Mill Creek Entertainment DVD Wave (Baseball’s
Greatest Legends/Dorf – Super Fan
Collection/The Mob – From Hollywood To Vegas/Nazi Hunters – The Real Story/NASCAR Greatest Finishes & Dominators/Outlaws & Gunslingers/Rock ‘N Learn Preschool + Phonics & Reading/Super Robot: Red Baron/[Late 2009/Early
2010])
Picture:
C Sound: C Extras: C [Dorf, Rock & Mob: C-; Nazi & Outlaws: D] Main Shows: C+ [NASCAR: C/Nazi: B-/Baron: B]
It is
time again to look at some of the special interest titles Mill Creek
Entertainment is issuing on DVD, including a few reissues and the best title a
reissue of a series that went out of print over a year ago. On this long list of nine titles (including
one that has two previous releases), you are bound to find something of
interest as follows…
Baseball’s Greatest Legends has nine profiles (one of the
game, the rest on players Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, Roger Maris, Willie Mays,
Mickey Mantle, Jackie Robinson, Pee Wee Reese and Lou Gehrig), plus you get an
extra piece on Ted Williams, behind the game, DiMaggio with Marilyn Monroe and
more. It is aged, but has its moments
and the stock footage is its best feature.
Dorf – Super Fan Collection is a compilation of the eight
specials (one offered for a long time on TV and sold very well) of Tim Conway’s
title character, who is midget-like, but more bizarre as he walks around on his
knees but with faux shoes on to indicate he is short. He has a “funny” voice, is politically
incorrect and is not all there. This at
least has a cult following and now it is all here. Watch him deal with sports like golf,
baseball, car racing and more. An 8+
minutes behind-the-scenes clip is the only extra.
The Mob – From Hollywood To Vegas contains two programs, including Vegas: The City The Mob Made, which we
already reviewed separately here:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/8878/Vegas+%E2%80%93+The+City+The
The other
program is the so-so Hollywood Vs. The Mob with is too simple, too
stretched-out, leans too much on myth and has too much overlap for its own
good. Some of it is like filler, but it
has a few good moments, but it is not always accurate either and seems calculated
to people who watch Gangster genre films.
A timeline and stills are the only extras.
Nazi Hunters is as dated as it is uneven, but
what does make this work is the raw, graphic material too many newer programs
have been skipping, maybe in part due to censorship concerns. It is the footage less seen that makes this
worth a look, but there are no extras.
NASCAR Greatest Finishes &
Dominators is a
cash-in piece that shows how gaudy the franchise has become, but the one
interesting thing is the older footage you do not see enough of its early days
that make this more watchable than expected.
The so-called Bonus Races are summaries at about an hour each, but we’ll
count them as so.
Outlaws & Gunslingers is a five-part piece that deals
with the title idea, than moves on to specifically cover Jesse James, Billy The
Kid, Wild Bill Hickok and Wyatt Earp.
This is better than I expected, but unless you are a fan of this
history, you may not be as impressed.
Rock ‘N Learn Preschool + Phonics & Reading uses what is left of the Rock genre to try
and teach children and it is not bad, even when compared to similar
programming. In an era when the Electric Company revival has turned to
Hip Hop, it is just as effective and logical, but these sets are for young
children only and only go so far. They
are not fun like the original Electric
Company or Schoolhouse Rock, but
child safe and not bad.
We save
the best for last with the Japanese giant robot series Super Robot: Red Baron, which was previously issued by the
now-defunct BCI Eclipse. You can read
about the show at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/7725/Iron+King/Super+Robot:+Red+Baron
Mill
Creek’s edition is a little less clear in picture and sound, while it is a
basic edition lacking the previous set’s extras, but it is cheaper and now
easier to find. The 1.33 X 1 and/or
letterboxed image on the rest of the programs follow, but they usually have
staircasing, aliasing errors and other softness issues throughout. The Dolby Digital 2.0 is monophonic on all
the releases and what little may be meant to be stereo does not sound so.
- Nicholas Sheffo