Sam & Max: Freelance Police, The Complete Animated Series (DVD)
APPROX. 300 MINS. - PROD. YEAR: 1997 - MPA RATING: NR
" ...kids will be instantly mesmerized by the kaleidoscope of colors.
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12) "Christmas Bloody Christmas." It's the Christmas Special! The only way to properly spread holiday cheer with the Freelance Police is to head to the maximum-security penitentiary on Blood Island--with Sam's grandma!
13) "It Dangly Deever Time." The dark side of a character similar to Howdy Doody climbs out of an antique, black-and-white television set with plans for world domination.
14) "AAIIIEEE, Robot!" After saving the world from a meteor with the Mega-Max 3000, Sam & Max head to Tokyo in the gigantic robot to spank one big baby.
15) "The Glazed McGuffin Affair." Horrified that their favorite snack was taken off the shelves by being banned by the Food and Drug Administration's Kent Standit, Sam & Max must do everything that they can to try and convince Kent to retract his decision.
16) "The Tell Tale Tail." In an unfortunate accident, Max's tail becomes severed from his behind so he asks a mad scientist to try and reattach it to his body. Instead, the tail is animated with a mind of its own and runs amok through the town, Frankenstein-style.
17) "The Trouble with Gary." The Freelance Police are sent to a research facility where they are given the mission to baby-sit a young boy named Gary. It isn't very long before it is revealed that the kid possesses a powerful secret...
18) "Tonight We Love." On the Valentine's Day episode, Sam & Max are assigned to deliver an artificial heart for the President in Washington. Things go awry though when their De Soto and the cooler containing the heart are stolen.
19) "The Invaders." It's no ordinary day at the office when a pair of tiny spacemen set the sights of their tiny space guns on Sam & Max.
20) "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang." After acquiring a microchip, the Freelance Police are enlisted as secret agents to infiltrate the enemy headquarters in a spoof of James Bond.
21) "Little Bigfoot." Sam & Max kidnap a young Bigfoot from a theme park as part of a rescue attempt to set the creature free into the wild.
22) "Fools Die on Friday." A madman takes the passengers of a zeppelin hostage and demands a $5,000,000 ransom, but Sam & Max soon learn that the terrorist is a familiar headache from their past....
23) "Sam & Max vs. the Uglions." Aliens take over the Earth, but if that wasn't bad enough, Sam & Max have to prevent the U.S. Army from creating a nuclear holocaust.
24) "The Final Episode." After being captured by an allegiance of super villains from previous episodes, Sam & Max spend the final moments of their series reminiscing over some of the favorite memories.
Video:
As one would expect from a decade-old TV series, the DVDs of the show are in full-screen mode with an aspect ratio of 1.33:1. I must say that I was very impressed with the transfer, as the digital animation was some of the sharpest and most colorful that I have ever seen, and there were times where some of the artwork was so well done that it nearly jumped off the screen.
I'd give it a nearly perfect score, except for one very minimal thing. I noticed that during close-ups of character faces and certain objects, the camera actually zoomed in on the storyboard instead of the artists animating a new larger image. This created a slight pixelated feel that came off a bit choppy in some of the outlines. It was probably done this way to save time and money, but with such quality animation, it would have been worthwhile to take the extra step and make these scenes crisper.
Audio:
I was unable to find the exact format for the audio as it isn't documented anywhere that I can see, but if I had to make a guess I'd say that the sound on the discs is in Dolby Digital 1.0 mono as the same sound is fed to all the speakers equally. Still, it wasn't bad, and I could hear everything clearly, but it still could have been better.
Extras:
The first two discs contain all of the episodes, while all of the bonus features are housed by themselves on a separate third disc, and there were a lot more than I had anticipated.
Three animated shorts "Vice Squad," "Our Bewildering Universe/Chock Full O' Guts," and "Artsy Craftsy Bit of Time Wasting Nonsense" last a few minutes each. Technically, these aren't really extras, though, as they are inserted as filler into the actual season.
"A COMIC-CONversation with Steve Purcell" is approximately a fifteen-minute interview with the creator of Sam & Max as he is busily signing autographs at the San Diego Comic Con. It was interesting to see how Sam & Max all started and went through various developmental stages progressing into different forms of media.
"Our Bewildering Universe" is a short film where Sam & Max perform an alien autopsy. The animation for this short was in a much rougher style that was made to look like aged film. In a strange way, I actually preferred it to the actual animated series, being relatively simple but effective.
"The Tale of Telltale Games" is a look at Telltale Games, a software company that created one of the Sam & Max computer games. The graphics for the game that they show are spectacular and in a three-dimensional design.
"Ice Station Santa" is a playable demo of the computer game that viewers can access with their computers with an option to unlock the full game.
Lastly, there's a "Concept Art Gallery" (including printable art by inserting the disc into a DVD-ROM drive and accessing the file concept.pdf) as well as an "Original Sam & Max Series Bible" that is only available by printing out the series_bible.pdf file on a PC.
Included inside the box is a nifty, glossy collectible sticker of Sam & Max that is approximately 4' x 3' and of very high quality that would be ideal for the bumper of a De Soto.
The Final Cut:
There's no doubt that kids will be instantly mesmerized by the kaleidoscope of colors found in the fantastic animation of "The Adventures of Sam & Max: Freelance Police," plus I'm sure many fans of the comics would appreciate the quality of this top-notch DVD collection. As for the actual cartoons themselves, despite picking up the Gemini Award for "Best Animated Program or Series" in 1998, I can see why its fate was pretty much sealed before it could make it to a second season. Too many things just rubbed me the wrong way, and no matter how hard I tried I just couldn't get past it. Now if on the pilot Max had boxed up Sam's vocal cords, the Geek, and the obnoxious jazz band inside a crate and shipped the package to Antarctica, the series would have easily been a smash success in my book.
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