Bands On The Run: The Rubber Band Movie (NEM DVD) + Bratz
– BFF + Care Bears – Flower Power
(Lionsgate DVDs) + Dog Tales Collection
(w/Sounder) + Horse Tales Collection (w/Misty/Mill
Creek DVDs) + Fanboy & Chum Chum
(Nickelodeon DVD) + Madeline & Her
Friends (Shout! Factory DVD) + SpongeBob
Squarepants – Heroes Of The Bikini Bottom
+ Yo Gabba Gabba - Circus
(Nickelodeon DVD)
Picture:
C/C+/C+/C/C/C+/C+/C+/C+ Sound: C+ (Bands/Tales Sets: C) Extras: D (Bands, Bears: C-/SpongeBob, Gabba: C) Episodes/Films:
C+ (Bratz/Horse: C)
This
time, we get to compare different types of children’s programming (form then
and now, as well as film vs. TV) and different eras….
Bands On The Run: The Rubber Band
Movie is a new,
recent CG animated program that is so odd that though child-friendly, the
combination of its cheap animation and storyline of five rubber bands (I kid
you not) being thrown away by truckers delivering them and leads them to “band”
together to get where they are going is the most unreal such program we have
seen in a while. The title will remind
many of the Paul McCartney & Wings album Band On The Run (reviewed elsewhere on this site) and one rubber
band looks like McCartney with punky spiked hair and a guitar. Oh, and we get music too. This is bound to become a curio, but expect
the oddest show. Extras include a
package of rubber bands stuck into the DVD case, as well as storyboards and a
making of featurette on the DVD. The
Image has strange flaws and Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo is a little weak.
Bratz – BFF, Madeline & Her Friends, SpongeBob
Squarepants – Heroes Of The Bikini Bottom, Care Bears – Flower Power and Yo
Gabba Gabba - Circus continue more of the same in single DVD versions of
the series/franchises we have reviewed before as follows:
Bratz/Madeline/SpongeBob
Squarepants
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/10836/Bratz+%E2%80%93+Good+Vibes+(C
Care Bears
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/10731/Care+Bears+%E2%80%93+To+The+
Yo Gabba Gabba
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/10695/Foghorn+Leghorn+&+Friends:+Barny
As
expected, the Bratz (four episodes)
and Care Bears (8 shorts, plus
trailers and parent’s guide) series are not getting any better, Madeline (six shorts) is being at least
consistent, SpongeBob (8 shorts,
plus bonus shorts and T.U.F.F. Puppy
episode) funny enough and Yo Gabba Gabba
(four episodes) an underrated show that still has yet to peak. It is more of the same, which even when it is
good, may only be good entertainment and not educational, repetitious and too
safe for the minds of its growing audience.
They are just fine for what they are, but they become much like the
previous releases and only a child will know what they think a favorite show
is. Picture and sound are also the same
as previous releases.
Mill
Creek has issued two sometimes odd DVD sets called Dog Tales Collection and Horse
Tales Collection that tend to mix up theatrical films from the Fox vault of
all things with bad TV movies. Dog is shocking (and maybe problematic)
by including no less than Martin Ritt’s 1972 hit Sounder about a poor black family trying to survive in the
South. Hard to believe Mattel Toys (home
of Barbie and He-Man) co-sponsored this film, but they did. Paul Winfield and Cicely Tyson are still good
here, but this is not a film about their family dog! The 1959 A
Dog Of Flanders is another Fox film included here (both in anamorphically
enhanced 2.35 X 1 transfers, though they are a little weak) and harmless duds A Dog’s Tale (2003) and Finn On The Fly (2008) that do not
work. Horse Tales Collection includes the 1961 Fix film Misty also in a weak anamorphically
enhanced 2.35 X 1 transfers, plus 1972’s Mary
White (with Kathleen Beller, Ed Flanders, Fionnula Flanagan and Tim
Matheson and duds Wind Dancer (2004)
and Wildfire – The Arabia Heart
(2009).
The
lesser works are fuzzier and have even weaker color and Dolby Digital 2.0
either Mono or Stereo that might as well be monophonic. There are no extras and these sets will only
go so far, but the earlier films reflect a more intelligent approach to
children’s programming newer shows have abandoned, even when they were boring
or did not work. Neither set has any
extras.
That
leaves superhero genre spoof Fanboy
& Chum Chum, a Nickelodeon CG animated series that definitely has
shades of the Batman & Robin team, but is also trying to be hip. They have silly arch-villains and there are a
few chuckles, but I give it some credit for having the Kick Ass style and attitude without the anger, hate and
crudeness. Whether this will last like
the shows above (and others in the links provided above) remains to be seen,
but it is at least somewhat ambitious, though no match for the similar likes of
Courageous Cat & Minute Mouse,
reviewed elsewhere on this site. Extras include
bonus shorts and Planet Sheen Pilot
episode.
I just
wonder where are (and why are there a lack of) the smart shows like Schoolhouse Rock anywhere outside of
PBS. It is something to think about and
maybe even be concerned at least a bit about.
- Nicholas Sheffo
