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Somewhere
in the dark and nasty regions - where nobody goes, stands
an ancient castle. Deep within this dank and uninviting place
lives Berk, the overworked servant of The Thing Upstairs.
But that's nothing compared to the horrors that lurk beneath
The Trap Door. For there is always something down there, in
the dark, waiting to come out...
Oh
dear! Oh dear! What have Universal done? They've released
one of the best animated series of the '80s and done a truly,
truly awful job in the process.
I,
as I suspect all potential purchasers of this release, remember
this series with great fondness. I bought the video many years
ago and still watch it occasionally. With news that the entire
collection (it only ran to two series) was to be released
on DVD, I was quite looking forward to seeing what extras
they were going to include.
Er...
the answer is sod all! Not a featurette, an audio commentary
- hell, not even subtitles for the hard of hearing... nothing.
Oh, sorry... there is one extra. The opening titles to the
show is included as an extra. Go figure!
Let
me spell out to you why you should not waste your money on
this release.
Firstly,
the image quality is horrendous. I compared it to a VHS copy
I own and I have to say there is very little difference. Universal
obviously didn't go back to the original source material and
produce a nice, crisp image. No, they appear to have transferred
a VHS copy onto DVD. There are also plenty of scratches, dropout
and all sorts of nasties lurking on the print used.
There
is also no opening or end titles on any of the episodes. I
can almost excuse them for not including them on every episode
(although personally I would have preferred it if they had
been included) but to not include it on the first episode
is a little strange.
Then
you have the option of watching all episodes or choosing which
episode you watch... although that doesn't work either. If
you decide to watch a single episode, you'll soon see that
they are actually grouped into a collection of episodes. And
the episode titles are not listed on this menu (They are simply
labelled as 1-5, 6-10 etc.) so if you want to watch, for example
Gourmet's Delight, there's no way of finding out which
collection of episodes it is grouped in with.
But
what really makes me angry is that Universal expect the unsuspecting
public to stomp up £20 for this pile of rubbish.
This
is such a shame, because produced properly (instead of being
flung together in an afternoon) this release would have been
fantastic. Classic episodes, classic animation, crap DVD.
Go and find a video copy instead.
Comedy god Willie Rushton will be turning in his grave.
Don't
you purchase this DVD,
You're a fool if you do,
Stay away from this DVD,
Cos' it's a pile of poo!
Nick
Smithson
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£14.99
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