The Wiggles-Santa's Rockin!

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General		Extras
Category	Childrens	Menu Animation & Audio Storyboards-Dorothy's Spots Gallery-Photo Bonus Episode-2, The Wiggles TV Series: Lights, Camera, Action, Wiggles! Featurette-Christmas Messages Song Lyrics-Song Jukebox Music Highlights-Sing Along With The Wiggles
Rating
Year Of Production	?
Running Time	44:49 (Case: 80)
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Paul Field
Studio Distributor	Roadshow Home Entertainment	Starring	Anthony Field Greg Page Murray Cook Jeff Fatt
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$19.95	Music	The Wiggles Various

    Wiggles - Santa's Rockin' is an Aussie DVD that combines two kid's favourites, The Wiggles and Christmas. Wiggles - Santa's Rockin' features plenty of the singing, dancing, and hijinks that kids all around the world have grown to love.

    As I wrote in a previous review, " . . . if you are somehow unaware of who they are, the Wiggles (Anthony Field, Greg Page, Murray Cook, and Jeff Fatt) are a musical group who entertain children. The Wiggles are often thought of in reference to the 1980s pop-band, The Cockroaches (of which two were members), however, three of the Wiggles met while at Macquarie University, Sydney, studying early childhood degrees. Indeed, they started writing songs as a great learning and development tool for young children . . . It is common knowledge that the Wiggles are very popular in Australia, where it is estimated that half of all Australian children own a Wiggles video, CD or DVD. However, following the Disney Channel beginning to broadcast the Wiggles in the US, their fan base has grown into the millions".

    There is no plot to Wiggles - Santa's Rockin. Rather, The Wiggles, Captain Feathersword, Wags the Dog, Henry the Octopus, and Dorothy the Dinosaur join Santa and some of his dancing elves in a collection of Christmas songs and dances. There are also a few special guests, including pop-music legend John Fogerty, and a Very Brady Barry Williams.

    Apart from the expected children acting out nativity scenes, and traditional Christmas carols, there is also a look at Christmas in the US, and a Mexican touch, with a Christmas song sung in Spanish.

    On a trivial note, when I was a student, I worked as an entertainer at (the sadly now closed) Australia's Wonderland. One of the guys I worked with, Brett Clarke, appears as one of Santa's back-up singer/dancers on this DVD. Brett, it's great to see you're still kicking up your heels!

Video

    As with other recent Wiggles DVDs, the transfer is of broadcast quality, and problem-free.

    Considering that the advent of Digital Television has allowed many programs, including other children's programs such as Hi-5, to be broadcast with a widescreen image, I am disappointed that the Wiggles' DVDs persist with transfers in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 (full frame). As a result, at times some of the dancers and action at the sides of the screen are cut off.

    The sharpness and shadow detail are both fine, but some scenes were a little soft, such as at 26:27. As one would expect, the colour is brilliant, and features bright primary colours

    There are no problems with MPEG artefacts, film-to-video artefacts, or film artefacts. However, very rarely, there is a slight shimmer on some objects.

    Only English subtitles (including lyrics) are offered, which are accurate to the spoken (and sung) word.

    This is a single-sided, single-layered disc.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    The only audio option is English Dolby Digital Stereo (224Kb/s), which is clear, and exhibits a good dynamic range.

    The dialogue quality is excellent, but the audio sync suffers a little. At times some of the song-miming is obviously out of time. Captain Feathersword was the main culprit here.

    The music is mainly provided (and/or arranged) by the Wiggles, and there are 13 songs encompassing a variety of styles. I thought the better tunes were Henry the Champion Christmas Wrapper and Ross Wilson's This Little Baby is Born Again.

    As a Dolby Digital 2.0 audio track, there is no surround presence or LFE activity.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    There are a few extras.

Menu

    Animated menu, presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, with Dolby Digital 2.0 audio.

Dorothy's Spots (5:07)

    A narrated picture book with a story of the day Dorothy's spots went missing.

Gallery-Photo (5:33)

    A series of stills, including publicly stills and behind-the-scenes shots set to music.

Bonus -  Episode 17, The Wiggles TV Series: Lights, Camera, Action, Wiggles! (10:14)

Bonus -  Episode 24, The Wiggles TV Series: Lights, Camera, Action, Wiggles! (11:20)

Featurette-Christmas Messages (3:31)

    Christmas messages from some of  the Wiggly Dancers.

Songs Jukebox and Sing Along With The Wiggles

    Select your favourite tunes and sing along.

    From what I can tell, this DVD has not yet been released in Region 1.

   While there is nothing remotely original about Wiggles - Santa's Rockin' (even many of the new songs sound familiar), it does provide another dose of Wiggle Christmas Fun for the kiddies.

    The video quality is very good, but should have been presented in widescreen.

    The audio quality is good for a stereo track.

    The extras are few, but the additional episodes of television are a nice touch.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall