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Mack Sennett’s
Fun Parade
(1913-1932)

Contents: Barney Oldfield’s Race for a Life (1913), Muddled in Mud [A Muddy Romance] (1913), A Desperate Scoundrel [Dirty Work in a Laundry] (1915), Whispering Whiskers (1926), Taxi Dolls (1929) and Crooner’s Holiday (1932).

Alpha Video
2010 DVD edition

Mack Sennett’s Fun Parade (1913-1932),
color-toned black & white, 66 minutes total, not rated, including Barney Oldfield’s Race for a Life (1913), color-toned black & white, 10 minutes, not rated, Muddled in Mud [A Muddy Romance] (1913), color-toned black & white, 9 minutes, not rated, A Desperate Scoundrel [Dirty Work in a Laundry] (1915), color-toned black & white, 18 minutes, not rated, Whispering Whiskers (1926), color-toned black & white, 10 minutes, not rated, Taxi Dolls (1929), color-toned black & white, 9 minutes, not rated, and Crooner’s Holiday (1932), color-toned black & white, 11 minutes, not rated.

Alpha Home Entertainment, distributed by Oldies.com,
ALP 6370D, UPC 0-89218-63709-3.
One single-sided, single-layered, Region 0 NTSC DVD-R disc; 1.33:1 aspect ratio picture in full-frame 4:3 (720 x 480 pixels) interlaced scan image encoded in SDR MPEG-2 format at 6.8 Mbps average video bit rate (capable of progressive scan upscaling to 60 fps); Dolby Digital (AC3) 2.0 mono sound encoded at 384 Kbps audio bit rate; English language intertitles, no subtitles; 6 chapter stops; standard DVD keepcase; $7.98 (raised again to $9.99).
Release date: 31 May 2010.
Country of origin: USA

Ratings (1-10): video: 3 / audio: 3 / additional content: 0 / overall: 3.

This DVD-R collection of Mack Sennett comedies has been mastered from subpar 8mm and 16mm reduction prints. All films have been color-toned in blue to attempt to dress-up a collection of poor source prints.

Barney Oldfield’s Race for a Life (1913) has been mastered from a fair 8mm reduction print, with dust, speckling, schmutz, frame jitters, and other print flaws present in the picture.

A Desperate Scoundrel [Dirty Work in a Laundry] (1915) has been mastered from a poor 8mm reduction print of the 1918 rerelease version of the film, with contrasty blasted-out highlights and featureless shadows. Dust, speckling, schmutz, and other print flaws are present. Awful.

Taxi Dolls (1929) has been mastered from a fair to good 8mm reduction print (stupidly identified as a Keystone comedy by the print producer) that is blurry on the left side of the picture, with dust, speckling, and other print flaws present.

Whispering Whiskers (1926) has been mastered from a poor to fair 8mm reduction print, with dust, speckling, schmutz, frame jitters, and other print flaws present. Another awful source print.

The films are presented with soundtracks compiled from preexisting music recordings.

Supplemental material includes a Bing Crosby short, Crooner’s Holiday [Dream House] (1932) from a contrasty 16mm print.

For our comparative reviews of some of the individual films in this collection, see our A Muddy Romance on home video page.

Note: Our library copy of this disc was originally manufactured on a standard DVD. However, copies sold today will likely be provided on MOD DVD-R discs.

We don’t recommend this below-average disc since most of the films are available elsewhere in better-looking editions on home video.

This review was updated in 2026.

This Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition is available from
ALPHA VIDEO through . . .