The
Phantom Toolbooth
(1969/MGM/Warner Archive DVD)/Strawberry
Shortcake: Fun Under The Sun
(2014/Fox DVD)
Picture:
C+ Sound: C/C+ Extras: D/C- Main Programs: C+
PLEASE
NOTE:
The
Phantom
Toolbooth
DVD is now only available from Warner Bros. through their Warner
Archive series and can be ordered from the link below.
Here's
a few more children's titles...
Chuck
Jones and Abe Levitow co-directed The
Phantom Toolbooth (1969)
while Jones was enjoying his tenure at MGM. An animated feature
bookended by live action footage has a young Butch Patrick (The
Munsters, Lidsville)
as a young man who suddenly finds a strange box in his house that
turns into a toolbooth. A mini-car even shows up and he is asked if
h wants to go through or not. When he does, he becomes animated.
Choosing to take the trip, he lands up in a Dr. Seuss-like world of
absurdity where each character knows something about math, science or
knowledge.
It
is not a great work, but a smart ambitious one that deserves
rediscovery and though Jones repeats himself a little bit, there are
still enough nice moments throughout that young children should all
be able to see this one once. June Foray, Mel Blanc, Daws Butler,
Cliff Norton and Hans Conreid are among the great voice actors here.
There
are sadly no extras.
Strawberry
Shortcake: Fun Under The Sun (2014) is a simple, short and
child-safe enough CGI installment of the new generation of the title
character in action, but sadly lasts only 66 minutes, so this is a
rather basic single. Still, it is at least a place to start for
newcomers or one big fans will want to see and hear. Extras include
Digital HD Ultraviolet Copy for PC, PC portable and iTunes capable
devices, DVD-ROM printable Coloring Pages and a Music Video.
Hope
they do better next time.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image on Phantom and
anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on Sun are about even,
though Phantom has a slight color range edge in part because
it was remastered for this release. The lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
in Phantom is a little weaker than I would have liked and
could use a lossless upgrade, so the lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
on Sun is just a little better.
To
order The
Phantom
Toolbooth
Warner Archive DVD, go to this link for it and many more great
web-exclusive releases at:
http://www.warnerarchive.com/
-
Nicholas Sheffo
