The real adventures of Jonny Quest and Pinocchio!

Who knew March was going to turn into an absolute blitz for new to DVD and highly anticipated Blu-ray Disc titles? We’re still catching up from earlier in the month, with several reviews for major titles coming up over the next few days, but we have a couple of biggies for you to start the week.

Our Hanna-Barbera nut Randall Cyrenne clocked in over the weekend to write up his thoughts on The Real Adventures Of Jonny Quest: Season One, Volume One[1], the 1990s updating of one of the 1960s most iconic animated action adventure shows. Usually I pick a couple of quotes from my colleagues’ reviews when summing them up here on the front page, but really you should just go read for yourselves: even for those who wouldn’t count themselves as fans this is a vastly in-depth coverage of the show’s production hiccups and the episodes in this set. However, is it any good? “Yes”, says Rand, “This a flawed show but when it’s good, it’s very good”.

Secondly today is my long promised full review of the Pinocchio: Platinum Edition on Blu-ray and DVD[2]. As usual with these releases, I wanted to give the disc a fair but thorough trial and so though it’s been a while in coming I hope you’ll appreciate that a review of this length doesn’t write itself (if only, and, yes, I did wish upon a star)! The word “masterpiece” is banded about all too easily these days – not least by Disney’s own marketing department – but if any of Walt’s original classics really deserve the accolade it’s Pinocchio, for all the reasons mentioned in the review. As always, a spring Platinum release comes as light as ever, with a good deal of perfectly suitable material missed out from yet another “definitive” edition, though a very big hand goes to the Cine-Explore feature and, on the DVD, the exemplary audio commentary.

Even for regular DVD users, if you’re a serious Disney fan the Blu-ray is the way to go if only for Cine-Explore, but if my review still fails to persuade you, we’re concurrently launching our first Blu-ray giveaway, for Pinocchio[3] itself!

So hi-diddle your way to our Contest Corner for a chance to win the complete set in high definition – a no strings attached opportunity that ends next Tuesday 7 April at 11:59pm ET. And if that’s still not enough Pinocchio for you, don’t forget to catch up on Jeremie Noyer’s fascinating musical history of the film right here[4]!

Back soon with much, much more, including James’ take on Monsters Vs. Aliens…so stay tooned! — Ben.