Gerald McGoing Boing: Volume 1 – Adventures

+ Volume 2 – Fairytales

 

Picture: C+     Sound: C+     Extras: D/C (with book)     Episodes: B-

 

 

Even before Mr. Magoo became a pop culture icon, the groundbreaking U.P.A. animation studios (United Productions Of American) has their first hit in the early 1950s with Gerald McGoing Boing, the young man for whom only sound effects come out of his mouth.  For years, he was a fan favorite and over a half-century later, he has been successfully revived for TV and some of those shows are now on DVD for the first time.

 

Each featuring six episodes, Adventures takes him to realistic far-off places, most notable outer space, as featured on the cover and still in the 1950s style.  Fairytales is obviously more fantasy oriented, but has the kind of twist only Gerald’s talents could bring to them.  The show is listed as safe for ages 2 and up, something that is about accurate.  The new show does not sell out the spirit of the original show, so there may be more than young fans for these discs.  They are not overdone; they do not hit the audience over the head and have humor that is truly funny.  A legend has returned.

 

The 1.33 X 1 image is pretty good for a new series, but still has some slight softness despite the simplicity of the animation.  Color is a plus and playback is fine otherwise from clean copies.  The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo is good too, but there are no real surrounds here.  There are only a slight extra on each disc where you click onto one of several icons and hear the noise they make subbed “Soundcheck Game” that is not a game, but considering that there are only 70 minutes on each disc, too bad some of the classic shorts were not featured.  However, our copies came with miniature reproductions of a Little Golden Book with Gerald that is a nice bonus, though the same book comes with each volume.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo