Author: Robert Greenberger

These days, it’s all about the Disney princesses, but Perdita is merely a dog without high pedigree. As a result, she and her mate Pongo, are often overlooked. They’re certainly overshadowed by their antagonist, the Dalmatian loving Cruella De Vil, about the chew every scene in Once Upon a Time. Thank goodness, then, that Walt Disney reminds us about the utter charm contained within their 1961 release 101 Dalmatians. Out Tuesday in a handsome Diamond Combo Pack, their 17th film holds up remarkably well.

The film arrived at a precarious time for the studio as rising costs made their animated fare very expensive. Tastes were changing and they were now competing with television for the younger eyeballs so a different approach was called for. From a technological standpoint, the arrival of Xerography allowed them to streamline the filmmaking process, reducing costs. Ub Iwerks, one of the grand animators in Walt Disney’s employ, gets the credit for finding a way to use modern technology while preserving Disney’s unique look and feel.

Then, rather than dip into fairy tales, they created their own tale with broader humor without sacrificing the heart.

In case you forgot, the story features Pongo (Rod Taylor), Perdita (Cate Bauer) and their 15 puppies. It’s a true love story, arranged through their efforts for their owners Roger (Ben Wright, with Bill Lee as his singing voice) and Anita Radcliffe (Lisa Davis) to meet. Across town, though, Cruella De Vil (Betty Lou Gerson) is seeking more Dalmatians to complete her fur coat. She tries to do things aboveboard, offering to buy the pups, but even though he’s cash-strapped, Roger refuses. She then dispatches Jasper (J. Pat O’Malley) and Horace (Frederick Worlock) to steal them and things go from there.

Humans prove inept so Pongo and Perdita are determined to find their brood so, using the Twilight Bark, summon help from the neighborhood animals, including sheepdog Colonel (O’Malley), tabby cat Sergeant Tibbs (David Frankham), and gray horse Captain (Thurl Ravenscroft). By the time, Cruella is found, Scotland Yard recovers not 15 but 101 dalmatians. The film doesn’t rush through its 79 minute story, nor does it deviate from the core plot with extraneous sub-plots or songs. There is just one, “Cruella De Vil”, ostensibly penned by Roger, a struggling song writer. It’s memorable and fits the story.

The transfer is worthy of the Diamond moniker and you can watch it either at 1.33:1 or the letter boxed in Disney View.  The DTS-HD 7.1 Master Audio is crisp and you can enjoy every yip and growl.

Disney has created four new bonus features for this edition which includes the charming “The Further Adventures of Thunderbolt” (1:48), an all-new story based on the television series seen in the film. Additionally, there’s “Lucky Dogs” (9:08) which places the film in context with on screen commentary from assistant animator Rolly Crump, ink-and-painter Carmen Sanderson, assistant animator Burny Mattison, animator Floyd Norman, executive Don Iwerks, and Lisa Davis (Anita). Disneyland’s “The Best Doggoned Dog in the Word” (51:05) episode is included and should be noted that it is an updated version of a 1957 episode, swapping out footage of Old Yeller with scenes from 101 Dalmatians (in glorious black-and-white of course). The Disney Channel’s Cameron Boyce fronts “Dalmatians 101” (5:12), the most skippable element on the two disc set. All the material from the Platinum Edition DVD is also here. These include Redefining the Line: The Making of 101 Dalmatians: Puppy Dog Tales (5:33), Howling at the Moon (3:36), New Tricks (5:16), Animation 101 (7:51), Drawing All Cars (4:12), Seeing Spots (5:45), A Dog’s Eye View (1:40), Music Video by Selena Gomez: “Cruella De Vil” (3:25), Deleted Song: “March of the One Hundred and One” (2:29),  Abandoned Song: “Cheerio, Goodbye, Toodle-oo, Hip Hip!”(2:32), Abandoned Song: “Don’t Buy a Parrot from a Sailor” (2:39), Demo Recordings and Alternate Versions, and Cruella De Vil: Drawn to Be Bad (7:10), Sincerely Yours, Walt Disney (12:48).

