Classic Kids Collection (1966)

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Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

Skippy, the Bush Kangaroo-Volume 1 (1967)

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General		Extras
Category	Adventure	Main Menu Audio Featurette-Which Way Did They Go, Skip? With Ken James TV Spots-Skippy Club TV Commercial Featurette-Skippy's Playground Audio-Only Track-The Bush Orphan, Told By John McCallum Gallery-Photo-15
Rating
Year Of Production	1967
Running Time	170:33 (Case: 200)
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Ed Devereaux Eric Fullilove Eric Price Max Varnel
Studio Distributor	Southern Star Madman Entertainment	Starring	Ed Devereaux Garry Pankhurst Ken James Tony Bonner Liza Goddard Frank Thring Elke Neidhart John Warwick
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$24.95	Music	Eric Jupp Phil Judd Joy Cavill

    Title of Show : Skippy, The Bush Kangaroo

    Title of Disc : Volume 1 : 35th Anniversary Collectors Edition

    Year of Production : 1967/68

    Country of origin : Australia

    What's included? : 7 various episodes from across the run of the show.

    Episode Length : 25 minutes each

    Details of episodes : 

1. The Long Way Home - Dr Alexander Stark (Frank Thring), who owns his own private zoo, badly wants Skippy for his collection. He has some of his henchman steal her, but she escapes.
2. No Time for Clancy - This episode introduces the Clancy character who became a regular. She comes to stay with Matt and the boys as she is the daughter of another ranger who has moved to some faraway National Park but she needs to stay near Sydney for her music lessons. Early on she messes a few things up and the boys don't like her much.
3. The Honeymooners - A ludicrously overacted woman on her honeymoon wants to steal Skippy so that she can use his fur for a coat. Sonny gets caught alone on a speeding boat.
4. Double Trouble - Dr Stark is back this time with a Matt Hammond look-alike in tow in order to try and discredit Matt and have him sacked as head ranger.
5. The Last Chance - An aging movie actor has one last chance at stardom via a movie being filmed in the National Park but Skippy upstages him.
6. No Trespassers - A young boxer and his father (Chips Rafferty) have set up a secret training camp in the National Park without permission to train for a big fight. The son isn't completely committed to being a boxer and rebels.
7. The Bushrangers - While everyone is away except Jerry, the ranger headquarters are broken into and everything is cleaned out. Sonny sees a group of strangely dressed men walking through the park and thinks they are bushrangers. Features the Australian pop group of the time, The Executives. Their song at the end of the episode is very funny and was recently shown on the ABC music quiz show, Spicks and Specks.

    Style of Production : Live action

    Premise of show : This classic Australian children's show is based around the lives of the Head Ranger of Waratah National Park, Matt Hammond (Ed Devereaux), his two young sons, Mark (Ken James) & Sonny (Garry Pankhurst), their pet Kangaroo, Skippy and the flight ranger, Jerry King (Tony Bonner). They all live at ranger headquarters and have various adventures involving accidents, trespassers, poachers, wild animals and more. This show was greatly loved and highly successful when it was first shown and for years afterwards in repeat (which is when I must have first seen it).

    Age Group : 3-100

    Related to any other children's shows? : Not really

    Adult's view : I loved this show as a kid and was quite surprised how much I enjoyed seeing it again despite the misogynistic attitudes and virtually constant smoking by baddies. You can see even so many years later why this show was successful. It has some good adventures and quite decent stunts plus a great theme song and at least for the time a quite unique starring animal. Definitely enjoyable for parents and children. I also enjoyed the nicely tongue-in-cheek packaging e.g. Contains non-stop marsupial action!.

    Child's view : My two young boys quickly took to this show. After one episode, my three year old was singing the theme song. He loved the kangaroo and seemed to find the shows interesting despite some of the storylines being a little too old for him.

    Other Releases of this show available? : In addition to this mixed collection, there are also two separate releases of Skippy including all episodes from seasons 1 & 2.

    Overall : It's a classic.

Video

    The video quality is OK, but no more. This is pretty old television so I suppose we can't expect too much.

    The feature is presented in a 1.33:1 aspect ratio non 16x9 enhanced which is the original aspect ratio.

    The picture was not overly clear and sharp being quite soft in places and affected by various artefacts and grain. There was  no evidence of low level noise. There was light grain throughout which was heavier when the camera moved. The picture became quite blurry when the camera moved.

    The colour was decent considering the age of the material, but was not overly vibrant.

    Artefacts included some macro-blocking but not too much, aliasing on fences and grilles, some occasional splodges and specks, some evidence of excessive noise reduction and a number of small jumps.

    There are no subtitles.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    The audio quality is OK considering the age of the material.

