Hanna-Barbera had already achieved a level of success with the Banana Splits Hour, which featured, amongst other shorts, cartoons based on Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers. These cartoons were a bit livelier than most, thanks in no small part to the wonderful designs and technical models created by Alex Toth. Toth was a fan of swashbucklers and he went to town for the show. The episodes themselves were new stories, rather than straight adaptations of the novel.
Fast forward a few years and H-B is now producing animated specials for holiday broadcasts, often mining classic literature. As part of this program, they decided to do a full length adaptation of Dumas' novel. The Toth designs are put to work here, with the basic story of the Queen's diamond studs as the main plot. Since it was a special, things are a bit livelier than the Saturday morning cartoons, but still heavily sanitized. The action and intrigue that made the novel great are still present, but the story does drag a bit at times. The biggest issue is the voicework, which doesn't fully rise to the material. Still, this is one of the better H-B literary classic cartoons. It was released on VHS, via Taft Entertainment and its subsidiaries, but has not seen a DVD release from Warner Bros., who control the H-B library (though some of the classics material has been released via other outlets, so WB may not control these particular properties). It's a shame that a current video release is unavailable, though I suspect today's kids might be bored by the pace of the feature. Their loss, really. These specials were great favorites of mine at Thanksgiving time, when they would be broadcast. It would be nice to have a set of them available.
Fast forward a few years and H-B is now producing animated specials for holiday broadcasts, often mining classic literature. As part of this program, they decided to do a full length adaptation of Dumas' novel. The Toth designs are put to work here, with the basic story of the Queen's diamond studs as the main plot. Since it was a special, things are a bit livelier than the Saturday morning cartoons, but still heavily sanitized. The action and intrigue that made the novel great are still present, but the story does drag a bit at times. The biggest issue is the voicework, which doesn't fully rise to the material. Still, this is one of the better H-B literary classic cartoons. It was released on VHS, via Taft Entertainment and its subsidiaries, but has not seen a DVD release from Warner Bros., who control the H-B library (though some of the classics material has been released via other outlets, so WB may not control these particular properties). It's a shame that a current video release is unavailable, though I suspect today's kids might be bored by the pace of the feature. Their loss, really. These specials were great favorites of mine at Thanksgiving time, when they would be broadcast. It would be nice to have a set of them available.
