Review of Noddy In Toyland

Introduction

Well Hello there Noddy - you`ve been away haven`t you?

I sat down with my youngest tormentor with interest to watch this disc, which consists of three adventures for our strangely behatted chum and his assortment of mates.
I was interested largely because Noddy is one of the Peter Pans of children`s TV, if you`ll pardon the appalling metaphor which refers one imaginary character to another in order to imply something about both of them, in that I can remember reading the stories and watching the original show when I was my son`s age.
With what I was happy was the basis of an interesting psychological experiment I was determined to keep an eye on the boy as he watched the show and see if he reacted to Noddy in time-honoured fashion.
Unfortunately the experiment ended early when I was greeted with some American kids and their grandfather relentlessly learning moral lessons in a shop with it`s title "Noddy" writ large above the doorway.
I can`t help feeling a sense of outrage with this constant modernising of our favourite children`s TV characters and this did nothing to dampen the feeling.
Why has the BBC felt it necessary to break up three perfectly reasonable episodes of Noddy with a load of badly executed "Play Away meets Rainbow" type rubbish?
The episode selection on the DVD doesn`t even allow you to skip the dross and watch the episodes alone.
It wasn`t just me either - my son was visibly bored rigid with the "oh goodness me the parrot`s escaped, better track him down with my bright stockings and a glove puppet" banalaties and only refocused his attention when the animation restarted.

The three Noddy episodes themselves were excellent and just as enthralling for the kids as ever, I just wish they`d put 10 of them on the disc and dispensed with the other rubbish.

Video

The image is presented in 4:3 aspect ratio. Quality is what you`d expect from a still photography based animation of wooden characters in a cardboard town, but as such it`s represented brightly and accurately on the screen.

Audio

Sound quality is fine - There`s no bells and whistles on the processing, but then I don`t think you`d gain anything with dolby digital giving you that doppler effect as Noddy zooms past in his car..

You can have a variety of languages, including French, Spanish and Portugese.

Features

ahem.

Not on this disc there aren`t. Unless you count the Grandfather attempting a vague English accent and then forgetting to carry on most of the time, which is, in fact, a feature of some note for me.

Conclusion

Enid Blighton wrote the Noddy stories all those years ago for children to enjoy, not, I`d wager, to make sure that they took home an ethical or moral point from them. Why do people involved in children`s broadcasting insist on trying to educate them ALL of the time? Surely it`s enough for a kid to enjoy itself for no other reason at least sometimes?

If you`re one of the earlier Noddy generation with kids of your own then I`d recommend this disc after all is said and done, just try to put up with the filler material and if you can`t, buy the books.