Olive, the Other Reindeer (1999)

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General		Extras
Category	Family	Main Menu Introduction Main Menu Audio & Animation Menu Audio Featurette-Making Of Music Highlights-Olive, The Songs - 5
Rating
Year Of Production	1999
Running Time	43:36 (Case: 45)
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Steve Moore
Studio Distributor	Twentieth Century Fox	Starring	Drew Barrymore Dan Castellaneta Joe Pantoliano Edward Asner Peter MacNicol Tim Meadows Jay Mohr Michael Stipe Diedrich Bader David Herman Tress MacNeille Mitch Rouse Kath Soucie
Case	?
RPI	$21.95	Music	Christopher Tyng Paul D. Calder Jill Anthony

    Have you ever been annoyed by how ordinary most Christmas-themed shows are? Most are either tear-jerkers, so saccharine you could start a sugar plantation or far too religious. Well, this little animated number from Matt Groening, the creator of The Simpsons, might just be the answer.

    Olive, the Other Reindeer is based on a children's book by J.Otto Seibold, however it has certainly been given a real twist by Matt Groening and his collaborators. The result is a story which follows a small dog called Olive (voiced by Drew Barrymore) who lives with her master, Tim (Jay Mohr). In the lead up to Christmas, the news gets out that Blitzen has broken a leg and Santa's (Ed Asner) flight to deliver toys may not be able to happen. Olive's pet flea, Fido, hears the news on the radio and mistakenly thinks that Santa has asked for 'Olive, the other reindeer' to come to the North Pole and take over for Blitzen. Olive sets off, with a penguin with criminal tendencies in tow. His name is Martini (Joe Pantoliano from The Sopranos). Along the way they meet a variety of interesting characters (including Schnitzel the flightless reindeer voiced and sung by Michael Stipe of REM), whilst being pursued by a mean postman who hates Christmas and wants to stop them helping Santa. He is voiced by Dan Castellanata, who voices Homer Simpson. Dan won an Annie (Animation) award for his voice work on this feature.

    The show is very funny, with some great one liners and it also includes 5 musical numbers which have amusing lyrics. The show is very cute without being cloying or overly sentimental and at 43 minutes does not outstay its welcome or the kids' attention span. It was originally made in 1999 for US Television. Technically, the animation is a mixture of 2D and 3D with most characters being 2D but set in a 3D world. This was done to maintain the look and feel of the book.

    My family and I enjoyed this little film and we think it's a good tonic for being sick of Christmas shows. Recommended.

Video

    The video quality is very good.

    The feature is presented in a 1.33:1 aspect ratio which would be the original aspect ratio.

    The picture was clear and sharp throughout, with no evidence of low level noise.

    The colour was excellent, vibrant and well saturated.

    The only artefact on show was some occasional mild aliasing.

    There are subtitles in English for the hearing impaired. The English subtitles were clear, easy to read but a little small.
    

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    The audio quality is very good.

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

    Dialogue was generally clear and easy to understand.

    The score of this film by Christopher Tyng is excellent and really suits the jaunty and whimsical nature of this film.

    The surround speakers added atmosphere, especially for the music, when played with Dolby ProLogic II.

     The subwoofer was not used.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu

    The menu included a nice intro, music and motion as well as chapter selection functionality.

Making Of (26:01)

    An interesting making of which covers where the idea came from, the characters, voice actors and the technology involved. Features interviews with all the main voice actors and Matt Groening. Worth seeing.

Olive - The Songs (6:46)

    Allows access directly to the songs from the main feature, either individually or via a play all function.

    This is available in the same format in Region 1. Let's call it a draw.

    The video quality is very good.

    The audio quality is very good.

    The disc has a couple of small extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall