I wish, I wish, with all my heart to fly with dragons in a land apart
Emmy wished on a dragon scale,
And that's what started Dragon Tales.
Around the room the dragons flew!
But Emmy and Max knew what to do;
They climbed on the backs of their Dragon friends
Now the adventures never end!
A new show was launched in September 1999 on PBS by Sesame Workshop (the folks who bring you Sesame Street) in conjunction with Sony-Columbia/TriStar. It was called "Dragon Tales", and featured the adventures of human kids Emmy and Max. They are a young sister and brother who had moved into a new house and had no friends, but found a secret drawer in the playroom with a small treasure box in it. That box contained a magical dragon scale, and when Emmy read the writing on the box, she and Max were transported to DragonLand. There they met children dragons Ord ("he's the biggest, not so brave-of-heart"), Cassie ("so shy, oh so very smart"), and the two-in-one Zak and Wheezie ("cause you know two heads are better than one"), as well as the old teacher Quetzal.
The show's format consists of two individual 12-minute unrelated stories, separated by a "dragontune" (one of about 20 different rotating sing-along segments, with new ones added to the group every once in a while). So each episode consists of an "A" story, a song, and a "B" story.
The show quickly received acclaim. In 2000 it was nominated for two "Annie" awards (guild awards presented by the International Animated Film Society) for the voice talents of Jason "Zak" Michas and Kathleen "Wheezie" Barr. A year later it was nominated for a Daytime Emmy award in the category of "Outstanding Children's Animated Program".
It's no surprise that, with the show's popularity on the rise, Columbia brought this series to DVD as fast as possible. Before Dragon Tales was a year old, the first DVD was on the market. Now they have brought out the 4th and 5th volumes in this series. This review will concentrate on Volume 4. I'll save a story for my review of Volume 5: the story of how my then 3-year-old son brought this series to my attention!
The DVD: "Yes, We Can!"
Columbia's put together a collection of 5 stories from the first season, all grouped around the theme indicated in the disc's title. Each of these stories shows the kids and their dragon friends working hard together to overcome obstacles, and not to quit before the goal is reached:
#01 Story 1-12a Zak and the Beanstalk
#02 Story 1-35b Whole Lotta Maracas Goin' On
#03 Story 1-34a Up, Up and Away
#04 Story 1-22a The Jumping Bean Express
#05 Story 1-38b The Great White Cloud Whale
4 DragonTune songs are also included: Stretch, Hum, Clap, and Wiggle.
The Packaging:
The disc comes in a white keepcase, similar to what Disney uses for most single-disc releases.
Menu Design & Navigation: Screenshot: Main Menu - Screenshot: Story Selection
The main menu is colorful and easy to navigate. It allows you to play all episodes once through, with the show's main credits playing once at the start and the closing credits for all 5 stories playing through quickly at the end (it even includes the credits for the show's corporate sponsors and for PBS Kids! How...complete). There is also a new feature compared to the previous three Dragon Tales DVD's: a red sticker on the cover says that it "Includes 'Play All' feature with continuous play option!" This continuous play option is identical to the normal Play All option, except that after the credits roll, it goes right back to the beginning and starts all over again. This is a great option for those parents and daycare teachers who like to have something on in the background while the children play with toys...but the temptation is also great to just use the TV as a babysitter! Be careful.
All in all, that feature is just part of the total control that Columbia tries to give you with this disc. Previous Dragon Tales volumes assumed that the disc should be played one way or another, taking control away from the viewer. Now you have the option to view it any way you want to, if you're willing to sit with your child and "steer" the volume. You can easily navigate to the "Choose an Adventure" menu, watch a story, and when it's over you'll be back to that menu where you can easily glide over to the "Sing-Along-Songs" menu and pick a DragonTune to view, then afterward slide back to the story menu and pick a 2nd story. You can do this to emulate the PBS viewing experience, or make any combination you want!
Video
Video is 4x3 "Full Screen", preserving the Original Aspect Ratio of the show's PBS broadcasts. It is crisp and clean, and if possible the colors are even brighter and cleaner than in previous Dragon Tales volumes. I know many people who define the worth of owning a TV show on DVD as being that the DVD contains a better presentation than the original broadcast. While I don't necessarily agree with that, they wouldn't be disappointed with this disc. Even with the best reception possible, a PBS broadcast of Dragon Tales couldn't hope to possibly look this good. Screenshot: Dragon Friends
The only time video might break down is during fast-forward or fast-rewind of the action. The lines tend to pixelate at these times. While it would be nice to have the image remain perfectly clear at these times, the resolution never makes it difficult to find the scene you're looking for, so this should be a non-issue.
