The Charge

These delightful stories bring new life to timeless tales.

The Case

Scholastic Video continues their series of books on DVD by showcasing three stories based on books by author James Marshall.

Red Riding Hood
Red Riding Hood encounters the Big Bad Wolf while taking custard to her grandmother, who lives—suspiciously—in the forest.
Rating: ****

Goldilocks and the Three Bears
Spoiled brat Goldilocks defies her mother's warnings and decides to take a shortcut through the forest. She stumbles upon the home of the Three Bears, where she freeloads instead of leaving immediately. This short was produced by Gene Deitch, who oversaw Hanna-Barbera's Tom and Jerry series from 1958 to 1964, in addition to several Popeye shorts.
Rating: *****

The Three Little Pigs
The Big Bad Wolf (any relation to the one in the first story is purely coincidental), having eaten the first two little pigs, makes several attempts to eat the third. He didn't count on the craftiness of the last surviving pig.
Rating: ****1/2

With Red Riding Hood and More James Marshall Fairy Tale Favorites, Scholastic has again produced a children's disc with impeccable quality. As with previous Scholastic releases, the full frame transfer here is quite satisfactory—clean, with few artifacts getting in the way, and featuring vibrant, bold colors. It's a lesson other studios producing kidvid need to learn, pronto. Audio is the standard Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo mix, without the major problems usually associated with children's discs, such as low volume mixing, and poor contrast between sound depths.

Extra content includes two additional animated short subjects, also based on children's books:

Chicken Little
Steven Kellogg's book recast the original fairy tale into a wild comedy. Foxy Loxy (voice of Hank Azaria, Mystery Men) schemes to score a quick poultry lunch after seeing Chicken Little (voice of Helen Hunt, Mad About You). However, before Foxy can make his move, an acorn hits Chicken Little on her head. Is the sky really falling?
Rating: *****

Rapunzel
Paul O. Zelinsky's adaptation of the classic fairy tale is brought to the small screen. The animation amounts mainly to photographing the pages and animating selected objects to suggest motion. It's a technique often put down by animation experts, but I think that for children's fare it's a viable and entertaining method of filmmaking.
Rating: ****

A brief featurette, Getting to Know James Marshall, gives the viewer a look into the life of this popular children's author. The biggest hint Marshall gives about himself is that he puts a little bit of Texas (his home state) into each of his books.

If you enjoyed previous Scholastic releases and love good animation, you should check out Red Riding Hood and More James Marshall Fairy Tale Favorites. With a suggested retail price of $14.95, it will not break the wallet, and you'll entertain both children and yourself at the same time. Need I say more?

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