I was not your normal nine year old boy. I wasn't an athlete, nor did I care much for sports on television. I was mostly an introvert as a child, I didn't have any friends, the television was my friend. Indeed, I would spend hours in front of it, devouring whatever I could find. I mostly held a fascination with older movies, cartoons and TV shows. As such I frequented Nickelodeon's "Nick At Nite" block as well as their sister network TV Land which, at the time, was the only place to watch such classic sitcoms as The Andy Griffith Show and The Munsters, two of my all time favorites. I was fatherless, as my dad had died two years earlier, so Andy Griffith and Fred Gwynne served as my role models.
In addition to my love of classic TV, I also held an obsession with vintage animation. I would always have my dial turned to Cartoon Network late at night for airings of their anthology animation programs, one of which being my absolute favorite The Popeye Show. It was this wonderful gem of a program which made me want to be a cartoonist. While that occupation and I never crossed paths, I still dabble in the arts from time to time, mostly after a steady diet of classic Max Fleischer cartoons.
This was 2004 and a bulk and majority of this vintage material hadn't been released on officially licensed DVD yet. Add to that, the fact that we were a lower-income household and couldn't afford the pricier DVD sets. As such, the early days of my DVD collecting began and ended with the dollar product which frequented stores like Walmart, Dollar Tree, Family Dollar and the like. These were released by various companies who specialized in public domain content and even licensed product on the cheap. I remember walking into Walmart in 2004 with my mom and seeing at the front of the store, this turnstile rack filled to the brim with slim-case DVDs. While she would shop, I would spend hours leaving through the many titles that occupied that rack. The company who released these DVDs for the exquisitely low price of one dollar, was Digiview Productions, a newly established organization headed by one Michael Omansky.
These DVDs were a Godsend to someone like me, I was wowed when I would see DVDs of The Andy Griffith Show or Popeye for such a low price, making them irresistible to both me and my mother's wallet. Sadly though, Digiview appears to have closed in 2007 as a result of multiple lawsuits brought forth by copyright claimants who claimed that the company had invalidated their intellectual property.
I was crushed, the dollar DVD era was over, however I never forgot Digiview and the education those inexpensive DVDs gave me in film, television and animation history. This blog is dedicated to Digiview and especially Mr. Omanky who made nine year old Geno Cuddy ecstatic with the opportunity to own his favorite shows and cartoons for low prices. I will be collecting and discussing the company's film, television and animation output and will provide my own thoughts as to whether the disc was worth the dollar paid back in the day.
This is the Digiview Deep Dive!
I remember the initial crop of Cartoon Craze volumes that came out in Wal-Mart about two decades ago. Even nearing my thirties, I found them hard to resist. And because they were numbered, I had to have them all! After those, I felt little need to buy later (unnumbered) volumes, but did sweep up a good deal more from other stores when the mood hit me (mainly their Christmas collection). I hope to provide you with pics and thoughts on these in the near future.
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