Dora’s Halloween Parade (Nickelodeon DVD)/Garfield Show – Spooky Tails (Vivendi DVD)/Hey Arnold – Season One (Shout! Factory DVD)/El Perro Y El Gato (HBO DVDs)/Fanboy
& Chum Chum: Brain Freeze (Nickelodeon DVD)/The Legend Of Rin Tin Tin (Mill Creek DVDs)/Shirley Temple: Everyone’s Little Princess (Mill Creek DVDs)/Yo Gabba Gabba: Music Makes Me Move (Nickelodeon
DVD)
Picture: C+
(Mill Creek sets: C) Sound: C+ (Mill
Creek sets: C) Extras: D (Garfield:
C/Fanboy & Rin: C-) Main Programs:
C+
Now we
look at a new wave of children’s DVD titles, most of which are better than the
usual releases.
Dora’s Halloween Parade and Garfield Show – Spooky Tails may be coming out in August, but are
Halloween-geared titles and the results are two of the better entries in their
respective series. With four and six
episode respectively, I was more amused than usual, even though I am not as
happy with this Computer Animated version of Garfield.
They are both good releases and Garfield adds
more bonus shorts.
Hey Arnold – Season One is a reissue by Shout! Factory of
a set Nickelodeon issued themselves before, which we covered at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/7496/Hey+Arnold!+%E2%80%93+Season+1
This is
pretty much the same set, now back in print and that should make fans happy.
HBO has
issued four DVDs of the charming El
Perro Y El Gato animated TV series that teaches children English and
Spanish at the same time. Translating as
Dog & Cat, the volumes include The Adventure Begins/La Aventura Comienza, From Here To There/De Aqui Para Alla, Together Again/Juntos Otra Vez and Unleashed/Sin Correa. I recommend them all and hope we see more.
Fanboy & Chum Chum: Brain
Freeze and Yo Gabba Gabba: Music Makes Me Move are
two more entries from the Nickelodeon hits similar to our previous coverage
elsewhere on this site, but I have to say they are two o the more energetic
shows on the network and make for fun DVDs for children. They both have good humor, are child-friendly
and respect their audiences more than most such shows. Seven and four episodes appear on the
respective discs and Fanboy has one extra in the Original Animatic to the title
episode.
That
leaves us with two budget releases from Mill Creek. The
Legend Of Rin Tin Tin has four Saturday Morning Movie Serials the famous
dog and his offspring made after the former’s huge success for Warner Bros.,
but these were made for Mascot (later merged into Republic) and all have fun
and energy to spare, though the older two (with the original Rin) are rough prints but worth a
look. Serial fans will be happy, though
all deserve to be restored for High Definition and future generations. An overly long featurette is the only extra.
Shirley Temple: Everyone’s Little
Princess is the
latest Mill Creek DVD release on the actress in another low budget set
recycling the first three DVDs form the Legends Series we covered at this link…
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/8822/Shirley+Temple+%E2%80%93+Legend
…then
adds a fourth disc with four more films: A
Boy, A Girl & A Dog (1946 with Sharyn Moffett and Lionel Stander), The Green Promise (1949 with Natalie
Wood), Mickey (1948) and a 1955
version (an hour long from TV) of Miracle
On 34th Street. There are
no extras and the picture and sound are the same average presentations ad the
previous releases.
All have 1.33
X 1 image and Dolby Digital 2.0 Audio, with the newer titles in stereo and the
presentations in all cases (save Temple) are about as good as can be expected
in the format and under the circumstances.
- Nicholas Sheffo
