Animaniacs Volume 4 (3-Disc DVD Collection)



Release Date: Available February 05 on DVD.



A Review By: Kevin Lovell

Disc Rating: 8/10

Plot Summary:

Ensemble cast of off-the-wall Warner Brothers characters, appearing in a wide variety of roles. Wakko, Yakko, and Dot Warner, are WB Studio creations who were just too “zany” to be of any use to the studio. Pinky and the Brain are two mice bent on world domination. Rita and Runt are a cat and dog team, who get into perilous situations every episode, put always seem to find time to sing a song. Bobby, Pesto, and Squit are the Goodfeathers, part of a New York mob of pigeons, who worship Martin Scorsese. Slappy the Squirrel is a late middle-age squirrel; she starred in a series of popular cartoons in the Golden Age. Buttons is a watch-dog, charged with watching the mischievous toddler, Mindy. Chicken Boo is a giant chicken trying to integrate into human society. Flavio and Marita are two urbane hippopotami.

Continue on after the jump for the review.

‘Animaniacs’ is one of those shows I spent a lot of my childhood (and even some time afterwards) watching, though it’s been a good few years since the last time I found myself watching the series. Imagine my pleasant surprise when the final DVD volume of the classic series arrived on my doorstep. I tore off the wrapping, popped in a disc and took off on a trip down memory lane. I remember always being quite fond of this series, but after so long I have to admit I had forgotten how truly marvelous it really was.

Volume 4 is the final installment of ‘Animaniacs’ on DVD and includes all 24 remaining episodes in a beautiful 3 Disc DVD collection. So get ready to have some more fun with all your favorite zany characters such as Yakko, Wakko, Dot, Pinky and the Brain and all the rest of the ‘Animaniacs’ gang. From silly little quips, to their own unique spoofs of everything from Star Trek to Hercules, you won’t want to miss out on reliving all this silly fun over and over again.

VIDEO:

‘Animaniacs’ Volume 4 is presented in a 4X3 presentation representing it’s original television broadcast. Some scenes contain a noticeable amount of video noise on bright items such as bright colored hats, etc. but in all honesty it helps you to truly appreciate that this series isn’t from the past few years, it’s a classic you grew up loving and the video presentation on this release truly reflects that without polishing the show into a horrible glimmering mess. We all know what happens when studios go overboard trying to clean up and master an older source and that the end result is often more harmful than beneficial to the final product. While the video presentation here may not be top notch, there is certainly nothing wrong with it, and considering the time this series was produced it looks pretty decent overall. It should please those ‘Animaniacs’ fans out there who will likely be overjoyed to finally be able to complete their DVD collection of this tremendous series.

AUDIO:

The audio is probably the finest point of this release. Being an older series, it is presented with a Dolby Digital 2.0 Audio Track that sounds quite impressive. My receiver read the stereo track as a four channel split on auto mode, featuring the dialogue in the center channel and the music and zany effects are tossed into the front stereo speakers while leaving one channel to produce sounds/music to spread among the rear speakers making for a truly fun experience and more than I would of expected from a DVD release such as this. For those audiophiles like me out there, you can be assured that as far as 2 channel Dolby Digital audio soundtracks go, this one is quite impressive for what it is and the source in which it was taken from. The disc also includes English Subtitles for the hearing impaired as well as French subtitles.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

The Special Features section of this collection is really the only thing lacking on this DVD release. While no actual special features regarding ‘Animaniacs’ are featured, disc one includes a trailer for the animated film ‘Scooby-Doo! Mask Of The Blue Falcon’ as well as a ‘Scooby-Doo’ Dubstep video that I must admit is slightly amusing, even for someone like me who despises dubstep in general. Discs two and three do not include any features. Even with the lack of features on this release, you should still have no problem keeping yourself entertained with 24 episodes (that’s over 8 hours) of zany ‘Animaniacs’ fun.

Disc Rating: 8/10

‘Animaniacs’ Volume 4 will be unleashed on DVD in a 3-Disc Collection this Tuesday, February 5 2013 from Warner Bros Home Entertainment with the incredibly affordable SRP of only $29.99.