Audio
Sound is crisp and clear, and presented in stereo. The left and right forward speakers are used, but with little-to-no use of them as individual channels. I didn't mind that, because it preserves the Original Soundtrack Presentation of the show's broadcast. If they wanted to pump up the sound and really make use of the soundfield, I'm sure that a 5.1 mix would have been included. I'm also sure my 4-year-old son would run screaming from the room!
PBS also broadcasts these shows in Spanish, and the Spanish 2-channel soundtrack is presented here as an option. In fact, I watched one of these shows with my son in Spanish, and he enjoyed it every bit as much, even though he doesn't understand the language. Perhaps this is a great opportunity to expose him to Espanola!
Music is an integral part of the charm of Dragon Tales, and Columbia delivers a disc with nice, rich musical output. The songs had my son dancing around the room, clapping and wiggling and stretching. And getting the kids involved is one of the goals, right?
DVD marketers love to give you a long list of "Special Features" on the back of the DVD box, and Columbia is no different. But how much of it is really "extras"? Let's see: 5 Exciting episodes? Not an extra. 4 Dragon Tune Sing-Alongs? Maybe; depends. Digitally Mastered Audio & Video? Well, it's a DVD, isn't it? Full Screen Presentations? Uh, it's a TV show! Audio: English, Spanish 2-channel...hmmm; perhaps the Spanish. English Subtitles? No...they don't count as an extra. "Play All" Feature? Maybe the most useful "extra" on the disc, but this should be STANDARD on all TV-on-DVD releases, in my opinion.
Bonus Trailers? Ummm...the trailers on this disc don't benefit the buyer in any way. They consist of 4 commercials: Dragon Tales, Bear In The Big Blue House, Trumpet of the Swan, and JayJay the Jet Plane. All of these are promoting other shows and home videos in Columbia's lineup. They don't detract from the experience at all, and it's nice to have "sneak peeks" available in case you want to see them (as long as you're not forced to view them, which gratefully doesn't happen here). But I don't count them as a full extra.
Between the Sing-Alongs, the Spanish, the Play-All feature, and the Sneak Peeks, I guess I can squeeze out 1 out of 10 ratings points for the extras. But that's pushing it!
Summary
The ultimate value in any kid video product is that it's fun and nice to look at and engages the child's attention, while slipping in some education under their radar. Dragon Tales succeeds in doing that, in ways that can't be described under headings like "Video", "Audio", and "Extras". It is one of my son's favorite shows (again, there will be a bit more on that in the review for Volume 5). While watching this disc, he said "Oh, No!" when bad things happened, clapped and cheered when obstacles were overcome, and laughed, as he put it, "Really, REALLY big!" Meanwhile, he picked up the idea that friends should team up and work together, without letting things stand in their way.
The show also gives lessons on the practical side. The episode "The Great White Cloud Whale" (a Moby Dick variation, as you can guess) places our heroes on a flying sea-ship, commanded by their old friend Captain Scalawag. As they chase down the titular whale, young Max is at the helm and is ordered to steer to the right. But Max needs to remember his left from his right. So he uses this verse:
Point your thumbs at each other,
Then point your fingers to the sky.
"L" is for my left hand,
And the other is my right!
Max quickly gets the ship on-course, and the children in the audience pick up a new skill! As Wheezie would say, "Loooooove It!"
We also learn not to judge by appearances. When the gang goes up to the clouds in "Zak And The Beanstalk" (another variation of a popular old story, which Dragon Tales does on occasion but not usually...they're really quite original), they discover that the "mean old giant" is nothing of the sort! Everyone has a reason for what they do, even if they don't realize that others are harmed by it. What can our heroes do to help? Well, buy the disc and find out!
Dragon Tales Volume 4: "Yes, We Can!" is a terrific DVD for kids. Parents may find the formula to be a bit trite, and the action so kid-oriented that you might not want to watch all of it with your kids. I did, though, and while I won't go over every detail of all five stories, I will say that these are wonderful, fun shows that have much for your kids to like. My son prefers to watch Dragon Tales over Sesame Street these days...and a better compliment I cannot make!
These are magical, wonderful stories that are presented well on DVD. Could anything be an improvement over this disc? Yes, a few things...but not much. The best improvement would be stories that the parents will enjoy watching with the kids more than this selection. Does such an animal exist? Yes; look for my review on Dragon Tales Volume 5: "It's Cool To Be Me".
