Well, even though the market for classic cartoons on DVD seems to be unfortunately drying up, there are still a handful of companies taking the chance to release some great shows. One in particular is Millcreek Entertainment. Though they typically seem to concentrate on public domain material, in the last couple of years they’ve been actively acquiring licenses and partnering with other studios to act as the DVD production and distribution house. In fact they’ve begun re-releasing a lot of the cartoons that BCI Eclipse was putting over the last ten years (stuff like Dungeons and Dragons, Defenders of the Universe, and even Bravestarr.) They’ve also recently teamed up with Cookie Jar, the company that rose out of the ashes of Cinar Films and DiC, to start releasing a bunch of their cartoons on DVD. One of the these titles I was really happy to see is the complete Paddington Bear, which is coming out on DVD today, February 15th…
I have a ton of fond memories watching the Paddington Bear shorts (including the awesome theme music) during Pinwheel on Nickelodeon back in the 80s. In fact I still feel very lucky that my parents popped for cable because I was introduced to a lot of imported shows and shorts from all over the world, almost all of which came to me through Nickelodeon. Simon in the Land of Chalk, Danger Mouse, Count Duckula, Belle & Sebastian, the Little Prince, Bunny in the Suitcase, the Hattytown Tales, and of course that adorable marmalade-eating, stow-away bear from the darkest reaches of Peru, Paddington. The UK series originally aired between 1975 and 1978, and had three follow-up specials that aired in 1980, 84, and 86. I vividly remember watching it during Pinwheel sometime between 1982 and 1987…
Paddington is based on a series of books written by an ex-camera operator for the BBC named Michael Bond. He began the adventures of Paddington in 1959 and is still writing them to this day. As far as the series goes, it was produced by a company called FilmFair, and was directed by the wonderful stop motion animator Ivor Wood. The series was shot in a very interesting variation of stop motion that blended puppetry with hand-drawn paper cut-outs which gave the show a very convincing storybook look. It didn’t hurt that the series was also narrated by a single actor (the sweet dulcet voice-work of Michael Hordern), so it added a book-on-tape sort of feel to the production.
The gist of the story centers on a chance encounter in a train station where the Brown family happen on a little bear in a clunky over-sized hat and a duffle coat who secretly immigrated to the UK from Peru. The family decides to adopt the bear and name him Paddington after the Paddington station where they found him. He might as well be a propber British bear as he loves his marmalade sandwiches and always has time to take tea with family and friends. Of course in the process of exploring his new hometown he gets himself into all sorts of unfortunate situations, but such is the life for a little brown bear.
One of the aspects that I love about this series is the interesting take on the animation. In the series there is an odd style which mixes puppetry and miniatures with paper cutouts. Basically, Paddington and the immediate area surrounding him is typically shot in miniatures while all of the characters and environments not directly in contact with him is done as drawings on paper, though they aren’t combined in post production, but instead all short together on film. It makes for a very distinct look and tone, not to mention some crazy jump-cuts where a paper figure will hand a paper prop to Paddington that becomes a miniature after the jump.
The Millcreek/Cookie Jar set is (I believe) the first time that the complete series has been released on DVD with all 56 episodes. It also features the three later specials that I remember also watching on HBO on Sunday mornings during their kid’s block of programming. These specials have a slightly different look where Paddington sheds his black hat and dark blue duffle coat in favor of a light blue coat, a yellow hat and little yellow rain boots. These specials also updated the look of the paper-cutout animation, increasing the number of “frames” and getting rid of any extra white paper halos around the figures. They look a lot cleaner and much less clunkily animated than the original series, but all of it is gold in my book…
This set also features a bunch of bonus episodes from two other FilmFair UK stop motion series, five episodes of the Wombles (1973) and ten episodes of Huxley Pig (1989)…
I’d never seen these series growing up, but they’ve very similar in look and tone to Paddington. I’m secretly hopping that Millcreek and Cookie Jar will see fit to also put some episodes of Hattytown Tales on DVD in the near future (please, please, oh please!)
As far as this set goes, it’s super affordable at $16 for the whole shebang, which honestly is what Millcreek does best. The packaging is in the new style (discs housed in individual sleeves that snap into the clamshell case) that I’m not a fan of (see my review of the Complete 21 Jump Street for pictures), but at only 3 discs it’s nowhere near as frustrating as some of their other sets. The picture quality is a little jumpy and grainy, but at this price it’s really a non-issue. All in all, if you grew up with the British and Canadian programming available on Nickelodeon then this is a must have set that will bring back all sorts of fond memories…
