Review of Wild About Baby Animals

Introduction

As a new parent, one has to endure not only a great number of sleepless nights, but also become the butt of jokes from both the childless, and those who have survived the experience. It is one of the former who distributes discs for Reviewer, and who is probably still chuckling about how my face must have looked when Michaela Strachan Wild About Baby Animals dropped onto my doormat.

Reading the back cover, it is easy for an unsuspecting adult to be lulled into a false sense that the show will be educational, or feature scenes of natural beauty or wildlife. However, closer investigation reveals that this presentation is more Postman Pat, than David Attenborough or Steve Leonards Ultimate Killers. The key sentence is this : “you’ll laugh when you hear [the baby animals] talking to each other in their cheeky voices”…

Yes, that’s right, after a few seconds in which you think Michaela might begin to educate you about the growth or lifestyles of different young breeds of animal, it becomes apparent that the narration is simply spurious rubbish, and yes, the animals ‘talk’ to each other. The narrative talks about how these animals are “looking for fun” or “seeking mischief”, rather than any tangible behavioural information. It IS as painful as it sounds.

Video

WABA as it shall from henceforth be known, is quite a mixture of video standards. Presented in 4:3 like everything relating to this disc, its properties are not about home cinema excellence, but are more focused on the content.

The initial impression is excellent, as the programme is introduced by the delectable Michaela, the image is crisp and colours are glowing – very fitting for a presentation aimed largely at children. However, unfortunately this is clearly the introductory footage shot especially for the disc – the rest of the clips appear to be library footage, and vary greatly in quality from slightly fuzzy (the image, not the creatures) to downright blurred. However, when you are ‘enjoying’ the antics of ‘talking’ baby animals, who is going to worry about picture quality ? (!!)

Audio

Carried on an uninspiring stereo track, there is little in the way of background music, and the actual sound of the footage (you know, the noises the animals ACTUALLY make) is also reduced to a minimum. All that is left then, are the soothing tones of our Michaela, and the voices which are dubbed over for the benefit of the animals. At times these are grating, at worst they are downright xenophobic and embarrassingly stereotypical – bears for instance are Russian. In actual fact, the voices prevented adult appreciation of the clips which were being shown which had an animal “You’ve Been Framed!” quality to them – Extensive testing proved that more enjoyment could be had by turning the sound off altogether and replacing it with a preferred classical or other musical accompaniment instead.

Features

For a programme ostensibly about wildlife, there is a woeful lack of extras, and a miserable waste of the opportunity to use the information storage capacity and multimedia possibilities of DVD for educational purposes. The disc has a simple brightly coloured menu from which you can choose only to play the feature, or select a scene. The only positive thing to be said is that with such simplicity, it is easy to navigate.

Conclusion

When your friends or family come around and you want to show off your vastly expensive and truly impressive home cinema, Michaela Strachan WABA is NOT the disc you’ll be pulling off the shelf to demonstrate. When you want to prop a fretful child in front of a screen while you find out what your partner or spouse has been doing for the last six months, I’m afraid it just might be. If you get past any false pretensions that this might educate your children while entertaining them, then the kids might just find that the entertaining antics and stupid voices make them laugh. If this succeeds, then let’s face it, the quality of the picture or sound is completely irrelevant.

However, I would hope that there are far more educational, informative, and even interesting for adults discs available which would still perform the same task of entertaining the kids. WABA is a collection of naff wildlife clips with dubbed voices and a collection of transitions and titles which look like they were created with the £20 software that came with my Digital Video Camera. In fact, with a bit of stock footage, a couple of friends and a few generous rounds of beers I would suggest that most parents would be able to make up something far funnier and original, and save the price of the disc into the bargain.

While the kids might enjoy this disc, it falls to Michaela Strachan to provide the draw certainly for the fathers concerned. While she may no-longer be everyone’s cup of tea, she still retains her relatively youthful looks and boundless energy, and waiting for her to return to the screen might help to ease the frustration for some desperate dads. How fortunate, in that case then, that the sections sporting Michaela are also those which enjoy the best picture quality. Nevertheless, this disc carrying a mere 53 minutes of footage certainly does not warrant a premium price in anyone’s money, and would probably be best purchased as a bargain bucket VHS tape, rather than a gleaming new DVD.