A Child’s Garden Of Poetry (HBO DVD)/Dennis
The Menace – Season Three (1961 – 1962/Shout! Factory DVD Set)/Leap Frog 3 DVD Learning Collection
(Lionsgate)/Mr. Magoo – The Television
Collection: 1960 - 1977 (Shout! Factory DVD Set)/The Pigeon Finds A Hot Dog! (Mo Willems V.2) + Teeny Tiny & The Witch-Woman (Scholastic/New Video DVDs)
Picture: C+ Sound: C+ Extras: D/C-/C+/C+/C Episodes: C+/B-/C+/B/C+
A new
cycle of child-aimed titles mark the continuations of some known names and a
new item. To encourage a new generation
of poetry readers, HBO and The Poetry Foundation have come up with A Child’s Garden Of Poetry, a nice
introduction to the subject including readings by Carrie Fisher, Claire Danes,
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ziggy Marley, Julianne Moore, Liam Neeson, Jeffrey
Wright, E.E. Cummings, Josh Hamilton, Dave Matthews and Carl Sandburg among
others. It only runs 27 minutes, which
we guess is supposed to be enough for young children, but why not include more
bonus shows? There are no extras.
Dennis The Menace – Season Three follows the nice Season Two set we covered not too long
ago at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/11060/Dennis+The+Menace+%E2%80%93
The shows
stay fun and energetic, plus have their funny moments, but despite no extras,
the sound is actually better overall on this set. Picture quality is the same and you get 38
half-hours over five DVDs. An episode
guide booklet in the case is the only extra.
The link
for Dennis also includes the last Leap Frog set and we have a new once
coincidentally arriving at the same time.
Leap Frog 3 DVD Learning
Collection that includes a booklet in a lightweight paperboard box (maybe
more fragile than it should be) and this one includes three programs we missed:
Amazing Alphabet Amusement Park, Learn To Read At The Storybook Factory
and Numbers Ahoy. Picture and sound quality is consistent with
previous releases.
Mr. Magoo – The Television
Collection: 1960 - 1977 is a new DVD set from Shout! Factory not to be confused with The Mr. Magoo Show DVD set I covered
back in early 2005 from Classic Media:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/5597/The+Mr.+Magoo+Show+-+The+Compl
This has
all the TV shows from that set and adds The
Famous Adventures Of Mr. Magoo (1964 – 65), the TV special Uncle Sam Magoo from 1970 and the
amusing 1977 series What’s New, Mr. Magoo. Though the previous set had a nice booklet
not included here, you get a new booklet and material on the DVDs including
audio commentary tracks, photo gallery and new featurette “Oh Magoo, You’ve Done It Again.”
I like the show and the character so well voiced by the great Jim Backus
and this is a nice introduction to the character. Hope we get the theatrical shorts soon. The picture is the same (1.33 X 1 color with
some softness at times, but also some nice color throughout) and the Dolby
Digital 2.0 Mono is better overall even if we don’t include the later shows
which would be expected to sound better.
For more Magoo, you can read about the limited edition CD soundtrack to
the theatrical feature film 1,001
Arabian Nights here:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/3308/Bell,+Book+&+Candle/1,001+Arabian
Finally we
have our latest Scholastic releases, this time in two singles that are not
bad. The Pigeon Finds A Hot Dog! is The
Mo Willems Cartoon Collection Vol. 2 and he is interviewed in an extra,
plus we see Pigeon animated and
there is a piece called Getting To Know
Mo Willems. It is one of three
shorts here (Knuffle Bunny Too and Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed are the others) and it makes for an
interesting collection. Teeny Tiny & The Witch-Woman
includes the title short from 1975, plus Boy With Two Shadows, Los
Gatos Black on Halloween, What’s Under My Bed? And King
Of The Cats just in time for the holiday. We’ve seen some of these before, but it is
another good set just the same. Picture
and sound are the same as previous Scholastic releases which is just fine for
the format. We get an interview with
author Marisa Montes (of Los Gatos)
and both DVDs have Read-Along functions.
- Nicholas Sheffo
