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Wayside School: Season One
R1 - America - Paramount Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Jeremiah Chin (5th September 2008). |
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The Show
 There are some words that set off alarms in my head about what I’m about to sit through, at the top of the class would they probably be over use of “wacky” and “quirky.” (Un)Luckily for me the DVD packaging for “Wayside School: Season One” features both. As a children’s comedy series that doesn’t even have the nostalgia factor, there’s already an uphill battle, but with all these alarms already going off it doesn’t get much better. The series follows the wacky (alert) adventures of Todd (Mark Rendall) who just enrolled in a bizarre school that was accidently built on it’s side, making it 30 floors of single classrooms rather than a 1 floor 30 room building. How quaint. Todd spends most of his time making friends and going on off-the-wall (danger) adventures in this odd school environment. Most of his classmates have quirky (head alarms to full power) characteristics that make for a hectic sixth grade. Todd quickly becomes stalked by classmate Maurecia (Denise Oliver) who has fallen in love with him, wears rollerskates and has a pet porcupine. Every day Todd fights against the craziness of his school but in the process finds himself constantly in trouble with teacher Mrs. Jewls (Julie Lemieux). Much of the series is based off of Louis Sachar’s book ‘Sideways Stories from Wayside School’ which explains much of the problems with the series. Not to say that Sachar is a bad author, I honestly haven’t read anything by him, but each DVD comes with a copy of the book the series is based on, a good idea. After looking over a few chapters it becomes clear that the reason the series feels so bad is that every chapter/short story simply covers another character that has odd character traits. A fine effort for a children’s book, but it doesn’t even translate to the near 15 minute episodes that have been churned out. Overall, I admit the series isn’t for me and has no intention of looking to do so, but is plainly uninteresting and irritating . The animation is okay, but the style just isn’t that fun to watch either from that perspective and has the feel of children’s book illustrations that just don’t work out well when animated. When a comedy tries too hard to venture into the realm of bizarre it just becomes frustrating and annoying, which "Wayside" does superbly. Here’s a rundown of the episodes included on the disc, each episode consists of two halves that are listed together as a full near half-hour episode: - “Pull My Pigtail / Class Cow” - “Meet the Pets / Oh, Great Leader” - “Honors Class / Cabbage, My Boy” - “Mascot Madness / He is it!” - “Best Friendzzz / Kindergarten King” - “Myron vs. Normy / Age of Aquarium” - “Channel Kidswatter / The Elevator” - “Mad Hot / Mamaland blues” - “Principles of Principals / Teacher’s Parent Conference” - “Rat in Shining Armor / Mrs. Gorf” - “Todd Falls in Love / French Fried” - “Music Lessons / Todd and Bull Story” - “Louis Gets Some Class / My Fluffy Hair”
Video
There’s some discrepancy about the actual aspect ratio. The packaging claims it’s full screen, but when I watch the episodes they appear in a 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen which is a welcome surprise for a children’s show. The quality of the transfer looks good, probably better than originally aired. There’s some pixilation that pops up occasionally, but isn’t too bad or distracting and isn’t consistent enough to really become a problem.
Audio
Presented in either English, French or Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo, the audio quality is fine on the series. There’s no real problems in terms of clarity or quality, most of it sounds fine, though fairly flat. It’s fairly cleanly transferred and has no pops or discrepancies that get in the way of the audio, and the levels are right in terms of dialogue and ambient noises, however the sound effects have a tendency to just blare out of the speakers. There are no subtitles or closed captioning to speak of.
Extras
The only extra across the 2-disc series set is a bonus trailer for “Wayside: The Movie” which runs for 1 minute and 22 seconds.
Packaging
The 2-disc set comes in a double sided keep case, packaged with a copy of the Louis Sachar book "Sideways Stories from Wayside School" which the series is based on.
Overall
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