape claims to contain:
- The Talking Magpies
- Hawaiian Birds
- Susie, the Little Blue Coupe
It actually contains:
- Wolf! Wolf! (Mighty Mouse) [TV titles]
- Presto Chango (Chuck Jones’ 1939 “proto-Bugs” Merrie Melodie) [Blue Ribbon reissue; surprisingly, the opening WB shield and music is kept]
- Hep Cat Symphony (one-shot Noveltoon) (end card replaced with a generic “THE END”)
- A Tale of Two Kitties (Blue Ribbon reissue) [strangely, the opening WB shield and the music are NOT kept. It fades in on the cartoon’s title card with no music cue. Also, there is no “That’s all Folks!” at the end.]
The quality of the cartoons is fair. The prints are faded and worn.
Wolf! Wolf! had the most saturated color out of all seven cartoons on both tapes.
Hep Cat Symphony didn’t look too faded either.
Strangely, the Closing Logos Wiki's
page on New Age Video says that this company is possibly the predecessor of Alpha Video. The tapes had the second logo seen on the page.
Now, I’d like to call on the public domain tape collectors to answer some questions for me:
Were the tapes simply in the wrong box, or were mismatched tapes a common occurrence with this vendor?
Did New Age Video manufacture any other tapes?
Have a good day.