Little Robots-Robot Race Day (2003)

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General		Extras
Category	Childrens	Main Menu Audio Scene Selection Audio Song Lyrics-Sing-a-long with the Little Robots
Rating
Year Of Production	2003
Running Time	60:18
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Tim Collins
Studio Distributor	Roadshow Home Entertainment	Starring	Hayley Carmichael Lenny Henry Su Pollard Martin Clunes Morwenna Banks Emma Chambers Mike Hayley Mel Giedroyc Sue Perkins Jimmy Hibbert
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$24.95	Music	None Given

    Little Robots is one of those wonderful kids shows that the ABC for Kids have in their stable. Based on a book by Mike Brownlow, it is about a number of little robots that live underneath a junk yard. The robots and their world are all models, and the show is created using stop frame animation. The animation and the robots are wonderful creations and are great to watch - the little ones just sit riveted, particularly when a robot like Noisy is on screen.

    Living in an underground world, where night and day are controlled by a special lever that changes the sky is Tiny, the little robot that helped fix all his robot friends and is the fix-it robot for anything that is broken. There are a range of other robots that inhabit the little world; Messy, Sporty, Stretchy, Rusty, Stripy, Noisy, Spotty, Scary, Flappy and the Sparky Twins. Each has their own personality and the stories revolve around problems that need solving, usually revolving around the robot personalities.

    As a kids show, this has some great messages about how people or robots should live together and be happy whilst doing so.

Episode 1: Robot Race Day (10:03)

    The tortoise and hare story robot style. Sporty is feeling a little down as he doesn't think that he is the best at anything. He soon learns that there are others ways of being the best besides winning.

Episode 2: Knock Knock (10:03)

    The Sparky Twins are having a little difficulty with the fact that everyone mistakes one for the other. So they set out to make their houses different by decorating them differently so that people know who lives in each one.

Episode 3: Scary Scary (10:03)

    Scary is depressed - no one is scared of him any more. They have all become used to him and know that he is not really scary. He hatches a plot to try and get one good scare out of the robots but things get a little mixed up along the way.

Episode 4: Noisy's New Song (10:03)

    Noisy's new song is more than a little noisy and it is getting on the nerves of the other robots. Tolerance and cooperation is the key to solving this Noisy, then not noisy, then noisy again problem.

Episode 5: Stretch In A Twist. (10:03)

    Poor old Stretch is damaged in an accident and does not want to be fixed - the story here is about a visit to the doctor in parable form.

Episode 6: Hicalots (10:03)

    Sporty gets the Hicalots and the rest of the robots work their way through all of the standard cures for the hiccups, with predictably funny results.

Video

    The transfer is presented at 1.33:1 which in all likelihood is its original aspect ratio. It is not 16x9 enhanced.

    The image is very sharp but this is somewhat spoilt by the amount of interlacing present. There are no real dark scenes to judge the shadow detail by, and there is no low level noise present.

    There are lots of bright primary colours present, and there is no chroma noise.

    There are no MPEG artefacts present but there is some aliasing present, such as on Sporty's head at 1:22 in the first episode. The most notable problem with the transfer is the interlacing. Just about any moving object and scene change has a ghost image of the next or previous frame superimposed. Watch Noisy's horn-nose at 1:26 onwards.

    There are English subtitles on the disc and they include some audio cue information. They are easy to read and accurate.

    This is a single layered disc.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    There are no problems with the dialogue quality nor with the audio sync.

    The music is very appropriate for the target audience; both the background music and the little songs that appear from time to time are excellent.

    There is the occasional small surround effect extracted by surround decoding if you turn it on. There is little for the subwoofer to do.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

    A static but very colourful menu presented at 1.33:1 and not 16x9 enhanced. Our main Robot character takes centre stage with other robots helping out as menu markers. There is a Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack.

Sing With The Little Robots (1:00)

    There does not appear to be a Region 1 version of this disc. There is a Region 2 version but with a different title: Little Robots - Hooray! Let's Build And Play! This disc is part of a gift pack that includes a Lego version of one of the little robots. The content seems very similar, although the R2 version appears to include 2 games of some description which we don't get.

    This is a great disc for the little ones - the stories will keep them coming back for more time and again. The morals are not pushed too hard and the music and characters are very good.

    The video has some interlacing problems.

    The audio is good.

    There is only the one extra.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall