Bob the Builder – A Christmas to Remember
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Williams on December 15th, 2003
Each year in early November, the market is flooded with new Christmas videos for the kids to lap up. This year was no different with releases from Sponge Bob Squarepants, the Rugrats, Blue’s Clues and the list goes on. Not to be outdone Hit Entertainment had responded with a release from one of their most popular franchises – Bob the Builder.
In this special Bob and his crew prepare for the season by helping to put on a rock show by Lennie and the Lazers. In addition Bob awaits a visit from his twin brothe… Tom who is coming all the way from the Arctic Circle. But trouble comes in the form of Spud (what the heck is Spud anyway? A talking potato head? Nope…mischievous scarecrow.) whose usual nasty antics cause trouble for our heroes, vocal troubles by Lennie, and a missing Santa suit for Bob. Who can save this dire situation? If you said Santa you’d be wrong! If you said Elton John – you would be right. Huh? Elton John shows up here in all of his stop motion glory. He sings a few songs and saves the day. It is a kids show after all.
Video
There is a significant amount of artifacting and occasional grainy scene but the kids are not going to complain about that. The Bob universe is created with very bright and vivid colours and these do come through on the disc. The image is sharp and clean with good black levels.
Audio
The sound is good enough for a kids video – it sounds as if it were produced in Dolby Digital 2.0 with little separation of sound. The dialogue comes through the centre speaker crisp and clear and there is a wide range of music in the show from orchestral background tunes, to Elton John on the piano signing away to the rock guitar theme in the beginning. There is really good bass effect and good dynamic response.
Special Features
The Special Features consist of 2 music videos featuring none other than Bob and his crew. There are also trailers for other Bob videos, the Rubbadubbers, Oswald and a Public Service Announcement from the National Association of Homebuilders featuring Bob telling all the kids various safety tips.
Final Thoughts
While my nearly 3 year old daughter can tolerate Bob and the crew for the standard 15 minute episodes on TV she quickly lost interest in the 50 minute special. I think that she is like me in that we enjoy stop motion animation…in small quantities. This is not a bad holiday show but there are much better ones out there.
Special Features List
- 50 minute special
