Cert:

Cat.no: BBCDVD 1018

Running time: 100 minutes

Year: 2000

Pressing: 2000

Region(s): 2 (UK PAL)

Chapters: 34 plus extras

Sound: Dolby Digital 2.0 (Dolby Surround)

Languages: English

Subtitles: English for the hard of hearing

Widescreen: 1.77:1 (16:9)

16:9-enhanced: Yes

Macrovision: No

Disc Format: DVD 5

Price: £16.99

Extras : Scene index, "Surprise Me" random play

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Director:

Kay Benbow, Will Brenton & Robin Carr

Series Producer:

Iain Lauchlan

Written by:

Will Brenton, Iain Lauchlan, Trish Cooke, Alan MacDonald,
Gwenda Turner & Jan Page

Music:

Wal Walters

Tweenies is a children's show on BBC TV for pre-schoolers aged three to five. Like their other popular show, Teletubbies, this too features four characters dressed in bright colours to appeal to such an age market.

In Ready to Play, the four 'presenters', Milo, Bella, Fizz and Jake, the programme is broken up into separate segments such as Messy Time, Story Time and Telly Time, in which they get help from old man Max to build some musical instruments and Fizz trains them all to perform in a very funny ballet.

Song Time does exactly what it says on the tin: 23 songs, some new and some traditional, come from the mouths of the four such as Music Man, Wheels on the Bus and Incy Wincy Spider.

Presented in an anamorphic 16:9 ratio, the picture quality is absolutely stunning, there's no two ways about it. If you've ever seen the show on TV you'll know that each one is packed with a cacophony of colours that will easily hold the attention of a child in the intended age range. The average bitrate is 5.67Mb/s or 5.66Mb/s, depending on which programme you watch.

When it comes to sound, the Tweenies aren't ones to be quiet. They talk to the camera - such as when it comes to introducing themselves - and kids will happily sing a long to the tunes in Song Time.

Extras :

Chapters :

Ready To Play has 10 instead of 8 as they are topped and tailed with the opening and closing credits. However, the one labelled chapter 8 (which is really chapter 9), "Tweenie Clock: Song Time", is actually a second helping of Story Time.

Song Time contains 24, not 23, chapters as it misses out the closing credits and this last chapter is also thrown into the "Surprise Me" random play feature so if you get those when expecting a random song, now you know why. However, this only works for the first song chosen. After that it will play the rest in order until the end of the programme.

Languages & Subtitles :

Menu :

Overall, while it won't quite grab an adult's attention, if your kids are a fan of the Tweenies and you have a DVD player this is a very worthwhile purchase. You'll know that their favourite videos get worn out by playing them endlessly and a DVD is a much more robust format on which to keep their collection.

As for which DVDs I'd like to see from the BBC in future. They include : Red Dwarf (in their original versions, not the remastered form), The Young Ones, Filthy Rich and Catflap, Fawlty Towers and, depending on whether I could bribe the new DG with enough cash, Eldorado...

FILM CONTENT PICTURE QUALITY SOUND QUALITY EXTRAS
OVERALL

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2000.

The following is a list of all the Tweenies DVDs reviewed online to date :