Green Eggs and Ham and Other Favorites (1973)

This review is sponsored by

BUY IT

General		Extras
Category	Animation	Menu Audio Music Highlights-Song Selection Menu Song Lyrics-Sing-Along-Songs (2)
Rating
Year Of Production	1973
Running Time	50:36
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Dr. Seuss Bob Richardson
Studio Distributor	Universal Pictures Home Video	Starring	Hal Smith Gary Shapiro Irene Tedrow Jack DeLeon Henry Gibson Allan Sherman Hans Conried Paul Winchell Bob Holt
Case	?
RPI	$24.95	Music	Dean Ellliot

    The stories of Dr. Seuss are an integral part of the childhoods of many thousands of people, and over the past thirty years these tales have been translated into countless languages. Although the plots and characters are fantastical, the underlying themes of Seuss' tales touch upon important topics such as racism, cosmetic surgery, political blindness and con-artists - great for the whole family! The animation and musical interludes appear quite dated now, but young kids of early primary school age should appreciate the humour of these four tales.

The Sneetches

    Two kinds of Sheetches exist in the Sneetch society, one of which is emblazoned with a star on its belly. The belly-starred Sneetches enjoy more social outings and a better quality of life than the ordinary Sneetches, until a fix-it man arrives and offers the non-starred Sneetches a star on their belly so that they might get along with the others. With nothing now to tell them apart, the originally starred Sneetches scramble to have theirs removed. An erudite businessman, the fix-it man is making himself rich in the process by playing the abdominal crazy Sneetches against each other. The moral of the story? You can't teach a Sneetch.

The Zax

    A pair of stubborn Zaxes bump into each other one day on a beautiful prairie and refuse to let the other pass. Time marches on and the Zax stand steadfastly toe to toe until civilisation develops and man is forced to build a Zax bypass in order to get around them.

Green Eggs and Ham

    Sam I Am has a favourite dish and his friend has no interest in sampling it, regardless of the location, company or surroundings. After much hounding his pal caves in and tries the eggs, only to discover that he loves them.

Grinch Night

    All is peaceful in Whoville until a familiar breeze starts to blow, bringing with it the town's old adversary, the ruthless Grinch. The town boards up their houses and locks their doors, fearful of what's outside. Little Euchariah breaks convention and goes wandering around Mount Crumpet until he meets the Grinch face-to-face. As the Grinch draws nearer and nearer to the town, he must find a way to divert the Grinch's attention.

    The life and career of Dr. Seuss is relayed very well by BrandonV in his excellent The Cat In The Hat review and is well worth a read.

Video

    This video transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 and appears to have aged a little.

    Sharpness and general clarity is adequate for a children's program such as this. Some inconsistencies in brightness are evident as well as the odd moment of shimmering, but the program is easily watchable. Colours are a little on the bland side, but this is understandable given the age of the source. There is no low level noise present in the transfer.

    Compression artefacts are nowhere to be seen in this transfer, however film artefacting is evident on quite a few occasions. The most common form of film artefact present here are dirt and hairs, but quite a few watermarks and lengthy scratches pop up as well. Regardless of this, the quality of the transfer is still okay considering the age of this animation.

    An English subtitle stream for the hearing impaired is included on the disc and manages to keep up with the sometimes frenetic pace of the dialogue.

    This disc contains a single layer, therefore no transitional pause is present.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    There is only one soundtrack on this disc, presented in Dolby Digital 2.0 and encoded at a wafer thin 192Kb/s. With no panning evident whatsoever, this sounds very much like a mono soundtrack.

    The narration is always distinct and easy to understand. Character voices sometimes become a little muddy and hard to discern, but these problems are only few. Synchronisation appears to be fine, most of the effects and songs flow in motion with the video smoothly.

    The soundtrack music is melodic and brassy, with lots of bold arrangements and broad harmonies in the style of American big bands of the 70s. Most of the musical pieces are only short, but do a great job of translating a point or providing a scene transition.

    There was obviously no surround activity or subwoofer response in this soundtrack.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu

    The menu page is static and includes direct access to each story, with an audio clip of the theme music in the background. A page also exists for direct access to selected songs from the feature. The menu is not 16x9 enhanced.

Sing Along Songs (2)

    There are two very brief songs included on the disc with large, highlighted lyrics so that kids can sing along. He Will Eat Them (1:16) is taken from the Green Eggs and Ham story, while Grinches Inches Closer (0:58) is a tune from Grinch Night.

    The video transfer is good considering the age of the source material.

    The audio transfer is a little light, but passable.

    There are a couple of little extras included.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall