Captain Mack Super Galactic Amazer Grazer   Starring: Bennet Thorpe, Rikki Chamberlain, Andrew Greenough and Richard Brinkmann Kaleidoscope Home Entertainment RRP: £9.99 KAL8023 Certificate: U Available 27 April 2009

The town of Sunshine City is one of the most pleasant places on the planet, with a helpful population. Even paradise can run into the odd problem and when problems arise Sunshine City turns to its very own superhero Captain Mack, who is aided and abetted by his monkey engineer Samson as well as Dr Kwack, Yolanda Yummy and Daisy Digger...

Captain Mack: Super Galactic Amazer Gazer is a children’s show which combines live action with animation. The series was created by John Lomas-Bullivant and first broadcast at the beginning of 2008. The disc contains the first eight, eleven minute, episodes of the show - Scary Spider; Shall We Dance?; Super Dooper Litter Scooper; Mouse Hunt; The Mayor's Birthday; Catch It If You Can; Super Galactic Amazer Gazer; and Tender Tulip - and tells various small tales which usually involve the good Captain thwarting the plans of Tracy Trickster, Grabby Crabby and Marty Meddler.

Aimed at a very young audience, the animation is large and colourful, the acting is over the top and the accents are dire. The narrative is repetitive, but then this is usually a strong point in children’s programming, especially for the under fives, who delight in the repetition found in nursery rhymes.

As well as the main episodes the disc comes with three extras. Interview with a Sky Captain (1 min, 52 sec) is a very short Q&A session, The Sky Captain Code (52 sec) is an even shorter piece with Captain Mack listing the five points of the code and lastly Jokes (8 min) is a rather lengthy piece with Samson and the Good Captain sharing pretty awful jokes. The PR Company state that the disc will also include specially compiled DVD games, but these were not included on the review disc.

There's not much you can say about the show, it's competently written and presented and will please younger viewers, however it’s not likely to be regarded as a classic and I do question the choice to use non-standard English in some of its titles.

6

Charles Packer