Strawberry Shortcake – Adventures On Ice Cream Island +
Best Pets Yet
Picture: C+
Sound: B- Extras: C- Episodes: C+
To my surprise, the character Strawberry Shortcake
lives. What I thought would be a young
girls novelty has turned out to be more resilient than expected. Certainly the craze for the actual toys has
died down since their introduction, but here she is in a continuing series of
DVD releases. Here, we take a look at Adventures
On Ice Cream Island and Best Pets Yet.
As far back as The Fleischer Studios Color Classic short Somewhere
In Dreamland (reviewed elsewhere on this site in a collection named after
it), the idea of a world of sweets and plenty is a dream for kids, especially
in a first world country like the United States. Whereas the Fleischer short has this as a dream of very poor
children, a franchise like Strawberry Shortcake offers this world as a
given and constant. That is also
obvious for a program that is still designed to sell the toys and other items
in the series.
Even the DVD cases are strawberry pink and when you open
them up, they smell just like strawberries.
To have a world like this where our heroine visits an ice cream island
is ideal, but in another way seems redundant.
If this was food, we would get sick to our stomach from too much
sugar. Hopefully, no one will try to
eat the cases.
The other volume that celebrates her pets is equally
amusing, though a sales pitch for more toys seems imminent. With that said, there is nothing too
exciting or innovative about these shows, but they are not too harmful give or
take the overdone commercialism. This
is for young girls and I would think either would be fine if they wanted one,
but also could not imagine this having much replay value or that one could be
picked out as a favorite.
The full frame 1.33 X 1 video is not bad, but looks a tad
aged. The color is consistent, if
somewhat limited. The prints also look
pretty clean and this is all hand-drawn animation. The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo has Pro Logic surround capacity,
even if the box does not indicate this, but you can experiment to see which
more you prefer if you have a home theater system. The extras on both are limited and felt like a digital version of
Picture Pages with ultra-simple graphic games for children and even
Music Videos. Though far form the best
children’s DVD on the market, these installments of the Strawberry Shortcake
series are not derogatory and at least one could not hurt too much. Parents just have to decide when the toy
tie-in thing has gone too far, and they often do not.
- Nicholas Sheffo
