Doc McStuffins: Friendship Is The Best Medicine (Disney DVD)/Mia & The Migoo (2009/E1 DVD)

 

Picture: C+/B-     Sound: C+     Extras: C+     Main Programs: B-

 

 

Female-lead child-friendly productions are more common than ever and some of them are very entertaining, including the following.

 

 

Disney may have a new long-term hit on their hands with Doc McStuffins: Friendship Is The Best Medicine with the title character a CG animated young African American doctor in a very charming, smart, fun show with just enough energy to keep things going without putting off its audience.  This DVD single has five double-story episodes and is a nice introduction to the show.  The supporting cast of characters are a plus.  Extras include a nice quality activities booklet inside the DVD case and Digital Copy for PC and PC portable devices.

 

 

Then we have the new animated feature Mia & The Migoo (2009) directed by Jacques-Rémy Girerd, an entertaining tale of a young lady who wants her father back and meets the titles characters in the middle of the forest.  Her father is working out there for a construction company, but they are out to ruin the environment for money and her father is missing.  A mostly hand-drawn feature (the package rightly boasts that 500,000 drawings were made to make this possible, but like the recent French animated feature The Illusionist (see our Blu-ray coverage elsewhere on this site), some CG animation/enhancements have been added here and there.

 

James Woods, Whoopi Goldberg, Matthew Modine, Shawn Wallace and John DiMaggio are among the voices here for the English dub, the only soundtrack available on this release.  Some aspects of the action and screenplay are more mature than you might expect, but this is a PG release and a quality release at that, so definitely put it on your child’s video list too.

 

Extras include two featurettes, one on making the film and the other on the director entitled Jacques-Rémy Girerd: Maker Of Dreams.  Both should be seen after watching the film.

 

 

The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on both discs look good, but Doc is a little softer than expected, though part of it is the format and part of that is the way the show is made.  Mia looks even better, but has some detail and definition limits that are likely not on the theatrical version since this is standard definition.  Wonder how it would look on Blu-ray.

 

Both also have lossy Dolby Digital soundtracks, with Doc offering 2.0 Stereo and Mia has a 5.1 mix, but they are soft, quiet and about even.  Mia does have some surround moments and even some bass, but dubbing can sound forward, though I wonder how this would sound in a lossless mix or in the original French mix.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo