Blog DVD Reviews: You're a Good Sport, Charlie Brown; Dancing with the Stars Season 8 Casting Announcement On Feb. 8?

Saturday, January 31, 2009

Blog DVD Reviews: You're a Good Sport, Charlie Brown; Dancing with the Stars Season 8 Casting Announcement On Feb. 8?

It is Saturday, so that must mean it is time for the weekly Blog DVD Reviews. Today week we take a look at Warner Home Video's You're a Good Sport, Charlie Brown Remastered Deluxe Edition. This classic 1975 CBS special showcases sports, what better day to do this review since tomorrow is the Super Bowl! See my Blog DVD Reviews of You're a Good Sport, Charlie Brown Remastered Deluxe Edition:

You're a Good Sport, Charlie Brown - Remastered Deluxe Edition (Warner, $19.98) brings us the classic 1975 sports-themed episode (15th primetime special) on DVD digitally remastered...and it is really worth it! Plus in addition to the Good Sport special, we also get You're the Greatest, Charlie Brown, a 1979 CBS special that is also about sports.
The Good Sport special starts off with Snoopy playing tennis but the main focus of the special is a Motocross race. So start your engines! Can Snoopy compete against Peppermint Patty and Charlie Brown? It's going to be fast and furious fun right up to the finish line! Whoever wins will win two tickets to the NFL Pro Bowl! In the Greatest special, hard work and team spirit are what Charlie Brown needs for a decathlon victory in the Junior Olympics but this junior Olympian had better keep his eye on the track to win!
Let's now move on to the packaging. Like all the previous sets, we have a thin outer box that holds a very thin case, that is movie style. I never understood the reason for the thin box that holds a thin case...what's the point? Also, both the back and front of each are exactly the same, except the box is shinier. The cover art is lime in color, and has #13 Charlie Brown, #7 Peppermint Patty, and #1 Snoopy on their bikes racing in the Motocross race, with little Woodstock watching. The title of the special is on the top, with a mention that this is a remastered deluxe edition on top of that! The bottom tells us we also get a bonus TV special (You're the Greatest, Charlie Brown). To the back we go, we get a nice synopsis of the Good Sport special, along with a list of the special features below that. It is again lime in color with artwork of Snoopy and Woodstock playing tennis. When we open the case, we get black background all over, very plain, but of course the disc is inside. The disc is in lime and has that blackboard and has artwork of Snoopy and Woodstock on the tennis court.
The menu screen has options of Features, Special Features, and Languages. We get that lime background again, with the theme song playing in the background. We also have the same artwork as the cover art with the trio on their bikes. Anyway back to the menu, for Languages, we can have either English, Japanese, or Portugues. For subtitles we have those three again and also Chinese, French, and Thai...wow! But no Espanol for either? The Features section has the two specials listed, we can also select Play All to play both back-to-back. Finally, Special Features lists the extra (more on that below) and Trailers.
The video and audio is tremendous once again. These specials are all so good. They have never looked better or sounded better ever. I am very impressed yet again; what more can I say?. Warner continues to do a great job on this remastering of all these classic specials. Good Sport special runs 25:07 and has 6 chapter stops, which you an use via your DVD remote. The Greatest special runs 24:24 and has 5 chapter stops.
As for special features, we get a nice featurette! It is titled "Dust Yourself Off and Pick Yourself Up, Charlie Brown" and runs 11:34. We find out lots of behind-the-scenes details and cool facts for the Good Sport special from members of the Schulz family and more. Charles Schulz's son Craig was the inspiration of this special because he loved dirt biking. Interviewed are Craig Schulz, Nat Gertler (Peanuts Historian), Jerry Beck (Animation Historian), and Shari Young Kuchenbecker, Ph.D (Author). We also get Trailers from other Warner animation titles.
I once again highly do recommend this set for any Charlie Brown-Peanuts fan and classic animation in general. Warner continues to do a wonderful job with the remastering and the behind the scenes extras of each special. Let's hope they continue to release more Charlie Brown specials and eventually we get them all remastered in our personal libraries! So on your marks, get set, and go and to get this special on DVD!
-- Reviewed by Pavan

(4/5 stars)

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Related links:
SitcomsOnline.com Full DVD Reviews Page
Charlie Brown Official Page
Charlie Brown Specials

We have some special Saturday news for you. I have gotten word that ABC will announce the new cast of Dancing with the Stars on Sunday, Feb. 8 in primetime! Not sure how this will work, though, but maybe during commercial breaks they will announce little by little the 12 or 13 celebs? We will find out a bit tomorrow (Sunday, Feb. 1) during the Wipeout Bowl on ABC because there will be promos for this starting tomorrow. So the promos will tell us starting tomorrow how ABC plans to announce the Dancing with the Stars season 8 cast! Usually we get the announcements for each season on Good Morning America, but last February we got the announcement on the finale of the spin-off Dance War. Tune in for the promos tomorrow during the Wipeout Bowl (during halftime of the Super Bowl switch to ABC and switch to ABC immediately after the game for a one-hour special)! Goodnight and big balls!