Streaming may last many years, but that’s no guarantee YOUR favorite retro shows and cartoons will always be available. Not everyone has time to binge watch! Your shows will eventually, perhaps sooner than you think, be removed from whatever streaming service you use…sometimes without warning! If you have enough room, build your own personal DVD and Blu-Ray library full of classic favorites, such as the following listed below, which are not currently (but should be) on modern physical home media!
1. Salute Your Shorts (1991-1992)
The cast of Salute Your Shorts! Picture credit to yesteryearretro.com
The only live-action pick for the list is a great classic from Nickelodeon! Remember the adventures of summer camp? This is a comedic spin on those adventures; geared towards teens and pre-teens alike. Join the campers of Camp Anawanna (“we hold you in our hearts!“) in the early ’90s as they navigate such things as first crushes, recycling, and the Freddy Krueger-like legend that is Zeke the Plumber! All while head counselor Kevin “Ug” Lee tries to reign in the cheeky shenanigans of rebellious redhead Bobby Budnick! Don’t forget to listen for announcements from the elusive Dr. Kahn!
Salute Your Shorts can be found streaming on Paramount+… For now! It’s never received an official physical home media release.
2. Cartoon Planet (1997-1998)
Space Ghost (right) manages his villainous co-hosts Zorak (middle back) and Brak (lower middle); Moltar (left) was on Space Ghost Coast to Coast! Picture credit to decider.com
The funny little spin-off from Space Ghost Coast to Coast (1994-2008) starred the ghost himself and two of his villains: the mantis Zorak and that teddy bear-like, lovable goof Brak! Together they entertained viewers with stories such as Brak’s school days (often ending in his getting a spanking). Or they sang silly songs: “I Love Almost Everybody“, “Don’t Send in the Clowns“, “Mashed Potatoes“, and more.
Often the draw of the show was watching Space Ghost be his usual egotistical self while Zorak verbally spars with him and Brak keeps things G-rated with his innocence.
Cartoon Planet currently has no official streaming source. All the more reason to get your hands on something tangible, if they’d ever make it so!
3. Eek! The Cat (1992-1997)
Eek! The Cat exploding into your screens! Picture credit to tvtropes.org
Another classic which squ-Eek!-s by as it’s mostly known to ’90s kids who saw it on the Fox channel. This is all about feline Eek who basically gets decked by life a lot of the time. Smacks, whacks, and explosions befall this poor cat who always takes it in stride while cheerfully exclaiming “Kumbaya!”
What’s so amusing there, you ask? It reminds us former ’90s kids now that we’re grown adults with life slapping *us* around to laugh good and hard sometimes as it happens; else go mad! Plus, we always knew back then that Eek would emerge alive and basically well every time.
Scooter (left) guides Bill (right) to his latest invention: the chair! Picture credit to YouTube (via “Victor’s Nelvana Shows” channel)
What’s more, there was always a reason to bust a gut laughing at the near-successes/constant failures of caveman inventor Scooter whose pal Bill suffers each and every invention asking “When does the hurting stop?”
Eek! The Cat currently has no official streaming source. It received extremely limited release on physical home media: one VHS tape in the ’90s with a few episodes, and not very many DVD volumes over in the Czech Republic, Russia, and Hungary.
4. Cadillacs and Dinosaurs (1993-1994)
Eluding dangerous dinos in Cadillacs and Dinosaurs! Picture credit to tubitv.com
It was the ’90s; of COURSE we needed one more cartoon advocating for the protection and care of our planet’s environment! In this case, the phrase encompassing the environment/ecology being “the machinatio vitae” (aka “the machinery of life”) as instructed and lived out by our story’s hero: a “Mechanic” (basically a protector/cultivator of life) named Jack Tenrec.
His is a post-apocalyptic world of the future where dinosaurs have returned to commonplace status while what’s left of humanity tries to get by restarting the world on terms meeting either harmony with all living things or mankind dominating and destroying everything greedily.
Jack Tenrec (left) and oft-times partner Hannah Dundee (right)! Picture credit to comicartfans.com
It had some sci-fi elements; “old” world 21st century technology in a somewhat primitive society. The show lasted all of thirteen episodes, barely a full season. Yet it was still pretty darn creative and cool as Jack and his associates navigated the jungle world of former New York City encountering dinos and marauders out for Jack’s technology! Though don’t ask me what fueled Jack’s Cadillac…
Cadillacs and Dinosaurs currently streams on Tubi and Amazon Prime. Select episodes made it onto VHS release in the 1990s, but never got a complete series release on physical home media.
Final Thought
“Physical home media all day any day. After streaming services started to purge content I will never trust them again.” said The GNN Greats fan Sean Fox.
“When I lived with my parents, we lived in a spot that was hard to get any sort of reliable Wi-Fi signal, so I very much preferred having physical copies of movies and TV series.” added Zach Damon; a fellow fan of The GNN Greats.
I know, streaming is so convenient! But if you have the means to own physical home media, it’s worth a few extra bucks to have those old-school favorites in your personal library! And these four mentioned shows are just a taste of the best picks which are either streaming somewhere or not and have no physical home media yet. More picks to come!
Any non-streaming classics you want to see on home media? Comment below! Check out this Geek News Now article about live geeky commerce being better than geeky e-commerce! Also, subscribe to Geek News Now and give its Facebook page a like!
