Hulu spares no expense in tapping into the world's television libraries

Hulu is notorious for its half-assed approach to catalog television programming. Ever since I signed up, it has offered only 3 seasons of "Kojak," for example, and pity the poor guy who is excited to see the MTM shows on there only to find out there is only one season of "St. Elsewhere" and Hulu apparently has no plans to add any more.

This latest add is exceptional even by Hulu standards. I checked the "Recently Added" tab this weekend and saw "Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse," the 1960 syndicated Trans-Artists cartoon program that consisted of 5-minute shorts featuring the titular characters created by Bob Kane (apparently this time without Bill Finger). I used to watch these Sunday mornings on good ol' WPIX 11 out of New York.

I saw "Seasons (1)" above the icon for the series. OK, maybe there only was one season. I tried to look at all the episodes for that one available season and found...there is only ONE episode available!

Yep, one measly episode. Gee, thanks, Hulu. Can you spare it? Did "The Awesomes" blow up the acquisitions budget so much you could only get ONE half-hour episode? It's not like this is a coveted property running on more prestigious outlets. I don't remember seeing this show anywhere since I saw it on WPIX.

Granted, the definition of "episode" could be a little loose with this series, and this technically consists of multiple cartoon segments. And granted, some might argue that once you get past the cool "Peter Gunn" knockoff theme song, you don't really need to see too many of those in one sitting. But all we get are 26 total minutes! One episode!

This is Hulu PLUS, mind you, not the basic version. I'm paying for this! Hey, maybe if I ration out this single episode, I'll get my money's worth this month. One minute a day will almost make this last for all of September.

Coming in October: Hulu adds one Heckle and Jeckle cartoon. Then watch in November as it offers a scene from "Underdog." And as a special holiday treat, in December Hulu will upload a cel from "Top Cat."