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  Directed by
  Starring
  Specs
  • Widescreen 1.78:1
  • 16:9 Enhanced
  • Dual Layer ( )
  Languages
  • English: Dolby Digital Stereo
  Subtitles
  • None
  Extras
  • 41 Cast/crew biographies
  • Photo gallery - 30 pics
  • 2 Music video - Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves, You Can't Stop The Music
  • Behind the scenes footage
  • Digitally remastered
  • Interviews
  • Short film - Caravan Holiday
  • Fact file

Young Talent Time - The Collection

Universal/Universal . R4 . COLOR . 70 mins . PG . PAL

  Feature
Contract

So what do you do when the squeaky clean image of a widely recognised around Australia television show is long over and the 30th anniversary is upon us? If you were a member of that show, you no doubt go somewhere and drink till you can’t remember what language you speak.

Or, you’d produce a show that compacts 18 years worth of episodes into one 70-minute holds-barred documentary and show us, the average untalented folks at home, what really went on. Played a while back on Channel 10, this is just that; a holds-barred documentary. It does dispel a lot of the myths about the show and features some very interesting interviews with original cast members, but I couldn’t help but feel that even now, years later, the image must be allowed to remain, if not squeaky clean, at least wholesome. There are all sorts of dark revelations about drugs, romance, teen angst and such, but underneath lies that slightly modified or censored feeling the show itself had. (Comparable to when they sang a popular song like Michael Jackson’s Thriller and changed unsuitable lyrics from ‘Creatures crawling, in search of blood, To terrorize your neighbourhood’ to ‘Creatures crawling, in search of fun, To terrorize everyone.’ )

Maybe it’s just me.

When I was younger my sister was a little religious about checking out Vince Del Tito each week (as I am about checking out DVDnet’s own Vince Carrozza... love that guy’s reviews, but his desk’s always a shitheap). Anyway, I would watch each week, fantasising about Natalie and me alone on a secluded beach, both wearing coconut bikinis, but always feeling I was missing something during the ad breaks. Like I wasn’t good enough to share the swearing and ribald jokes behind the scenes. In watching this DVD I’ve either ascertained that those jokes never happened, or they did but the cast are remaining tight-lipped about them. Either way, I’m starting to sound mental.

This program, at 70 minutes, feels like they’ve sorta rushed through it; that all the interviewees had more to discuss, but due to editing for TV, it was chopped. When putting together the DVD it might have been nice to have a director’s cut that included more footage. As it is, it includes 20 minutes previously unseen on the TV presentation, but there is still stuff missing I reckon. Like, where’s the violence? Where are the catfights and the girls kissing? Where’s the episode where I was a contestant?

(I’ve a comprehensive list of songs I would have liked to see the gang perform, but I’m not sure Nick Cave or Henry Rollins would have been to their tastes. We’d probably be more likely to hear a Celine Dion or even a racier Jennifer Lopez song if the show still aired these days, or maybe a Powderfinger song or even some Creed. It’s a safe bet any of The Cramps’ many songs or anything from the Dogs in Space soundtrack wouldn’t make an appearance though. Oh well.)

For fans of the show this is no doubt a must-have and no amount of discouragement will dissuade them - and not that I’m dissuading anyone, because it’s filled to the brim with good bits from the show plus a swag of extras. This is a defining DVD moment for anyone who remembers the show fondly or anyone who fantasises about outlandish costumes and beaming smiles and chirpy kids performing their little hearts out.

  Video
Contract

Delivered in anamorphically-enhanced 1.78:1, the picture does chop back to 4:3 occasionally. Pretty natural considering the show was made when widescreen television was still a twinkle in its father’s eye. Being so old in parts, the film quality is pretty banged up in some instances, but seeing the original stuff on DVD is probably enough to counter the slight disappointment in the numerous artefacts and scratches and crap all over it. The footage also flips back and forth between colour and black and white too, but this is just due to existing stock, not a fault of the authors. However, there are some compression artefacts that are disappointing. A major clunk occurs at 0:00:25, with another at 0:01:29. Right at the beginning! Happily they don’t reoccur, but this should have been picked up immediately. There are occasional flares of colour as well that may or may not be the existing video stock footage’s fault, I couldn’t quite tell. I’m leaning toward the original video being the culprit though.

In the recent footage there aren’t any complaints, but for the occasional compression errors. Flesh is fine, shadow detail good, blacks are true, colours plentiful and the case itself is as shiny as the disc. Me like shiny.

