Adult Swim is partially Cartoon Network's effort to mine the enormous Hanna-Barbera back catalog that fell into its lap through a series of mergers and acquisitions. This library includes cartoon legends like The Flintstones, The Jetsons, Jonny Quest and Scooby-Doo. But most of it is Saturday morning dreck from decades past, shows like Moby Dick and the Mighty Mightor, Hong Kong Phooey and, indeed, Birdman and the Galaxy Trio. What to do with these shows?

The answer was to re-market them to adults who grew up on them—in situations more in keeping with those adults' lives, and heavy on the irony. Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law is the most ambitious of these projects, drawing on the entire cast of Hanna-Barbera characters. It also focuses a little more on story than other Adult Swim shows. But not much more. There's plenty of random nonsense, and Harvey's case is often jettisoned along the way.

The show evolves over the course of this set. Early episodes draw mainly on Hanna-Barbera's big guns and tend to be very high-concept, like the aforementioned Jonny Quest, The Flintstones and Scooby-Doo episodes. They're sort of like articles from The Onion where the joke's in the headline and the article itself struggles to keep up. Gradually, the show shifts to more obscure guest stars and has to focus more on characters and on Birdman himself. This produces episodes like "Devlin Made Me Do It," in which obscure 1970s stuntman hero Devlin—now a fat maniac full of metal plates and steel pins, out of his mind on painkillers—is sued when a young fan disastrously imitates one of his motorcycle jumps.

Is all this funny? Frequently, yes. But it's spotty. In particular, the writers need to work on the concept of the running gag. (The important word is "gag." You don't make any random saying—like "Did you get that thing I sent you?"—funny simply by repeating it over and over again without any context.) Still, for every instance of Dude Humor, or random nonsense we're meant to laugh at because the show seems to think it's funny, there's a gem like Birdman's frequent courtroom opponent Reducto.

On balance, yes, Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law's strengths outweigh its weaknesses. And, despite generally lacking extras (the idea of having the censors and lawyers do a commentary track is inspired, but there's a reason these guys aren't usually on-camera talent), this set is worth picking up.