Bob the Builder would have to be one of the most popular children's television characters doing the rounds at the moment. With his 'partner' Wendy and his crew of machines including Lofty, Scoop, Dizzy and Muck, Bob is the agent of many a home renovation, road-repair or erm farmyard erection (buildings! I meant buildings!!). Winning the admiration and thanks of all, it seems there's no job too big or too small for Bob and his crew.
Yes, truly Bob is a poster-boy for the building industry; an industry in desperate need of a better public image. But I fear Bob and his little operation - a nice little earner no doubt - isn't as faithful to the facts as it might be. We're never party to his overly complicated and inflated quoting mechanisms. Neither Bob nor Wendy wear Stubbies, and as such that ever-alluring hint of crack is never to be seen peeping over a cumbersome tool-belt. On the whole Bob's crew are very well behaved, and although Bob and Wendy do spend time chatting on their mobile phones, not a single wolf-whistle can be heard from Scoop, Muck or the rest of the gang. Thankfully, unlike a certain DVDnet reviewer, they even resist the temptation to use the word erection even once! Now that's professionalism!
In this first DVD release of Bob's adventures, your little ones will no-doubt enjoy sharing in five of the gang's most notable exploits. We even get to see Bob let his hair down; losing the signature hard-hat and swapping the overalls for a Hawaiian shirt!
Skateboard Spud
Sick of the sickeningly slow speeds that farmer Pickles' tractor Travis is capable of, Spud rummages in the rubbish to find the makings of a skateboard. No doubt those new downtown speed measures Bob is finishing up will come in handy none too soon…
Scruffty's Big Dig
When local dog Scrufty finds he isn't permitted on-site with Bob and his crew, he goes and falls down a rabbit hole instead. Thankfully, Muck passes by and hears his howls…
Cock-a-doodle Spud
While Bob hastily builds a new hen coop for farmer Pickles, his hen has not only gone and laid her eggs under the hedge, but seems to have abandoned them. While Bob sources some more roofing felt, it falls to Spud to keep the eggs warm…
Wendy's Surprise Party
With Wendy's foxy sister Jenny arriving for a week's visit, she plans a big surprise bash and sets about building a barbecue. After a hard day's work Bob and the machines plan to party hearty, if they can stay awake that is!
Muck's Monster
After a busy night changing the lino at the townhall, Bob heads to bed for a well-earned rest. Meanwhile, Wendy heads off with Muck and Dizzy to fix a blocked drain and Spud heads to the yard to find a friendly checkers game. But will the increasing excitement of the game wake Bob from his slumbers?
Certainly, if you are looking for a DVD for kids from 18 months to five years, you couldn't possibly go wrong with Bob the Builder - Skateboard Spud. I haven't yet met a tot who didn't love Bob and his friends (it must be that Neil Morrissey Men Behaving Badly thing), and my two year old still hangs on every twist of the screwdriver. Very highly recommended!
It's no renovator's delight we've got here folks; presented in its original full-frame aspect ratio, Skateboard Spud is as big, bright and colourful as your kiddies have come to expect from their be-hard-hatted hero. Detail is great, showing up details in the various characters and models that have never been visible in either the television broadcasts or VHS releases, and comes without associated aliasing or related artefacts. Likewise, no nasty MPEG artefacts sully the job, with only a little background video grain, and the odd soft moment (both apparent legacies in the source material) to mar what is otherwise another great job from Roadshow.
In terms of audio, given Bob's genre and televsion pedigree it's not surprising that the Dolby Digital stereo presentation is serviceable yet rudimentary. The mix produced from your trusty Prologic decoder, dominated by the crystal clear dialogue from the centre channel, really only ventures into the front channel to relate the odd foley effect such as a power tool or the hum of Bob's machine friends, and to create the odd stereo effect - such as Spud on his runaway skateboard. The exception, however, is the hideously catchy theme song which is mixed very nicely between the front and rear channel. Everybody now... "Bob the Builder, can we fix it? Bob the Builder, yes we can!..."
In terms of extras, well, the disc's as bare as a rainy day on a building site. No big loss - your under fives will hardly notice.
