Chuggington:
Explorer Koko (Anchor Bay
DVD)/Dora & Boots:
Best Friends Forever/Paw
Patrol (Nickelodeon
DVDs)/Poppy Cat: Birthday
Treasure (E1 DVD)/Sophia
Grace & Rosie's Royal Adventure
(Warner Blu-ray w/DVD/all 2014)
Picture:
C+/C+/C+/B- & C Sound: C+/C+/C+/B- & C+ Extras:
C/D/D/D/C Main Programs: C+/B-/B-/B-/C
The
latest children's titles...
Chuggington:
Explorer Koko
is not a bad DVD single in the series with six episodes at 64
minutes, but I would have liked more episodes of this fun,
child-friendly show. Guess they think this is just enough for young
minds, but they may be underestimating their audience. Still it is
not bad.
Irving
& Chatsworth spotlights, Badger Quest bonus episode and
DVD-ROM printable coloring and activity sheets are the extras.
Dora
& Boots: Best Friends Forever
runs 192 minutes (!) and might be too much for adults, but at least
you get your money's worth with a bunch of episodes to keep young
viewers busy, but not much else to distinguish this from so many
releases on DVD from the series before. Still, it is a solid
release, but there are no extras.
Paw
Patrol
is Nickelodeon's new show with a team of heroic animals (and one guy)
to the rescue that is on DVD here for the first time and it is
amusing, entertaining and likely their next long-term hit.
Child-friendly, amusing and written well enough, the show has its
moments and establishes the animal characters just well enough to
keep up with them. It was not wildly memorable, but it might just
grow on us all.
There
are no extras.
Poppy
Cat: Birthday Treasure
is another show new to us and DVD with a very charming, very
child-friendly title character and adventures that includes some fun
friends. Rivaled only by Chuggington
as my choice for the best of the child titles by a narrow margin,
this runs 80 minutes and deserves to find as big an audience as
anything on this list.
There
are no extras.
Brian
Levant's Sophia
Grace & Rosie's Royal Adventure
(2014) has a very young duo of British female child singers in a
would-be comedy where they open up with a Rap act (no joke) that
starts this dud off on the wrong note. From there, we get more
formula than most babies in a week and this drags on and on and on
and on for a long 75 minutes. I do not know who this is meant for,
but it never really works. It is also outright odd and pushes the
child-friendly envelope. Parents, you have been warned.
Bloopers,
a clip about the history of the color pink, the duos appearance on
The Ellen DeGeneres Show, a Behind The Scenes featurette and
Digital HD Ultraviolet Copy for PC,
PC portable and iTunes capable devices are the extras.
The
1080p 1.78 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Royal
is barely the best performer on this list, but its anamorphically
enhanced DVD version is easily the worst, softest and lamest. The
1.33 X 1 on Dora
and anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 presentations on the rest of the
DVDs fall nicely in between the two for playback quality and have
decent color across the board.
The
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix on Royal
is sonically the best mix on the list here, while its lossy Dolby
Digital 5.1 DVD version joins the same 5.1 mix type on Paw
and lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo on the rest of the DVDs as the
next best releases sonically.
-
Nicholas Sheffo
