The Three Musketeers (1973) watch online HD

Hanna-Barbera had already achieved a level of success with the Banana Splits Hour, which featured, amongst other shorts, cartoons based on Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers. These cartoons were a bit livelier than most, thanks in no small part to the wonderful designs and technical models created by Alex Toth. Toth was a fan of swashbucklers and he went to town for the show. The episodes themselves were new stories, rather than straight adaptations of the novel.

Fast forward a few years and H-B is now producing animated specials for holiday broadcasts, often mining classic literature. As part of this program, they decided to do a full length adaptation of Dumas' novel. The Toth designs are put to work here, with the basic story of the Queen's diamond studs as the main plot. Since it was a special, things are a bit livelier than the Saturday morning cartoons, but still heavily sanitized. The action and intrigue that made the novel great are still present, but the story does drag a bit at times. The biggest issue is the voicework, which doesn't fully rise to the material. Still, this is one of the better H-B literary classic cartoons. It was released on VHS, via Taft Entertainment and its subsidiaries, but has not seen a DVD release from Warner Bros., who control the H-B library (though some of the classics material has been released via other outlets, so WB may not control these particular properties). It's a shame that a current video release is unavailable, though I suspect today's kids might be bored by the pace of the feature. Their loss, really. These specials were great favorites of mine at Thanksgiving time, when they would be broadcast. It would be nice to have a set of them available.

I believe this is the animated version of the Three Musketeers that has been showing recently as a feature of the Banana Splits show on Boomerang. If I'm correct in this (and I'm fairly certain that I am) let me say that this is one very well executed cartoon. It is well animated with interesting characters and nicely drawn backgrounds. A young boy has been added as a nod to the kiddies in the audience and this addition is worked into the storyline very well. Thus far I have watched two episodes and enjoyed them both...especially the one about the haunted castles. That was a lot of fun. If you like the Three Musketeers and would like to check out a very cool animated version, don't miss the banana splits show which comes on every day around noon on the rockin' toon boomerang network. Swordplay, costumes, derring do, adventure, and comedy....how can it miss??????