Everybody’s favorite guy in a construction hat is back. No, not Sully from Sesame Street It’s Bob the Builder! He stars in Snowed Under: The Bobblesberg Winter Games. To join in on the fun, Bob has his favorite buddies along too, Lofty, Scoop, Muck, Roley, Travis, Spud, Wendy, Dizzy. And there’s even a new character to the crew, Benny. What trouble does Bob have to fix this time? Well…let me tell ya kids. It’s the Bobblesberg Winter games and the course is snowed under. And it’s up to Bob and h…s crew to fix and re-build everything before the opening ceremonies. Can he fix it?? Well…what do you think.
This is a full length Bob episode (just over 50 minutes). It’s about 5 times longer than a normal episode, so the kids might get restless. And there’s a feature where you loop the movie. So the kids can watch the same episode over and over again while Mommy can do the mommy stuff upstairs. Is it worth repeated viewings? The episode length is stretching it a bit. But there is an air of familiarity for the hard-core Bob viewers. The main characters are exactly like expected (even though Scoop seems a little more bossy than usual). But the alpine scenery, action and yodeling are enough to keep the kids attention.
Audio
The dialogue and music come through very clear, and the opening menu sound just blares on this Dolby Digital 2.0 audio track. The rear speakers are used in cool ways too. There are some nice environmental effects, like in the restaurant scenes. There are also some neat directional effects implemented during the winter games action scenes and the funky dream sequences. A better than average soundtrack.
Video
An inconsistent picture plagues the 1:33:1 Full Frame transfer on Bob the Builder. Can you fix that? At times the color and picture are really sharp. The colors of the characters are bright and vibrant. But at times there’s a thin film of grain across the screen. My guess is that grain is always there, but it’s more evident in the indoor scenes. But there’s no evidence of specks or edge enhancement.
Special Features
There are a number of bonus features found on this disc…
- Bob’s Snowy Day Read-Along is a good feature for kids who just can’t get enough of Bob. The kids can read along on the screen or just listen. It’s kindacool.
- There are bloopers from the film. Of course, there are no real bloopersin cartoons. Everything is drawn and planned out. But it’s nice to think of cartoon characters as real people sometimes
- There are some deleted scenes. The kids might get a kick of seeing moreof their favorite characters. Good luck telling them why they were cut out of the film. Do small kids really understand what editing is?
- There are trailers for more kid’s shows like old favorites Barney (is he stillaround?), Pingu, Rubbadubbers, and more!
- There are two bonus episodes of Bob the Builder. The episodes arecalled “Clumsy Roley” and “Bob’s Hide”, and they’re about 10 minutes long.The episodes are Bob-lite compared to the feature episode, but they do the job well enough. Video quality isn’t as good as Snowed Under, however.
- There’s a toy included! Woo hoo!
Final Thoughts
Bob the Builder is a phenomenon that kids love and adults can appreciate. Bob’s mantra, “can we fix it?? Yes we can…” is hard to get out of your head sometimes. Bob and his gang work together to overcome many problems. And I guess that’s a good message for kids. It’s important to work on the outside problems (buildings), but it’s just as important to work on the inside problems (your friendships). Snowed Underis an entertaining enough feature; a bit long, but there a lot of features to keep the kids happy if you buy it. My girlfriend’s nephew would really enjoy this DVD; I think I’ll give it to him. But I’m keeping the toy.
Special Features List
- Bob’s Snowy Day Read-Along
- Bloopers
- Deleted scenes
- Trailers
- Two bonus episodes
- Free Toy!!
