In these modern times there is a veritable smorgasbord of ways to get your fix of Christmas films.

Yes — you can still pick up VHS tapes of movies (and cheap), but the format that replaced VHS in the hearts & minds of modern Americans is the DVD. (Of course Blu-ray discs are looking to replace those, but that’s a separate article).

Even with the immense popularity of the DVD format certain films have not been released because they have been deemed unlikely to make money. Warner Bros. has come up with a program to release films like these to consumers without producing large quantities of them they might get stuck with. This is accomplished through something called Warner Archives.

Fortunately for us Christmas folks Warner Archives offers a handful of movie selections that you won’t find anywhere else. (Yes you will find them on Amazon, but they still come directly from Warner.) While I won’t be reviewing each film I will be discussing the quality of the films.

To start with, if you’re a fan of DVD’s that have been digitally re-mastered, you won’t find that here. Basically however these originally aired is how you will see them. Warner uses a manufacture on demand process which basically amounts to taking the original broadcast copy and slapping it on a DVD-R (like how you would make a DVD on your home computer).

So to give you an idea what you get let’s look at Yogi’s First Christmas as an example. In the opening of the film there’s a scene where Jellystone is spelled incorrectly. That’s on this disc. There are numerous scenes where Huckleberry Hound has blue ears and then in the next shot they’re black. Stuff like that pops up throughout. Let me reiterate there is currently no other version of these films available. When they pop up on TV, you’re going to see the same stuff, so if you MUST HAVE these films on DVD this is the only way to do it.

Second, when you pop in one of these discs, there’s nothing else on here. No commentaries, no behind the scenes, I don’t think there’s even a scene select. If you’re looking for a 2 disc special edition, directors commentary, yadda yadda, well you might be waiting a while.

Third, as I have stated previously these are DVD-R discs. While I can’t say these films will work on every player, I can’t say they won’t. I would say most players should have no problem with these discs.

That’s pretty much all I have to say about these discs. My opinion? I like them fine. I was able to get my hands on some films that I might not have been able to get otherwise. I’m not sure how I feel about the quality. While there is something to be said for watching films the way they were originally shown, there is something to be said for re-mastered discs as well, which is something we will be discussing on the MMC forums. As for extras? Well I won’t say I’m not disappointed, but I can deal with it.