"Classic Tribute Edition: Superman Cartoons"

Nothing more than a pirated copy of the official "Superman" cartoons.

A huge hello to all and every Superman fan out there. You might be wondering why this VHS tape is something you likely have never seen before, worried if you missed out in completing your collection. I've got some sad news: This VHS is a re-distributed copy of the official animated series by Max Fleischer.

This tape contains four episodes: Electric Earthquake, Volcano, The Underground World and Destruction Inc. in this volume. Possibly the most thrilling episode I found happened to be Volcano—a crisis the state of Hawaii is currently undergoing due to volcanic activity. Where's Superman when you need him? As for the episode Electric Earthquake, this should raise some eyebrows. Why? Conspiracy theorists—"Truthers"—say that a natural disaster like earthquakes can artificially be triggered by government while news media makes their citizens believe it's a "natural disaster." I don't know about that, but it's spooky, and that episode shows how that could come into being.

Alright about the tape: How did this company get away from re-distribution? Isn't that what these major studios warn home viewers about? There's a barcode number on it, and being that my parents bought this copy for me as a child, it seems that the company that distributed these copies must have gotten some rights to do so. I don't know. For the video itself, you can tell it's a ripped copy from the official cartoon. The audio is also sort of muffled at times. Could be because of its age or because it's a copy from the real thing.

Since VHS tapes are barely in the market today, Paramount and/or Warner Brothers are less likely to chase after those who duplicate/pirate cartoons, TV shows and/or movies on VHS to be re-sold. Today, we have 4K/Ultra HD and Blu-ray, and re-producing for those formats require royalty payments to Sony, which makes selling pirated movies/TV a bit more difficult. The good thing is it combats piracy and you won't have to worry about getting a pirated copy; The bad news is that because the costs of royalty, this makes it tougher for underrated movies to seek a remaster in HD.

There's barely any information on these tapes online but one thing's for sure is that you're better off getting the official copy. If you're a huge collector, then this is an amusing tape to keep. For casual fans and viewers, it's just another tape.

Kris Caballero

Founder of KCU Network and KCU Plus, Kris has been writing since he managed a personal blog made back in late 2005. Officially back to doing computer programming (software development) and video production, Kris enjoys reading books on Mathematics, Quantum Computing, Philosophy, playing old video/DOS games, digital video archiving, and listening to sports, public radio and classical music.

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