Schoolhouse Rock (TV Show) (DVD)

Connect to Facebook/Twitter, recommend via email and much more.

---

Save the Ocean offers a crustacean, fish, and squid singing about keeping the oceans clean. Here, though, the original creators show how out-of-step they are with today's music by offering a weakly rapping walrus and sea turtle that just made the kids cringe--because it's kind of like a red-haired, freckled kid who starts talking like he's from the 'hood.

FatCat Blue: The Clean Rivers Song zeroes in on the waste products that go down our sewer systems into the local rivers, and particularly single out factories as the biggest offenders.

A Tiny Urban Zoo is probably the best of the bunch because it gives kids an idea that's fun: throw some wildflower seeds down in your back yard and start your own "zoo," which will soon be populated by bugs, beetles, butterflies, and birds. The song is catchy, too.

The Energy Blues is the original save-the-planet song from the old Schoolhouse Rock series, and cleaned up it looks awfully good--so good that you'd swear it was redrawn for this DVD. This is the one that gives you a primer on how our energy search began with wood, progressed to coal, then oil, and what effect consumption has on the planet.

Solar Power to the People" dredges up an old Schoolhouse Rock character (Interplanet Janet) for a new song about the sun as a source of heat, lighting, and electricity.

Windy and the Windmills does the same for wind power.

Don't Be a Carbon Sasquatch is a catchy song with fun graphics that teaches kids about "carbon footprints" but then circles back to reduce consumption themes from previous songs.

The Three Rs is a live-action music video starring Mitchel Musso ("Hannah Montana") with a "Roger Rabbit"-style integration of cartoon elements. The three Rs, of course, are Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle.

About the only thing missing is a song about the dangers to the planet that nuclear power presents, and given that legislation is on the table to permit the construction of new plants, it's surprising that there's nothing that addresses the storage problems we're facing already.

Video:
Surprisingly, these are presented in 1.66:1 widescreen, enhanced for 16x9 television monitors. Not surprisingly, for a Disney video, the picture quality is great: bright colors, clean and precise margins, just a modicum of grain/texture.

Audio:
Disney went full-bore on these, offering English or French Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtracks (apparently English and French speakers are the only ones who care about saving the planet, or need these lessons the most!). There are no subtitles. Then again, with song lyrics often popping up and words to reinforce the lessons fill the screens, where would subtitles go?

Extras:
There are no bonus features.

Bottom Line:
These 12 new Schoolhouse Rock songs are done in the same style as the originals by the creators of those old mini-musical lessons that began in the the 1970s. Does it play today? Well, I'm not the person to judge. Young people out there are going to have to answer that question, and for that to happen Disney is going to have to start running the songs on the Disney Channel and including them on all their kid-friendly DVDs.

---

Connect to Facebook/Twitter, recommend via email and much more.

---