    This DVD contains an English Dolby Digital 2.0 mono soundtrack encoded at 224 Kb/s.

    Dialogue was clear and easy to understand and there was no problem with audio sync.

    The music by Eric Jupp is very dramatic and the theme tune is an all time classic. I noticed some minor distortion in the music from time to time.

    The surround speakers and subwoofer were not used.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu

    The menu included music but was still and fairly simple. A kangaroo paw was used as the cursor.

'Which Way Did They Go, Skip' (9:54)

    An interesting interview with star Ken James recorded recently where he reminisces about his time on the show, the other cast members, production issues, stunts, how they used the kangaroos and anecdotes such as an amusing one about Frank Thring. Worthwhile.

Skippy Club TV Commercial (0:30)

    A black and white TV commercial featuring Ed Devereaux promoting the Skippy club.

Skippy's Playground - TV Special (24:18)

    A TV special from when the show originally aired featuring a group of young children visiting ranger headquarters and meeting Skippy, playing games and doing activities. Hardly essential but interesting for fans of the show. The hostess has some very big hair!

Audio Adventure - Bush Orphan

    An old Skippy record transferred to DVD. Quite crackly. Runs about 18 minutes.

Stills Gallery

    15 behind-the-scenes stills.

    This release is available in the same format in Region 2 but not in Region 1.The disc is coded for all regions.

    The video quality is OK.

    The audio quality is decent.

    A good selection of new and original extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

The Water Babies (1978)

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General		Extras
Category	Family	Main Menu Audio Theatrical Trailer Gallery-Photo Trailer-The Wind In The Willows, The BFG, The Bear
Rating
Year Of Production	1978
Running Time	90:14
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Lionel Jeffries
Studio Distributor	Umbrella Entertainment	Starring	James Mason Bernard Cribbins Billie Whitelaw Joan Greenwood David Tomlinson Tommy Pender Samantha Gates Paul Luty Jon Pertwee Olive Gregg Lance Percival David Jason Cass Allan
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$24.95	Music	Phil Coulter Bill Martin

    How far have children's movies come since the late 1970s? Well, here is your chance to find out. Water Babies was made in 1978 and is a feature film based upon a 19th century children's story by Charles Kingsley (not Kinglesy as it is spelt on the front of the case). It was a UK/Polish co-production with the animated elements being made in Poland. It is a combined live action and animated production (although never in the same frame).

    The plot involves a young orphan called Tom (Tommy Pender) who has fallen in with a drunken chimney sweep, Mr Grimes (James Mason) and his assistant Mr Masterman (Bernard Crimmins). They treat him badly and involve him in their criminal exploits. They head out to a country house to clean their many chimneys, but Grimes' plan is that they will also rob the place. Upon arrival, they send Tom up the chimneys and Grimes proceeds to collect items of silver. When Tom gets lost in the many chimneys, Grimes plan comes unstuck, but he blames the thievery on Tom who tries to run away. In order to avoid what he thinks will be the gallows, he jumps into a river and enters a magical world under the water (which is the animated part). Once in the underwater world he works out that he must get help from the water babies, without knowing who they really are, to escape back to the real world. However, many obstacles are in his path including a bad shark and eel who are planning to enslave the water babies.

    This is a very dated film these days and I think it unlikely that you could convince kids to watch it. The acting is pretty average and the production and direction perfunctory. The animated sections looks extremely old fashioned but they were not even that flash when the film was made in the late 1970s. If you compare the quality of the animation to that of Bambi which was made much earlier, this doesn't stack up at all. The animated section also includes a number of musical numbers.

    All in all, this is not much of a film but may be of interest to people who remember it fondly from their childhoods.

Video

    The video quality is poor.

    The feature is presented in a 1.33:1 aspect ratio non 16x9 enhanced which is NOT the original aspect ratio. The original aspect ratio is 1.66:1. I will remove one star from the overall video rating as per the site's policy.

    The picture was fairly soft throughout although there was no evidence of low level noise. Shadow detail was below average. There was significant grain throughout and some spots of minor macro-blocking.

    The colour was poor, with faces being blotchy and bleeding being present, especially from lighter colours.

    Artefacts include telecine wobble, evidence of excessive noise reduction, some splodges during the live action and lots of specks during the animated sections.

    There are no subtitles.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    The audio quality is average.

    This DVD contains an English Dolby Digital 2.0 mono soundtrack encoded at 224 Kb/s.

    Dialogue was mostly reasonably clear although regularly lines of dialogue were hard to make out.

    The score of this film by Phil Coulter is reasonable but quite dated. The music sounds a little distorted and harsh.

