The Wiggles-Toot Toot (1999)

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General		Extras
Category	Childrens	Menu Animation & Audio Storybook Bonus Episode-Two Episodes Of The Wiggles TV Series
Rating
Year Of Production	1999
Running Time	43:45 (Case: 120)
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Chisholm McTavish
Studio Distributor	Roadshow Home Entertainment	Starring	The Wiggles
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$19.95	Music	The Wiggles

    The Wiggles are an international phenomenon, widely known and loved by children the world over. As I am sure we are all aware they are four Australian guys who got together to do some children's songs in 1991 and have not looked back since. Two of their members were formerly of the reasonably well-known local pop band, The Cockroaches. Since their inception there have been wildly successful concert tours, television shows, albums, videos and more recently DVDs.

    This particular title is new to DVD but the program itself was made in 1999, originally released to VHS. It is basically a collection of Wiggles songs linked together by a storyline about the Big Red Car being broken down and needing repair. The songs are of course very catchy and are accompanied by brightly coloured dance routines which will certainly please The Wiggles' core audience.

    One thing which annoyed me about this DVD is that on the back of the packaging it is listed as 120 minutes. This is either deliberately misleading or an honest mistake. I'll let you decide. The main feature is about 43 minutes long and there is one extra of 5 minutes and another two of 11 minutes each. That adds up to about 70 minutes. The only way that this can get close to being 120 minutes is if you count the song jukebox, which allows access to the songs on the main feature individually. This is really just a chapter selection function and claiming it as running time is not reasonable. It's the equivalent of saying that Return of The King is 7 hours long because you can access each chapter individually.

    Leaving this issue aside, this disc is of an equivalent length to any number of children's discs and contains a program which pre-schoolers will certainly find entertaining. I know my son did.

Video

    The video quality is excellent with only one minor quibble.

    The show is presented in 1.33:1 and is obviously not 16x9 enhanced. This is most likely the original aspect ratio.

    The picture was very clear. Shadow detail was not really called for as this is a very brightly lit children's show. There was no low level noise.

    The colour was very bright and well saturated. I did notice some significant edge enhancement, especially around the Wiggles costumes when they were super-imposed on animated backgrounds. An example can be seen at 3:40.

    There were no other artefacts.

    There are two sets of subtitles, song lyrics only or full English for the Hearing Impaired including song lyrics. Both are clear and easy to read and seem very close to the actual spoken words.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    The audio quality is very good and surprisingly makes use of the surrounds speakers when played using Dolby ProLogic II.

    This DVD contains one audio option, an English Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack encoded at 224 Kb/s.    

    Dialogue was very clear and easy to understand as were most of the song lyrics, although I do think that one song, John Bradlelum would have younger kids guessing.

    There were no problems with audio sync.    

    The music was clear and very catchy as you would expect.

    The surround speakers were used in a number of the songs for sound effects and music.

    The subwoofer added bass to the music.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu

    The menu has motion and music, and allowed for song selection.

Wiggly Work Storybook (4:52) 

    This is a readalong story book using static pictures and the words of the story printed on the screen in addition to being spoken by the narrator. This would only be of interest to older, reading age children.

Lights, Camera, Action Episode 5 (11:26) 

    This is an episode of the Wiggles TV show which features songs, a joke News bulletin, a music segment & live reports from Dorothy the Dinosaur. This would be entertaining for all Wiggles fans.

Lights, Camera, Action Episode 11 (11:04) 

    Another episode of the television show with a very similar format to Episode 5, featuring the song Play Guitar With Murray. Again, I am sure the fans would enjoy it.

    This disc is available in Region 1 but only includes the main feature, so Region 4 is the best version available.

    The video quality is excellent.

    The audio quality is good.

    There are three extras of quite good quality.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall