Review of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and his Friends

Introduction

For a certain age group, summer holidays in the early eighties wouldn`t have been the same without the seemingly endless run of the excellent TV series `Huckleberry Finn and His Friends`. It was originally made in 1979 though didn`t air in the U.S until 1981, and here in the UK until the summer of 1982, being repeated through summer holidays for several years beyond.

As a visitor to one or two websites dedicated to TV nostalgia, I know that demand for the release of this series on DVD has been high, with `unofficial versions` doing the rounds on Ebay for some time, with an official German box set released earlier this year.

It ran for some 26 thirty-minute episodes (minus commercial breaks) and was amongst the last of this type of low budget period drama for kids to have been shot on film (probably 16mm). Co-financed by Canada and Germany, it was a spirited adaptation full of energetic performances from its principally young cast.

Based on the Mark Twain`s books `Huckelberry Finn` and `Tom Sawyer`, it includes many of his most famous scenes, including the wonderful `fence painting` scene that is done to perfection here.

What`s most impressive about this period adaptation is the quality of the acting which is really first class - and consistently so. Sammy Snyders may not be the greatest looking kid in the world, but he played a tremendously believable Tom Sawyer, with Ian Tracey playing a more laid-back Huck Finn, who also narrates. Unlike the books, stories from both tomes are intermixed here bringing the pair even closer together.

The atmosphere is pure `Little House on the Prairie`, though it`s hugely entertaining, more than living up to the nostalgic memories you may have of whiling away the summer holidays in front of the box.

Episode List:

1. Welcome neighbour
2. Love in bloom
3. Engagement
4. Mystery at midnight
5. The Pirates
6. How nice to be missed
7. Such a lovely funeral
8. Muff Potter`s trial
9. Buried treasure
10. Huck is a hero
11. Millionaires
12. I want to be free
13. Huck becomes the victim
14. Huck gets away
15. Huck finds Jim
16. The rains come
17. Smallpox
18. Meet the Grangerfords
19. The thing about feuding
20. The end of the feud
21. Meet the Duke and Dauphin
22. Romeo where art thou
23. Jim disappears
24. Huck Sawyer - Tom Finn
25. The rescue
26. The whole truth.

Video

Presented here as filmed and aired in 4:3. This was the tail end of the era where, due to the limitations of portable video, exteriors were filmed on 35mm or 16mm. This looks like 16mm at a guess, and it`s in pretty good shape. A very acceptable transfer.

Audio

The audio here is original mono and it`s perfectly adequate.

Features

I read somewhere (probably on this esteemed site) that this set comes with a 12 page colour booklet, though I can`t comment on this as I received only the silver discs (as is common with many review copies). However, despite offering up a generous 26 episodes across four discs, Disc 4 contains a so-called `making-of` documentary which turns out to be talking head interviews with cast and crew with cutaways to finished sequences. It`s always fun to see the kids in these series `all growed up` and you get that fun here. It seems that the making of the series was great fun, with much of it filmed outdoors without shoes and often during school term time.

Conclusion

Though many may be attracted to this set purely out of a sense of glowing nostalgia, it`s actually a series that delivers rather more than that. It stands up well in its own right and remains highly watchable today.

The two principals here are absolutely first-class; far better in fact than the majority of child actors before or since, though it`s notable that neither have gone on to great things, though do remain jobbing actors to this day.

The documentary feature here is great fun too, with most of the actors all grown up but still reminiscing warmly about their time making the series across two summers in the late seventies.

Though I didn`t see this first time around, I thoroughly enjoyed it and it`s actually very easy to see why this is so popular amongst thirty-somethings. It will be equally popular amongst those thirty-something`s children too (dating less than it might due to period dress) so I`m sure that this will prove to be a timely release.