    The surround speakers and subwoofer were not used.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu

    The menu included music and the ability to select scenes.

Theatrical Trailer (3:21)

    Unlike the feature, this trailer is in the original aspect ratio although not 16x9 enhanced.

Photo Gallery (1:41)

    Fairly pointless gallery of stills from the show set to music.

Umbrella Propaganda

    Trailers are included for Wind In The Willows, The BFG and The Bear.

    This movie is available in Region 2 in the same format.

    The video quality is poor.

    The audio quality is average.

    The set has a few very ordinary extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

Black Beauty (1971)

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General		Extras
Category	Family	Theatrical Trailer Trailer-The Bear, Treasure Island, The Call Of The Wild Trailer-The Wind In The Willows
Rating
Year Of Production	1971
Running Time	101:21 (Case: 100)
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	James Hill
Studio Distributor	Tigon British Umbrella Entertainment	Starring	Mark Lester Walter Slezak Peter Lee Lawrence Uschi Glas Patrick Mower John Nettleton Maria Rohm Eddie Golden Clive Geraghty John Hoey Patrick Gardiner Brian McGrath Ronan Smith
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$24.95	Music	Lionel Bart John Cameron

    Black Beauty is a famous children's tale written by Anna Sewell in the 19th century. It was the only novel she wrote and was originally intended more as a morality tale to encourage people to treat animals better rather than a children's story. It has been adapted many times for film and television and this particular version was made for the cinema in 1971. It was filmed in Ireland and Spain but is an English production.

    The story presented here bears some relation to the original novel, although many of the adventures which Black Beauty gets involved in are not from the novel. The story is essentially the biography of a horse, Black Beauty, and it follows his story through good times and very difficult times. He is born on a farm in England owned by a Mr Evans. He gives the horse to his son Joe (Mark Lester who you may recognise from Oliver! )  when it is born and he quickly grows to love the horse. Unfortunately, this idyllic life cannot last for Black Beauty. The new squire, Sam Greene (Patrick Mower), takes over the farm as he is owed money and Black Beauty is included in the settlement. From there possession of the horse passes through a gypsy, a horse trader, a European circus, an English gentleman, a soldier, a farmer and to a coal yard. Finally, he is reunited with Joe and lives out his life in peace.

    This is not a terrible children's film but it does have a made-for-television feel about it even though it wasn't. The acting is generally pretty bad with overacting being the order of the day. Some scenes are obviously day for night with quick changes of darkness levels being obvious between edits. The biggest problem, though, which I have with this film considering its target audience is the level of violence (including a horse execution) and the very gynaecological birth of Black Beauty, which will certainly encourage some questions from the little ones. Not surprisingly this film has been rated PG by the OFLC. The score of this film is very dated and quite annoying. If you were not looking at the screen you might think you were watching The Love Boat.

    Annoyingly the disc did not display time coding or chapters during playback.

    I can't really recommend this film for modern children, however it may be of interest to some for the nostalgia value.

Video

    The video quality is reasonable but not in the correct aspect ratio.

    The feature is presented in a 1.33:1 aspect ratio non 16x9 enhanced which is NOT the original aspect ratio of 1.85:1. I will remove one star from the overall rating due to the incorrect aspect ratio.

    The picture was surprisingly clear and sharp throughout, with no evidence of low level noise. Shadow detail was OK but no more. There was light grain throughout.

    The colour was quite good but a little variable and included some light colour bleeding.

    Artefacts were plentiful including major splodges during the credits and a few smaller one during the rest of the running time, some mild aliasing and jagged edges, reel change markers every 20 minutes or so and some tape tracking errors.

    There are no subtitles.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    The audio quality is average.

    This DVD contains an English Dolby Digital 2.0 mono soundtrack encoded at 224 Kb/s.

    Dialogue was fairly clear most of the time but some dialogue was a little muffled. There were also some obvious sync issues probably as a result of poor ADR work rather than an issue with the transfer.

    The score of this film by Lionel Bart is very dated, overbearing and annoying. There was some distortion, especially during the credits.

    The surround speakers and subwoofer were not used.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu

    The menu included the ability to select scenes but very little else.

Theatrical Trailer

    Unlike the feature the trailer is in the correct aspect ratio, although not 16x9 enhanced.

Umbrella Propaganda

    Trailers are included for The Bear, Treasure Island, Call of the Wild & Wind in the Willows.

    The Region 1 release of this film has no extras but is in anamorphic widescreen so is preferred to our local release. The Region 2 version is the same as ours except that a photo gallery is included. Region 1 is the go.

    The video quality is reasonable.

    The audio quality is average.

    Only a theatrical trailer is included in the extras department.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall