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Hi all…
As huge fans of Wallace and Gromit, we were honored to get a chance to take a look at Shaun the Sheep - Off the Baa! when it was announced.
Shaun the Sheep first came on the scene in Wallace & Gromit’s short film, A Close Shave in 1995. He caused no end of trouble for the famous pair. And that appearance spawned a spin-off series of 40 seven-minute episodes. Off the Baa! is the first DVD collection of the show and includes eight hilarious episodes.
Rating:
Evidently the show has been shown on the Disney Channel and has been regularly among the top 5 shorts. (Shaun even has his own Disney Channel web page - click here!) Apparently we don’t watch enough Disney Channel at our house!
Each episode combines slapstick humor and old-style silent comedy in new and entertaining ways as we meet Shaun and all the other animals on the farm.
Characters include:
Shaun (the leader of the flock)
Timmy and his Mum (Timmy is the baby sheep of the flock)
Bitzer (the Farmer’s Dog)
The Farmer (very confused, but not very smart)
Shirley (the biggest sheep on the lot)
The Pigs (always trying to spoil the sheep’s fun)
The eight episodes included on the DVD are:
Off the Baa
Timmy in a Tizzy
Buzz Off Bees
Who is the Mummy
Mower Mouth
Fleeced
Shaun Shoots the Sheep
Mountains Out of Molehills
Since I have soccer players at my house, we were all entertained by “Off the Baa” when Shaun and company turn a cabbage head into a soccer ball and have a match. The Pigs (always hungry) have to try and steal the ball for a mid-day snack of course!
“Mower Mouth” and “Mountains Out of Molehills” introduce a couple of other characters… a goat who eats everything in one case and a mole who’s digging holes all across the farm. Both cause no end of trouble for Bitzer and Shaun.
In addition to the eight great episodes, there are a few extras. A “Meet the Animals” feature that introduces us to the cast of characters for Shaun the Sheep from a kid’s point of view. And a couple of sneak peeks for a “Shaun of the Sheep” game for the Nintendo DS and “Wallace & Gromit’s Grand Adventures” games from Telltale Games.
For any fans of stop-motion animation, Wallace & Gromit, or just fun family animation, Shaun of the Sheep - Off the Baa! provides a fun introduction to Shaun’s world!
–Fitz
p.s. Pick up Shaun the Sheep at Amazon and look for it on The Disney Channel!
Shrek the Halls takes a bit of Scrooge and a lot of Shrek and tosses him into a warped version of the classic Night Before Christmas story. When the holidays hit the Swamp, Shrek seems to be the only one not gung-ho. And Donkey, in his usual annoying and exuberant way, makes it all too easy for Shrek to get cranky all-ogre.
On the day before Christmas Eve, Donkey appears really rubbing it in… “You mean you haven’t trimmed your stockin’s, or hung your chestnuts, or roasted the tree? Or figified-your puddin’?!” And then, if that wasn’t enough, Fiona and the babies suddenly get excited about the impending holiday.
Shrek, in typical Shrek-fashion, doesn’t know what to do, so in a panic he heads into town to buy a book all about Christmas - “Christmas for Village Idiots” (I think I need a copy of this book). He follows each step, doing his best to make it an Ogre-friendly Christmas (kind of an oxymoron). And Donkey, in typical Donkey-fashion, manages to screw it up, inviting the whole gang over when Shrek was hoping for an intimate family-only affair.
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Of course, that doesn’t happen. Donkey invites the whole gang to Shrek’s house - Puss-in-Boots, Gingy, the Three Blind Mice, Pinochio, the Wolf, the Three Little Pigs, and the Dragon all show up ready to party! Do you think Shrek takes this invasion personally? Definitely.
As in all Shrek productions, it’s the little things that really make this a great holiday story. Donkey telling his version of the Night Before Christmas turns into a Disneyland parade of food with Santa as a giant waffle. Puss-in-Boots of course has a different version, imagining Santa as a cool Spanish cat. And Gingy has the best verison of all. What’s Christmas like from a cookie’s perspective? A horror film!
And of course Shrek wants to tell his version of the story, but never gets a chance as the destruction caused by the party hits a crescendo and he blows his top, kicking all his friends out. Fiona and the babies go with them, since the Holidays are about friends and family and booting everyone out was a distinctly anti-Christmas thing to do.
So Shrek thinks about it and eventually tracks the traveling group down to apologize. That’s when all his friends discover that Shrek never had a Christmas before. “Ogres don’t celebrate Christmas. Ogres don’t celebrate anything.”
The gang goes back to the house to settle down for the night and ask Shrek to tell a bedtime story. Shrek obliges with an Ogre-ified version of the Night Before Christmas that ends with “Smelly Christmas to All and to All A Gross Night.”
It’s really hard to argue with Shrek. The whole crew is back - Mike Myers as Shrek, Cameron Diaz as Fiona, Eddie Murphy as Donkey, Antonio Banderas as Puss-in-Boots, and the rest of the gang too! This holiday special has enough sarcastic/witty bits that it has to be seen a couple of times before you really see all the fun bits in the background. Blown-up frogs for ornaments, snakes for candy canes, and an old hollow log for a Christmas tree is just the beginning.
This special actually aired on FOX television during the 2007 Thanksgiving week. Now that Shrek the Halls is available on DVD, it has become a new favorite at my house for Christmas viewing!
…
Details:
* Widescreen or Full Screen
* 22 minutes long
Special Features:
* 12 Days of Christmas Sing Along (Karaoke DreamWorks Animation-style)
* Deck the Halls Sing Along (Madagascar Penguins-style)
* Gingy’s Dunking Game (avoid the Milk-Dunk of Doom! - pick the cookie that looks like Gingy!)
* Shrek Carnival Craze Video Game Demo
* DreamWorks Animation Video Jukebox (music videos from Shrek, Shrek 2, Shrek the Third, Shark Tale, Madagascar, Over the Hedge, Flushed Away, and the BEE Movie)
…
Until next time, see a movie!
–Fitz
p.s. Pick up Shrek the Halls at Amazon for the holidays!
Each year for the last four or five years, I discovered that though I may not like every single Simpsons’ episode, I simply must watch the annual Simpsons’ Treehouse of Horror episode around Halloween. This year was no different!
Image from Wikipedia
Treehouse of Horror XIX begins, aptly enough, with a segment lampooning electronic voting and the 2008 Presidential Election. Though both candidates are represented with streamers, posters, and park benches, my favorite part was Grandpa Simpson’s sign stating “I Still Like IKE.”
Homer, in traditional Homer style, goes to vote and can’t fit into a traditional booth, so he has to use the “double-wide.” He finds trouble with the electronic voting machine and when he goes to complain… well, let’s say he meets a bad end. Actually I think he dies in most of this episode’s segments, funny enough…
The second segment was a riff on the success of the Transformers movie from Michael Bay. Even the titles were transforming… “Morf Transers” to “Trans-morfers” to “Snort Farmers” to finally settle on “Untitled Robot Parody.” We all know that any time Bart shops for Lisa (Christmas-gift or otherwise), it typically ends poorly. This is no different. And maybe Michael Bay will have the Transformers play Foosball in the next movie!
When the opening sequence for “How to Get Ahead in Dead-vertising” came on, it made me think of all the cool James Bond movie opening sequences (Quantum of Solace comes out in two weeks!) over the years, but instead it’s a riff on the series Mad Men. Who knew Homer would make a good celebrity assassin!? From Crazy Ethel’s Daycare Center (”Where your child learns to trust strangers”) and the death of Krusty (doesn’t every daycare have a wood chipper in the play area?) to the deaths of George Clooney, Prince, and Neil Armstrong all set to the Talking Heads’ “Psycho Killer” song, I was in stitches. Who knew Heaven had a “Celebrity” wing?
But the coup de grace was the parody of the classic Charlie Brown Halloween special - It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown! This section has it all… all the characters, lots of blood, and the classic trombone used as the teacher’s voice. And the moral of the story? You get to choose… Don’t feed the Grand Pumpkin a loaf of pumpkin bread. Or don’t offer Tom the Turkey the chance to carve the turkey at the Thanksgiving feast!
When the dancing began at the school Halloween party, I knew the Charlie Brown parody was complete. Where else would you see the classic Simpsons’ aliens dancing with the rest of the gang?
Once again, Groenig and company has outdone themselves on their Halloween episode. It might not have been as “out there” as some of their previous Treehouse episodes, but Treehouse of Horror XIX is definitely worth catching if you’re a Simpsons’ fan!
Yes, I’m a kid at heart. When I can no longer enjoy a good cartoon, I’ve instructed my family that it’s time to put me out of my misery. And who doesn’t love Scooby-Doo?
I’ve been watching Scooby-Doo mysteries since grade school on Saturday mornings and after school, and now I watch it with my girls on Boomerang and Cartoon Network when it’s on. Lately we’ve seen a resurgence of Scooby mysteries and I have to say we’ve enjoyed most of them.
Scooby-Doo has been on American television since 1969. Created for Hanna-Barbera by Joe Ruby and Ken Spears, Fred Silverman, and Iwao Takamoto, Scooby has undergone a number of changes in the last 39 years.
If you don’t know who Scooby and the gang are, here’s a quick refresher. Scooby Doo is a talking dog who hangs out with “Shaggy”, Fred, Daphne, and Velma. Shaggy is a bit of a laid back guy who’s mind is always on food. Fred is the planner, but not always so bright. Daphne has fashion sense and some common sense as well. And Velma is the brains of the outfit. These five characters drive around a van called “The Mystery Machine” as they travel around the world solving mysteries and capturing criminals attempting to use the “supernatural” as a ruse to cover their criminal acts. Recently they even traveled to Tibet and saw Shangri-la and the Yeti!
Shaggy & Scooby-Doo had their own spinoff series on the Kids’ WB over the last couple of years called Shaggy & Scooby-Doo Get a Clue, which we enjoyed on Saturday mornings for a while. But you can catch Scooby and the gang mostly on Boomerang and Cartoon Network these days.
Obviously we’re big Scooby-Doo fans at my house, so I leaped at the chance to watch Scooby-Doo and the Goblin King — a new adventure for Scooby and the gang just in time for Halloween.
This is a perfect Halloween treat. Shaggy and Scooby, while trick or treating, manage to annoy The Amazing Krudsky, a magician at the Coolsville fair. A chance encounter with a fairy (Hayden Pantierre) leads Krudsky (voiced by by Wayne Knight) to actually get some real power. And at the last house on the block, Shaggy & Scooby meet Mr. Gibbles (voiced by Wallace Shawn - Inconceivable!) at his magic shop and get drawn into a magical world to save the fairy and stop Krudsky from pushing the world into an eternal state of Halloween!
The story and animation is kind of a combination of Scooby Doo meeting the wacky world of The Corpse Bride or The Nightmare Before Christmas. That weird world where monsters and skeletons party on Halloween is lots of fun, including meeting Jack-o-Lantern, the Wolfman, a few Witches, and of course the Headless Horseman.
In addition, there’s a DVD extra that teaches you a number of simple magic tricks to amaze your friends and family. These are simple tricks like the disappearing card and the levitating paper clip, but it’s still fun to learn some sleight of hand. And it’s right at the perfect age for grade schoolers interested in doing a little prestidigitation!
It’s just a fun movie where we see Scooby and Shaggy running scared from scene to scene, and we’re just tagging along for the ride. I enjoyed watching it with my girls. Definitely something to look for as a Halloween treat for Scooby-Doo-loving kids.
Be sure to check out Scooby-Doo and the Goblin King on DVD at a retailer near you!
Once again, I’ve had the privilege of reviewing more Avatar, The Last Airbender, DVDs. This time it’s the Complete Book 3 box set. The box set includes all 21 episodes of the third and final season of Aang’s journey. And I have to say that it is one of the best animated series I’ve seen in a very long time.
For those of you new to the world of the Avatar, I’ll provide a bit of a summary.
The series is based in a world of many Asian and martial arts influences. The people of this world are organized into separate nations, each of which centers around a particular element: the Water Tribes, the Earth Kingdom, Fire Nation, and Air Nomads. Among the people of these nations, there are people known as “benders” who can control a particular type of elemental energy. For example, a bender in the Water Tribes can control water — thus being a Water Bender. An Avatar is born once in a generation and can control all four elements. As such, Avatars are looked to for leadership by all nations to try and work together.
Well, Aang was a young Air Bender studying at a monastery in the Air Nomads. When told that he was the next Avatar, he ran away with Appa, his flying buffalo and flew into a terrible storm. Aang and Appa were trapped in a block of ice for 100 years until they were discovered by Katara and Sokka of the Southern Water Tribe. While Aang was away, the peaceful world he knew from his time had vanished and it was replaced by a world in turmoil. If ever an Avatar was needed to reunite the people, now was the time, and Aang was put on a long road of discovery, training, and a final battle…
In Books 1 and 2, we saw Aang, Katara, and Sokka go on many adventures as they tried to find tutors for Aang to learn how to earthbend, waterbend, and firebend. Katara, a waterbender herself, worked hard to improve her own skills as she helped Aang learn. Toph, an earthbender, joined the group and began teaching Aang some earthbending. All along the way, the Fire Nation hunted Aang and his friends, especially Zuko, an outcast Prince of the Fire Nation and son of the Fire Lord Ozai (a madman who wants to control the whole world).
At the end of Book 2, Aang got into a big battle with Azula, Zuko’s power-hungry sister and barely came out alive. The group of friends escaped to let Aang recover so he could continue learning and preparing for his eventual battle with the Fire Lord.
Continuing the theme of the first two seasons, I think Book 3 has some of the best stories of the three seasons. You can read some of my comments about volume 3 and 4 here and here (they correspond to the 3rd and 4th discs in the Book 3 box set).
The box set packages up the entire season nicely in a tri-fold insert to the box that holds the four DVDs full of all 21 episodes, as well as a 5th DVD with extras.
The Women of “Avatar: The Last Airbender” was a great overview of three of the great female characters of the series - Katara, Toph, and Azula. These are not your usual weak female characters in some of the cartoon series of yesteryear. These ladies have strong opinions and the strength to follow through on them. You hear from the voice actors doing the voices for these characters as well as the co-creators of Avatar.
If you’ve followed the Avatar series at all, this box set ends the series with a bang. It’s amazing to see the change in the characters and see all the various threads come to a satisfying end. The creators outdid themselves with this one and I was sad to see it come to an end.
I honestly hope we see more adventures in the Avatar world, but that they are done with the same care as the first three seasons!
Nickelodeon Home Entertainment released the Avatar Book 3 Complete Box Set on DVD September 16. Be sure to check out the Avatar: The Last Airbender, Book 3 box set at a retailer near you!
–Fitz
p.s. You can purchase the Avatar Book 3 Box Set at Amazon below:
This falls into the “me too” realm of gaming, but as a long-time Civilization and other strategy game fan (including Populous and Alpha Centauri and the upcoming Sid Meier Colonization update), I have to share this comic with my “peeps”…
(A hearty thanks to xkcd for making me laugh out loud this morning. I haven’t thought of Populous in YEARS!)
–Fitz
p.s. You can read about my long-standing Civilization addiction here. I’m eagerly awaiting the update to Sid’s Colonization game (originally out in 1994), which should be out sometime this fall! Yay!
I was recently informed that this cool new webcomic has been around a while and I didn’t know about it (not that that’s unusual… I’m the last to know about new webcomics most of the time). But if you haven’t seen them, these guys have a sick and wrong sense of humor that I like… (It may not quite all be kosher for work reading, but hey… hopefully they have a sense of humor. )
For the Reels published their 38th comic recently (”Schindler’s Pissed”). Definitely worth checking out. Just browsing through their previous comics, I also liked “Crazy 88 86ed” — a cool take on Kill Bill!
The site and strip is done by two brothers - Joseph and Jonathan - and they merge two of the things I appreciate… movies and twisted humor.
They’ve only been running their site since December 2007, but I think they have a good thing going. Be sure to check them out and spread the word!
With two kids at home, I have an excuse to review fun things like this, collecting 12 of the Tom and Jerry Tales cartoons on one DVD! Though there’s nothing quite like the original Tom & Jerry Jerry cartoons from Hanna-Barbera, Tom & Jerry Tales does capture some of the sparkle from that bygone era of ‘toons and spiffs it up a bit.
For those of you who don’t know, Tom and Jerry was originally created in 1940 by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera for MGM. Tom, a housecat, had a never ending war with Jerry, a little brown mouse. Each episode we would see Tom try to catch Jerry and run into obstacle after obstacle.
Rating:
From 1940 to 1957, Hanna & Barbera created 114 cartoons before the MGM animation studio was closed down. In 1960, a few new cartoons were created by Gene Deitch for Rembrandt Studios. And in 1963, Chuck Jones company picked up the series and produced new cartoons until 1967.
In the 1970s, 80s, and 90s, we saw new incarnations of Tom & Jerry surface from time to time. And then in 2006, Warner Brothers Animation began releasing Tom & Jerry Tales cartoons on WB Kids. These new cartoons began airing on Saturday mornings.
This DVD, Volume 5, includes 12 Tom & Jerry Tales cartoons, including:
Invasion of the Body Slammers
Sasquashed
Monster Con
Xtreme Trouble
Endless Bummer
and 7 more!
This collection provides some modern storylines for our dynamic duo as well as dusting off some tried and true critters and creatures. Invasion of the Body Slammers has them face an alien from another world with the ability to take the shape of whatever creature it likes. Sasquashed has them face Bigfoot. And Monster Con puts them in league with Von Helsing as he tries to capture werewolves, mummies, vampires, Igor, and Frankenstein’s Monster.
Though you can’t beat the original Tom & Jerry cartoons from Hanna Barbera, the WB Animation Studios has done them justice, keeping the original flavor of the cartoons and adding a fresh coat of paint to the characters.
If you have youngsters, these are fun cartoons full of the best kind of cartoon violence - Tom & Jerry get dinged, flattened, smooshed, and pretty much violated any way you can think of. And it’s all in good fun!
There are no extras to speak of on the DVD except for a few previews of other WB properties coming to DVD, including Tiny Toons and Freakazoid (one of my personal favorites).
I give this set of 12 episodes a solid 3 out of 4. They’re fun, cartoonishly violent, and keep the spirit of Tom & Jerry alive!
Be sure to check it out at your local retailers or online!
–Fitz
p.s. Check out the following Tom and Jerry Tales DVD collections available from Amazon:
fitz in 
Shaun the Sheep first came on the scene in Wallace & Gromit’s short film, A Close Shave in 1995. He caused no end of trouble for the famous pair. And that appearance spawned a spin-off series of 40 seven-minute episodes. Off the Baa! is the first DVD collection of the show and includes eight hilarious episodes.
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