Adventures of Bottle Top Bill-A Day at the Sea (and 5 More Adventures) (2005)

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General		Extras
Category	Family	Menu Animation & Audio
Rating
Year Of Production	2005
Running Time	72:33
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Cameron Chittock
Studio Distributor	Paramount Home Entertainment	Starring	Jonty Stephens Miranda Richardson
Case	Amaray-Opaque
RPI	?	Music	Doug Gray

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English-British Dolby Digital 2.0 (256Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.78:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Bottle Top Bill is an imaginative animated series for the preschool to early primary age bracket. The highly contrasting animation utilises familiar household items and actually sets a scene by showing the environment being constructed, such as yoghurt containers appearing as hills on the landscape and paper-maché rocks slapped together in the foreground. It's very well done, and the technique helps kids apply their imagination in similar situations.

    This compilation includes six episodes of about twelve minutes each.

• A Day At The Sea - While tidying their attic, Bill and Corky find an old treasure map. While following the directions, they discover many of the landmarks have changed over time, and the "x marks the spot" has been covered by water.
• The Junkosaur - Bill and Corky encounter a Junkosaur - basically a dinosaur made of throwaway items - while sunning themselves on the beach. It turns out the beast has escaped a vicious hunter, and Bill and Corky take it upon themselves to help the creature get back to his island home.
• Moon Mayhem - While looking at the stars through their telescope, Bill and Corky see something take a bite out of the moon. They build a rocket and set off for the moon, only to find a monster is slowly snacking the moon away bite by bite. But as Bill and Corky are the explorers, who are the real aliens?
• The Great Wild Woolly - This episode is a family favourite. The Wild Woolly is a psychotic sheep owned by Mrs. Whistlehead, and when he escapes he sets about setting all of the other sheep free. Bill and Corky try and catch him, but the task proves difficult.
• The Fairy With No Wings - Bill and Corky meet a Fairy who lost his wings while he was having a nap. Not surprisingly, the two friends take it upon themselves to get the missing wings back.
• Naughty Ned - Bill and Corky invent a machine to help them paint faster, but they soon discover that the fastest way isn't always the best, or the cleanest. Ned is their curious neighbour who can't follow instructions and manages to make matters much worse.

    My kids are familiar with this series from it's airing locally on ABC Kids, so this disc was met with some excitement when I popped it into the player. We were only a few seconds into the first episode when my five year old co-reviewer exclaimed "...something's not right, Dad!". She was right of course, it appears the DVD soundtrack contains a foreign English dub, probably from the North of the UK. The character voices used on this DVD are very different by comparison to the local broadcast. One of them is by none other than Miranda Richardson. The accents are thick and not nearly as accessible as the local version my kids are familiar with. Having said that, I don't think they are too traumatised, considering the number of replays this disc has enjoyed since it arrived on our doorstep.

    Some insightful observations from my five-year-old co-reviewer:

    "The voices are very different, but they're not too hard to understand". "I like the ABC Kids (Australian character) voices better".

    "The pictures on the back cover are wrong". (On closer inspection I realised she was absolutely right! The stills on the back of the cover slick don't match the episodes in the blurb. There's also a minor typo on the spine of the slick.)

    "The Fairy episode is my favourite, but I like them all, really".

Video

    This video transfer is very good for a children's show, easily on a par with the standard definition digital broadcast. The original aspect ratio of 1.78:1 has been retained, complete with 16x9 enhancement.

    The animation is clear and sharp, and looks great on a big screen. Colours are bright and bold, with no bleeding or unsightly artefacts to be seen. There are no dire compression issues to be concerned about.

    An English subtitle stream is provided and seems to be accurate, although it does summarise the dialogue a little.

    Contrary to the info on the cover, this disc is DVD5 formatted (single layered).

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    As I mentioned above, an English (Dolby Digital stereo) soundtrack is included, but it is not the same as the local broadcast version. The accents in this version are thick (Northern UK) and it is obvious why a decision was made to dub it for local audiences. Despite the issues with the foreign accents, the dialogue is clearly audible and relatively easy to follow. There are no sync issues.

    The musical accompaniment is light and suits the adventurous, creative sentiment of the series very well.

    There is no dedicated subwoofer or surround activity.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    Nothing to get too excited about.

Menu

    The transfer is very good, but a foreign audio soundtrack has been used.

    No extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall