Chihuahua Too! (2013/E1 DVD)/Children Make Terrible Pets …and more stories about families + Don’t Let The Pigeon Stay Up Late!/Mo Willems Cartoon Collection, Vol. 3 (Scholastic DVDs)/Dora’s Great Roller Skate Adventure (Nickelodeon DVD)/Magic School Bus: In A Pickle + Revving Up set (Scholastic DVDs)/Regular Show: Fright Pack (V. 4/Cartoon Network/Warner DVD)

 

Picture: C+ (Chihuahua: C)     Sound: C+ (Chihuahua: C)     Extras: D/C/D/D/C-     Main Programs: D/B-/C+/B-/C+

 

 

Now for our latest children’s titles…

 

 

We start with the telefilm Chihuahua Too! (2013) which is not from Disney and has nothing to do with their overrated Beverly Hills Chihuahua releases, but is as weak, lame and forgettable.  No such claim is made, but Morgan Most’s romp here will not worry if you make the error, as both variants are as silly and may be exploiting the breed more than either production company would like to admit.

 

Here come precocious children mix with a house that is haunted by a dog named Sophie (?!?), here come the laughs?  The goal of the teleplay is to bring a family together again in a phony way, but the whole thing rings false from the first scene and note of formulaic music.  Sad.  There are no extras either.

 

 

Next come the much better DVD singles from the Scholastic Storybook Treasures line in Children Make Terrible Pets …and more stories about families and Don’t Let The Pigeon Stay Up Late!, the latter of which we have covered the previous volumes of and is subtitled The Mo Willems Cartoon Collection, Vol. 3.  You can read more about the previous release at this link:

 

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/11562/Alvin+&+The+Chipmunks:+Chipwreck

 

This volume has three shorts in all also including Knuffle Bunny Free: An Unexpected Diversion and Edwina, The Dinosaur Who Didn’t Know She Was Extinct, both co-voiced by none other than Cher  Willem does an on camera interview and we get an Edwina animated piece with a chocolate chip cookie recipe.  Pets has four shorts including the title short, Joanne Woodward narrating All The World, Crow Call and Lynn Whitfield narrating Elizabeth’s Doll.  Extras include interviews with authors of Pets (Peter Brown), World (Marla Frazee) and Crow (Lois Lowry) and both disc have Read-Along subtitles.

 

Nice additions to the series, the other thing that stood out is that the shorts are very recent, whereas most releases in the series (including massive box sets) mixed older and newer shorts Scholastic has produced over the years.  I only hope this does not mean the company is going to start ignoring its back catalog.

 

 

Dora’s Great Roller Skate Adventure is the latest Dora The Explorer DVD singe from Nickelodeon and features three programs including the title show, Check-up Day and School Science Fair.  A nice set with a nice cover, the latter two shorts are listed as bonus, but we will not as this disc is short enough at 69 minutes, but covers tend to be generic in children’s DVDs and the one here is one of the better one’s, Dora or not.

 

 

Scholastic is also making sure they keep marketing their fine Magic School Bus series with Lily Tomlin as the voice of the adventurous school teacher Ms. Fizzle.  In A Pickle is a DVD single with four episodes (3 + 1 dubbed bonus, but we will not include it as such) and the Revving Up set has three DVDs with the same 3 episodes plus one “bonus” show, which we will again ignore.  That give the set 12 shows and focuses on working and making things, especially on a big scale.

 

These and other singles are on the site and I bet we’ll see more, but we recommend the Complete Series DVD box reviewed at this link:

 

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/11780/Adventures+Of+The+Wilderness+Fam

 

 

Finally we have the Regular Show: Fright Pack (also known as Volume Four) which continues the DVD single “Pack” series that also includes the Party Pack DVD:

 

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/12051/Adventure+Time:+Fionna+&+Cake

 

… and the Slack Pack DVD

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/11931/Eagleheart+%E2%80%93+Season+1

 

 

You get 14 shorts that tie into the same subject of scary tales (including 2 two-part tales) and it is as fun a sampling of the series as any we have seen to date.  This one is in time for Halloween and is as good a place as any to start if you are unfamiliar with the show.  A Villains Gallery is the only extra.

 

You can settle for any or all of these DVD singles or just go to the Blu-ray sets for the first two seasons instead on sale now, reviewed at this link:

 

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/12267/Regular+Show+%E2%80%93+The+C

 

 

The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on Too should be the sharpest and clearest presentation here, but it is too soft and detail challenged to really enjoy, so a few such 1.78 X 1 shorts on the Scholastic sets and all the Regular Show presentations look better as well as the remaining clearer, cleaner and having better color.  We get 1.33 X 1 presentations on the other Scholastic shorts where applicable, all the Dora and Bus installments with only minor aliasing and detail issues.

 

All DVDs offer lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo sound and all sound fine for it, but for some reason, the mix on Too is weak and a little digitally harsh, so be careful of volume switching and high levels.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo