Clutch Cargo Cartoon Collection, Vol. 1 (1959) Review

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(More customer reviews)They certainly don't make cartoons like this today! "Clutch Cargo" was a television series about a professional adventurer that first aired in 1959. It was the pioneer of a system called "Syncro-Vox," in which an animation cel was combined with the live action lip movements of an actor who was wearing a mask to hide all but the mouth. The effect is very primitive by today's standards, but allowed the series to be made extremely inexpensively by the filmmakers. Often cardboard cutouts of the characters would be simply be moved past the animated backgrounds to indicate motion, though traditional animation was also used.
Each episode was in a series of five five-minute segments with the first four featuring a "cliffhanger" at the end (How will Clutch escape?!) with a final resolution at the end of the fifth. This disc has nine episodes.
Syncro-Vox was very innovative, but ridiculous looking. Because of that the effect has been frequently appropriated for comedic purposes, most notably by Conan O'Brien. These cartoons are throwback to a simpler and more innocent time. While children who have been raised on ultra-realism, slick animation, and CGI may scoff at these cartoons, adults will find them to be endearing classics.

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Clutch Cargo was a globe-trotting adventurer, writer andpilot. He would fly from one problem to another along with his apprenticeSpinner, dachshund Paddlefoot, and his pal Swampy. Cambria pioneered itspatented Synchro-Vox system (developed by Edwin Gillette for "talkinganimal" commercials in the 1950s) with this cartoon. The Synchro-Voxsystems combined still animation cels of the characters and live actors'lips superimposed over the characters heads to make the animation. ProducerClark Haas referred to Cambria's process of limited animation as "motorizedmovement." Cardboard cutouts of the character sometimes would be moved byhand past the background. To produce Synchro-Vox, the voice actor would befilmed in closeup, with a mask hiding everything but the actor's lips.Heavy makeup was used to ensure that the actors' skin color matched that ofthe cartoon characters. When in action, rather than animate the character,the cels were shaken, or the camera zoomed to simulate the motion. Therewere a total of 52 Clutch Cargo adventures produced. Each adventure orcomplete story arc was made up of five, five-minute chapters. The firstfour chapters ended in cliffhangers, with the fifth chapter wrapping up theadventure. VCI's first collection contains a total of 9 adventure episodeson 1 dual-layer DVD. Bonus Features: Episode Selection Menu| VCIAnimation Promo. Specs: DVD9; Dolby Digital Mono; 180 minutes;Color; 1.33:1 Aspect Ratio; MPAA - NR; Year - 1959; SRP - $14.99.

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