Miss Spider’s Sunny Patch Kids
Picture: C+
Sound: B- Extras: C+ Main Program: B-
At the site, we often criticize the terrible state of
computer animation, especially as visual effects in live-action films &
TV. However, it is thriving enough in
the world of totally animated children’s programming, even at the detriment of
great hand drawn work. One bright light
is Miss Spider’s Sunny Patch Kids (2003), a nearly hour-long program
that does a faithful job of imitating the illustrated text of the book version.
The graphics are in large pieces and do not look bad, but
best of all, the color quality is better than usual for CG (computer
graphics). This is one of those “one of
the family kids goes missing” stories, so the parents have to go find the one
who is missing. Squirt is the one out
of five who lands up getting separated and thus the adventure begins. For what is here, it is a good story that is
not too scary and it does not cross into unacceptable territory parents might
find troublesome.
As for the picture quality of those images, the full frame
production is a bit soft, but that has to do with the compression of DVD (NTSC
format + MPEG-2 signal) more so than anything else. This still looks good, clean and new, so the presentation is
fine. The Dolby Digital 5.1 AC-3 mix is
also clean enough and new without being too loud, abrasive, tricky or overly
aggressive. A Spanish 2.0 Stereo mix
with Pro Logic surrounds is also not bad.
Extras include author David Kirk’s live-action (videotaped) featurette
on the world he created that is for kids too, a read-along section to one of
the books, an interactive biography feature, a “Bugstravaganza” Game, DVD-ROM
activities & coloring pages for printout, and something called a Chicken
Egg Dress-Up Game you will have to see for yourself.
That all adds up to a solid package that will hopefully
entertain kids while inspiring them to read the books, which will hopefully
lead them to read all kinds of books. Miss
Spider’s Sunny Patch Kids is a children-friendly DVD that we need to see
more of.
- Nicholas Sheffo
