Review of Complete Chorlton And The Wheelies, The: Series One

Introduction

"Jump in, we`ll take you for a spin and show you round the wheelie world...."

And so begins the theme tune of another classic piece of television that has been launched at the DVD buying public. If you`ve been keeping up, you`ll notice that most of the "classics for younger people" that have been released so far were shown on the BBC. This release starts to redress that balance as it was one of many fantastic series made by Brian Cosgrove and Mark Hall for ITV.

And just to re-enforce that fact you even get the old Thames TV ident as the main menu loads up. Instant nostalgia.

So what`s it all about? Well basically a dragon hatches from an egg in Wheelie World, and befriends the Wheelies, helping them in their fight against Fenella the evil witch. Sounds mad but then again most television from this era was...

Video

As you would expect the picture is not reference quality, but it`s surprisingly good for its age, and seems to have aged better than some of the other classics like Bod and Willo the Wisp. There are some bad moments, but on the whole everything looks ok and is perfectly watchable.

Audio

The original mono soundtrack, replayed over the left and right channels. Nothing to write home about, but still good for its age. Again the soundtrack seems to have aged better than some of the other shows recently released on DVD.

Features

Nothing here, apart from the nostalgia trip of the Thames TV logo as the disc loads...

Conclusion

Another classic slice of television for the younger generation, from an age when they knew how to make it. The first of many great Cosgrove/Hall series to make their way on to DVD (the next two Chorlton series are due out later on in the year, with more Cosgrove/Hall classics to follow).

If you remember it, you`ll probably want to buy it, and it`s a snip at £9.99 or less.