Dom Robinson reviews

Distributed by
PT Video

Cert:

Cat.no: PTDVD 8095

Running time: 145 minutes

Year: 1978

Pressing: 2001

Region(s): 0, PAL

Chapters: 13

Sound: Mono

Languages: English

Subtitles: None

Fullscreen: 4:3

16:9-Enhanced: No

Macrovision: Yes

Disc Format: DVD 9

Price: £9.99

Extras: Interview with Brian Cosgrove

Director:

Chris Taylor

Producer:

Brian Cosgrove and Mark Hall

Written by:

Brian Trueman

Music:

Joe Griffiths

Narrator:

Joe Lynch

And now the end is near as the third and final series of Chorlton and the Wheelies drops onto DVD with more stop-frame animation from the late 70s. Fenella, the wicked witch in Spout Hall who sounds like she might be the mother of Nige from Channel 4's late-night review show, Vids (albeit with less foul language), has drained all the colour and laughter from the usually-happy land of the Wheelies and you know someone's been dropping a tab of something conspicuous when help arrives in the form of orange dragon Chorlton, as he lands in a brightly coloured egg. He's so-called because he comes from the Manchester area of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, despite having a Yorkshire accent.

This DVD contains the entire second series of 13 episodes, including :

• Spot the Happiness Dragon: Fenella casts a spell to steal Chorlton's spots, but while one part of the plan works out, it causes spots to be spread around Spout Hall, Wheelie World and everywhere BUT Chorlton!
• Free-Wheeling Fenella: Wheelie World has discovered a new craze - skateboards - and after failing to get rid of him, Fenella tries to kill Chorlton off by jumping on her own set of wheels and going after him.
• The Royal Wheely-World Pipe Band: It's the swansong for Chorlton and the Wheelies and Fenella has all but given up trying to cause everyone harm. It's "New Gear" and everyone's due a service, but will the season of goodwill rub off on Fenella?

The episodes presented here are :

1. Fenella and the Face Fungus 2. Spot the Happiness Dragon 3. Queen Doris' Silver Jubilee 4. Chorlton and the Spinning Spell 5. The Day The Lights Went Out 6. Free-Wheeling Fenella 7. Hop, Skip and Crunch

8. Hide and Shriek 9. Octoblob at Twilight 10. Pablo's World 11. Skateboard Special 12. Some Like It Hot 13. The Royal Wheely-World Pipe Band

Chorlton has doubts about the Monty Python spoof.

The picture looks better than the first two series with less print damage and a lack of jerkiness that affected early episodes. Presented in 4:3 fullscreen, you might not think it was made nearly 25 years ago. The average bitrate is 6.21b/s, peaking over 7Mb/s.

The quality of the sound is the same. It's in mono which comes across clearly in some episodes, while others sound rather muffled.

As with series 1 & 2, there are no subtitles, but we are granted an extra in the form of a 12-minute Interview with Brian Cosgrove, in which he puts forward the answers to nine questions. Alas, whoever set up the camera and sound needs shooting since it looks too dark, the microphone is too far from Brian and they could have re-shot some of the answers to save us seeing him having a hearty cough.

The disc has a neat animated menu with the classic theme tune and Fenella "pops up" all over the place as ever. There's one chapter apiece for each of the 11-minute episodes.

FILM CONTENT PICTURE QUALITY SOUND QUALITY EXTRAS
OVERALL

The following is a list of all the PT Video, Freemantle Home Entertainment and Telstar Video Children's DVDs reviewed online to date :