There's two episodes apiece for Bod, who is followed by Farmer Barlimow, Aunt Flo and
Frank the Postman, all curious to know what he's up to, Willo the Wisp is surrounded
by Evil Edna, the wicked witch that's a TV set, Mavis Cruet, the too-fat-to-fly
fairy and Arthur the cynical, down-to-earth caterpillar, Hector's House finds
the French creations having happy thoughts and in The Flumps, everyone's keeping
secrets and Pootle's under a cloud.
Yoffi lifts a finger in Fingerbobs as Fingermouse is covered in feathers and the crow
manages to get that drink of water in the end, Roobarb goes up, up and away in a hot air
balloon in Roobard and Custard, Mary has a broken doll and is assisted respectively
by her pets, a dog and a mouse, in Mary, Mungo and Midge, while the
duo Crystal Tipps and Alistair complete the package.
The only real disappointment is that Kult Kidz only have the rights to show the story parts
of Bod and not the "Mmm... I think I'll have a strawberry milkshake" parts,
which seems rather odd and are missed.
As with their other releases, the picture quality is far from perfect, but
for the content on this disc it's certainly one sacrifice I don't mind making
and it really brings home the essence of the programmes.
I was unable to determine the average bitrate due to a strange way in which
the disc has been encoded, which also prevents the bookmark function.
The sound is scratchy mono only, but the theme tunes bring all the old
feelings flooding back!
Extras :
No extras and the disc at first appears to have a subtitle option, since it's
selectable, but there are none there.
The one and only menu is nicely animated though. It shows all the characters,
some hidden to reveal themselves later, sitting on a couch or the floor,
occasionally piping up with some trademark phrases.
Although the overall score doesn't rate highly, the content is first-rate
and for a tenner you can't go wrong.
For future releases, I'd like to see the rest of this disc's characters get a
complete series on DVD, with the full rights to Bod obtained.
DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV
connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and
played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
