"Gosh, everybody loves your book, Clutch. And Paddlefoot likes that part about dinosaur bones." - Clutch's young sidekick Spinner (voiced by Margaret Kerry) at a book signing for Clutch's latest tome, "Clutch Cargo's Adventure Log Book"
Clutch Cargo: The Complete Series: Volume 1 DVD Review
By Jonathan Boudreaux
Quick - name the adventure-filled animated series featuring a prematurely grey, square-jawed globetrotter, his young charge, and their yippy dog. You're forgiven if you answered Jonny Quest, but the similarly themed Clutch Cargo beat that classic Hanna-Barbera cartoon to the small screen by almost five years. Created by cartoonist Clark Haas, the series follows the exploits of Clutch Cargo (voiced by Richard Cotting), an internationally acclaimed memoirist whose Clutch Cargo's Adventure Log Book topped bestseller lists worldwide. The book details Clutch's feats of derring-do as he travels the globe thwarting criminals, solving mysteries, and helping damsels in distress. Assisting Clutch is his traveling companion, Spinner (Margaret Kerry) a wide-eyed boy naïf who nevertheless helps to get his more seasoned pal out of jams, and Paddlefoot (Kerry), a lumpy dachshund who is also an excellent judge of character.
Many Hanna-Barbera TV productions are criticized for their shoddy animation techniques - constant reuse of backgrounds, minimal character movement, etc. Even the worst of their output, however, look like meticulously crafted Disney films when compared to Clutch Cargo. Cambria Productions, the show's producers, were obviously short on cash but long on creativity. Some of the shots are so primitive they look as if they were animated (a term I use generously) by a precocious twelve-year-old who graduated from doodling on the back of his history book after receiving a camera for Hanukah. Motion is often created by simply jiggling a static animation cell, or even the camera itself. Does a building catch fire in the course of an episode? Don't draw it - simply light a match, film the flames, and superimpose them on the animation. Then, blow some cigarette smoke in front of the camera for extra added effect. But these primitive techniques not only come across as charming at times, they also bump shoulders with images so stylized and detailed that individual cells would be right at home in a classically drawn newspaper comic strip like Prince Valiant.
The cheap-o technique for which the series is most infamous, however, is its "patented Syncro-Vox technology" created by cameraman Edwin Gillette to cut back on the expense and effort of animating the characters' lips. The animators simply start off by painting the entire cell with the exception of the lips. The faces of real actors are then made up to match the characters' skin tones. Their mouths are filmed in close-up and then superimposed onto the animated faces. The result is a disturbingly odd amalgam of cartoon characters with actual human lips, an added bit of weirdness so unintentionally funny that it is even aped on shows like Late Night with Conan O'Brien. It is unclear whether Clutch Cargo's disembodied lips are those of the actual voice actors, and sometimes the producers don't even bother with moving lips, instead opting to paint in static mouths instead.
By now you're probably thinking "Who would want to watch this stuff?" In actuality, the series is quite charming. Clutch Cargo's strengths include its adventuresome plotlines, many of which are on par with those of Jonny Quest. There are some tongue-in-cheek laughs to be had (as when Clutch's Eskimo friend seeks shelter from the heat in an ice cream truck), but the series mostly takes itself seriously. The mysteries don't break new ground, but they are engaging. And despite its low-tech production values, many of the visuals are quite striking. For example, the series manages to achieve a surprisingly sophisticated sense of depth of field. Is the show cheesy? Yep. Is it worth watching? You bet.
Each episode of Clutch Cargo is divided into five mini-installments, and each installment is sequentially numbered. The series' first episode, "The Friendly Head Hunters," contains installments 1 through 5, for example, while episode two contains installments 6 through 10. The episodes are self-contained, however, and each storyline is completely wrapped up within its five installments. This technique allowed stations to run individual installments on their local kids' shows. Each adventure could play out over a single day or even over an entire week.
The twenty-six episodes included in Clutch Cargo: The Complete Series: Volume 1 are divided onto three discs. The discs are housed in a simply yet effectively designed sand colored digipak. Disc one is printed with a drawing of Clutch, Spinner, and Paddlefoot. The remaining two discs are double-sided. Thanks to the clear plastic trays in which the DVDs rest, the DVDs are removed to reveal individual portraits of Clutch, Spinner, and Paddlefoot. The reverse sides of the three panel digipak feature episode titles found on each disc as well as a listing of the discs' bonus materials. The digipak slides into a cardboard outer sleeve.
The full motion DVD menus are especially attractive. As music from the series plays on a continuous loop, Clutch, Spinner, and Paddlefoot run across the screen in a coolly stylized sequence. Viewers can choose to play all of a disc's episodes, or view the episode list. The episode list menus employ a map motif, with Clutch moving his finger from the name of one adventure to another. Unfortunately, there are no chapter stops to allow viewers to jump from installment to installment.
