Bananas in Pyjamas-Wish Fairies & Birthday Special (1999)

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General		Extras
Category	Childrens	Main Menu Audio
Rating
Year Of Production	1999
Running Time	87:00 (Case: 92)
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Ads Then Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Michael Ailwood Ian Munro
Studio Distributor	Roadshow Home Entertainment	Starring	Ken Radley Nicholas Opolski Taylor Owyns Jeremy Scrivener Mary-Ann Henshaw Emma de Vries Shane McNamara
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$24.95	Music	None Given

    Bananas in Pyjamas is a long running children's show on the ABC. The show itself has been running since 1992, and before that it was a feature of Play School. The show's origins are actually from a song published in 1967 by Carey Blyton. This is the same song still used as the theme tune on the show, sung by Monica Trapaga. The show is now seen in many countries around the world and is very popular with the preschool set.

   The characters on the show are B1 & B2, the Bananas of the title who, fairly obviously, wear pyjamas. They live in Cuddles Avenue and their next door neighbours are the teddies Morgan, Lulu & Amy. The later episodes include extra characters such as Rat in the Hat & Maggie the Magpie. All of the characters with the exception of Maggie are played by adult actors in costumes.

    This particular DVD is a compilation of various episodes from the series and one special. It is in fact the complete contents of two previously released video tapes from 1992 and 1995. The 1992 episodes do not include Rat or Maggie. In detail, the episodes are:

• Wish Fairies - (1995)
• Wish Fairies (22:23) This is a longer than normal episode produced as a special. The Bananas dress up as fairies and try to grant the wishes of the teddies.
• Scarecrow (4:35) The teddies make a scarecrow to protect their strawberries.
• Car Polish (5:00) Rat polishes his car but then gets it dirty again.
• Shiny Things (4:55) Various shiny things go missing and the Bananas investigate.
• Gallery Rat (4:59) Rat organises an art exhibition without any art.
• Pyjama Party (4:52) Bananas & teddies have a pyjama party.
• Birthday Special - (1992)
• Cuddles Avenue (4:32) This seems to be the first ever episode and introduces the original characters.
• Birthday Monday (5:09) It is the Bananas birthday on Friday and they go present shopping.
• Birthday Tuesday (5:10) Today they wrap the presents and the teddies organise a surprise party.
• Birthday Wednesday (4:53) Today the teddies continue to prepare and the Bananas decide to have a party too!
• Birthday Thursday (5:03) The teddies find out that the Bananas are also planning a party.
• Birthday Friday (5:06) They combine their parties and have a great time.
• Wet Paint (5:14) The Bananas paint the beach side bench.
• Fancy Dress (5:09) Everyone prepares for a fancy dress party

   From an adult perspective I find this show harder to watch than others like Bob The Builder or Thomas but my toddler seems to like it!

Video

    The video quality is reasonable.

    The feature is presented in a 1.29:1 aspect ratio non 16x9 enhanced which is the original aspect ratio.

    The picture was generally clear and sharp throughout, with no evidence of low level noise. Shadow detail was fine when required. Some episodes had light grain.

    The colour was generally very good although there was some chroma noise such as on the green wall at 1:50 or on the red couch at 3:10 in Wish Fairies.

    As far as artefacts go, there was some edge enhancement which I am sure would not bother your kids and some minor tape tracking artefacts at 3:08 in Cuddles Avenue.

    There are no subtitles.

    This is a single layered disc so there is no layer change.
    

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    The audio quality is good, but very front and centre focussed.

    This DVD contains only one audio option: an English Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack encoded at 224 Kb/s. It was mostly mono except for the occasional music.

    Dialogue was clear and easy to understand. There were no problems with audio sync as the characters' mouths do not move.    

    The theme tune by Carey Blyton is very well known and certainly got my son bopping along.

    The surround speakers and subwoofer were not used at all.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu

    The menu includes the ability to select specific episodes from each original tape separately or to Play All. The theme tune played over the menu.

    There are no extras.

    This disc does not seem to be available outside of Region 4.

    The video quality is reasonable.

    The audio quality is good.

    The disc has no extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall