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Category:    Home > Reviews > Animation > Comedy > Adventure > Animals > Literature > TV > Mystery > CGI > Paddington Bear: The Complete Series (1989/Hanna Barbera/Warner Archive DVD Set)/Scoob! 4K (2020/Warner 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray w/Blu-ray)

Paddington Bear: The Complete Series (1989/Hanna Barbera/Warner Archive DVD Set)/Scoob! 4K (2020/Warner 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray w/Blu-ray)



Picture: C+/A- & B+ Sound: C/B+ Extras: D/B Main Programs: C+



Here's a pair of child-aimed animated releases to know about...



I do not remember ever seeing Paddington Bear: The Complete Series (1989) but it is not exactly like the live action feature film with a CGI animated Paddington, with only 13 episodes where he is a bit sillier and a bit more sloppy, but it is a child-friendly series, albeit for very young children. Issued across two DVDs, the first episode (''Please Look After This Bear'') has the Brown family find him partly dressed and at Paddington Station in the U.K., with them quickly bringing him home and everywhere else with them.


Made by Hanna-Barbera, I was surprised so few shows were made, but the company was in transition and despite being around for just over 30 years, the characters were not as well known in the U.S. as they should have or could have been. That has changed for the better enough, but maybe some of this could have been written with a little more ambition. Still, this is colorful, if sometimes limited and looks good for its age. It flows a little better than the feature film, but has its own limits, though young fans should enjoy it.


The 1.33 X 1 transfer can show the age of the materials used, but not much since we get few aliasing errors and a pretty clean, clear presentation, while the lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono is a little lower in volume than I would have liked, despite being clean and consistent. Just be careful of volume switching and high volume playback. This is among the last major animated TV series with monophonic sound before they all went at least into stereo.


There are sadly no extras.



Next and finally, Scooby Doo and his crew are timeless cartoon characters that have survived the test of time like few others. Seen here in their newest digitally animated re-imagining, Scoob! 4K (2020), the characters are brought back again in sleek animation that is comparable to the style of the Despicable Me films. Adding a superhero element to the story and spicing it up a bit from the normal spooky mystery, the gang is all here in a new adventure that mixes old elements with new elements to make for an overall fun update for fans.


The all star voice cast includes Frank Welker, Zac Efron, Mark Wahlberg, Jason Isaacs, Kiersey Clemons, Tracy Morgan, Simon Cowell, Gina Rodriguez, Henry Winkler, Christina Hendricks, Justina Machado, Will Forte, Ken Jeong, and Amanda Seyfried.


The Scooby Doo Gang have been solving mysteries for many years and soon find themselves separated when Shaggy and Scooby get abducted by a superhero named Blue Falcon (the classic Hanna-Barbera character, now voiced by Wahlberg) and his counterparts who are at war with Dick Dastardly who has an army of shapeshifting robots at his disposal. (However, Dastardly lost his pet Mutley in a bizarre multi-dimension star gate device and is still healing from that.) Eventually, the gang reassembles with these new heroes and discover that Scooby Doo is in fact the key to a world threatening ritual, all of which has been orchestrated by Dastardly.


Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and theaters across the globe shut down indefinitely, Scoob! didn't get a proper chance to play in front of audiences as I'm sure Warner Bros. would have liked. Which is likely why it was fast tracked to streaming services and home video (like HBO Max and now 4K UHD disc.) Still, it's not a bad children's film and makes one wonder what The Jetsons or The Flintstones would look like with a similar animated style and sleek update. Only time will tell if Warner will go back into the vault and pull out other animated properties to reboot in similar fashion.


Scoob! is presented in a 2160p HEVC/H.265, HDR (10+; Ultra HD Premium)-enhanced Ultra High Definition image on 4K UHD disc with a widescreen aspect ratio of 2.39:1 and audio mixes in English: DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit) lossless mix, which sounds fine for the nature of the film, but still a little shocking seeing that it's a 4K UHD disc. Also included is a 1080p Blu-ray disc of the film with identical widescreen and audio tracks. The 4K image is considerably sharper with more attention to detail in the animation than the Blu-ray, as big money went into the animation here. The soundtrack is a mix of updated tunes and a few oldies for good measure.


Special Features include:


Bloopers


Deleted Scenes


How To Draw Scooby Doo


New Friends, Newer Villains


and Puppies!!



- Nicholas Sheffo and James Lockhart (4K)

https://www.facebook.com/jamesharlandlockhartv/


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