  Audio
Contract

Audio is delivered in Dolby Digital stereo, but for occasional mono inclusions from the older stuff. Both work well enough to transfer the dialogue cleanly and the music too. Being a TV show there naturally isn’t anything surround-wise to thrill us and there aren’t really any sound effects to bother referring to. Let’s leave the sound at ‘adequate’ and move on, shall we?

  Extras
Contract

Quite a bag of tricks here. The main menu contains all we need with a star each for the main doco, special features, cast biographies and Johnny Young’s bio (extensively longer than the kids’ ones). The cast bios contain short music clips, but I’ll get back to these.

Special Features has a huge collection which firstly has the unfollowable short film from before the Dawn of Time; Caravan Holiday. This is the fully restored version with the recently rediscovered beginning attached and is scratched to the shithouse, but at least it’s whole. Those boffins at Screen Sound Australia really do a great job. It’s a pity the film itself is so ghastly. Originally this was a paid promo for the Caravan Australia Guild or something, and has no script, no acting and plenty of shots of ball-tearing caravans doing thair thang. Plus pre-mullet Johnny Farnham playing himself. In a caravan park.
With bare feet.

Some bigger stars who visited the show are featured in three individual music clips. See Kylie and Dannii Minogue (together at last!) performing Sisters Are Doing it For Themselves or the whole gang singing You Can’t Stop the Music replete in full length Village People outfits. Plus, a complete medley of each one of the kids performing two bits. This runs for over an hour and is all the performance clips from the cast bios run together into one huge piece. Those cast bios feature a pretty comprehensive story of the kids and their performance history, plus what they’re doing now and an odd soundbite from unused interview footage (I knew there was more!).

Original TV Commercials clock in next and I gotta say, some of these are perfectly awful in an anachronistic sense. Gus Mercurio selling jeans remains for me the horrible, horrible highlight here.

It’s always hilarious catching older ads on old videotapes at your parent’s house or whatever and these are just like that; quaintly amusing yet somehow not quite right. Still, they’ve searched the archives for these old gems and we must be thankful. It would have been so easy to just bang out a shitty DVD and they’ve at least put some effort and research into making this one.

Another one like that; Jamie Redfern sings a song in 1968 at the Royal Melbourne Show promoting what it would look like in 1972 when colour TV started (which as we all know, didn’t actually start until 1975). There are also some before they were stars bits with contestant performances from Vince Del Tito (you should see the earlier works of our Vince – they’re pure gold. It’s no wonder he’s the dynamic frontman for DVDnet), Vanessa Windsor, Dannii Minogue and Johnny Nuich. This last even features golden-haired mullet wearer Craig McLachlan as guest host!

Then comes a special appearance by our Nic herself, Nicole Kidman! This is to promote the film BMX Bandits (sadly not yet on DVD…) and is a worthy inclusion to see 16 year old Nic with a belt over her T-shirt.
Awesome.

Finally, a photo gallery that holds 30 publicity shots of the team at varying stages of cast membership (do you reckon they had like a special ID they had to scan at the gates or something? That’d be cool to see on eBay). And as if that weren’t enough, there’s also a not-so-well hidden Easter Egg you can find out about in our Easter Egg wing.

So, for the enthusiast of all things YTT, this grab bag will no doubt bring all the memories swarming back in force and represents pretty good value.

  Overall  
Contract

As far as fans go, this DVD covers everything pretty well, if not comprehensively. For those young people unfamiliar with the Young Talent Time phenomenon, this is a fine way to learn about them, rather than reading about them in history books or on CD ROMs or whatever they have in schools nowadays.

A mostly well restored series of clips and things do bring some of the older footage back from the brink and that will thrill the legion of fans this show still has today. For those fans, this is required viewing and if you don’t already have this sitting proudly on your collectable shelf between your YTT toilet seat and your YTT weed-eater you can’t be that big an aficionado.


  • LINK: http://www.dvd.net.au/review.cgi?review_id=3290
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      And I quote...
    "If you don’t already have this sitting proudly on your collectable shelf between your YTT train set and your YTT slug-killer, you can’t be that big a fan, can you?"
    - Jules Faber
      Review Equipment
    • DVD Player:
          Nintaus DVD-N9901
    • TV:
          Sony 51cm
    • Receiver:
          Diamond
    • Speakers:
          Diamond
    • Surrounds:
          No Name
    • Audio Cables:
          Standard Optical
    • Video Cables:
          Standard Component RCA
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