All told, this is a slightly abbreviated package of goodies but you won’t mind too much. The sweet, entertaining film more than makes up for it and rediscovering its charm is just fine.

So, when did Glee go off the rails for you? I began tiring of the show in the third season, stuck around for one more and realized it couldn’t make up its mind about the type of series it wanted to be. Part of the blame goes to Ryan Murphy and Fox for falling so in love with their core characters that they wouldn’t let them grow up and leave high school. While a spinoff set in Manhattan had been considered and discarded, trying to have it all didn’t work either. After seeing the fitting tribute to Cory Monteith, I bid Finn Hudson and the rest of Lima High an overdue farewell.

When Glee the Complete Fifth Season arrived for review, it gave me a chance to see if I made the right decision or not. The series’ musical numbers remain strong as ever but it also remains maddening. On the other hand, the various social topics it had addressed makes the show wonderful drama but the rest of it is set in a world so divorced from the one we live in, it gets infuriating.

First, the cast is too largely, too spread and too unwieldy to properly focus on one set of characters. We have Rachel, Kurt, and Santana in New York, Mercedes in Los Angeles and everyone else in Lima, OH. But, we have the originals poised to graduate and the newcomers still looking to get themselves properly established in the hearts and minds of the audience.

You still have all the adults with their own issues from Mr. Schu and Emma starting a family to Sue deposing Principal Figgins and managing to somehow shut down Glee Club.

And while the students never seem to have any classes or homework or trouble juggling extracurriculars, homework, family obligations and the like, it beggars the imagination that not one but two of the cast are such geniuses that they fight over Valedictorian. It would have been nice to see the school wrestle with the arrival of the Common Core curriculum or the pressures of standardized testing on both faculty and students.

Rachel’s assent to Broadway is the stuff of legend and her dream come true (we could have satisfactorily ended the series when she debuted) but for her to actually give it away for television makes little sense along with the decision to use Santana as her publicist.

The show veers from one emotional note to another without a lot of proper foreshadowing or setup so character traits come and go, as do their romantic feelings. Of the newcomers, the most intriguing was Marley who is gone early on after revealing her heretofore unknown songwriting skills, which conveniently come into play when the club needs a song at Regionals. And then there’s the horrid unaired Christmas special, held over from 2013 and a sad way to end the first half of the season.

This season saw the show limp to its 100^th episode which Murphy and Brad Falchuk used to trash the club and scatter everyone to the four winds. As centennial episodes go, it was above average but stung with unrealistic events. Eight episodes later, the friends find themselves in many unexpected places, leaving the viewer to wonder how the sixth and final season, now airing, would tie things up.

The high definition transfers on the six disc DVD set are fine although it is noteworthy Fox has not released this on Blu-ray. As usual, the set comes with its patented Glee Musical Jukebox, allowing viewers to go straight to the musical numbers.

The smaller than usual extras include Gleeful: Celebrating 100 Episodes of Glee (8:31) with Matthew Morrison (Will Shuester) and the cast members fondly looking back when they were a phenomenon that had not been anticipated. There’s also Glee in the City (13:34) where producer/director Ian Brennan and actors Kevin McHale, Darren Criss, Amber Riley, Chris Colfer, Chord Overstreet, Adam Lambert, and Lea Michele talk about the story possibilities by being set in the center of the universe.

For today’s comic book readers, there’s an appetite for one flavor of Batman: brooding, angry, single-minded and largely one-dimensional. But for those of an earlier generation where the interpretation of Batman varied by editor and medium, there are other varieties to tickle the fancy and entertain the soul. After years of the unrelentingly grim animated fare, Cartoon Network and Warner Animation came up with a breath of fresh air in Batman: The Brave and the Bold. James Tucker and Michael Jelenic developed this series to mimic the days of Batman being a premier hero and collaborator, operating in a bright, colorful world filled with costumed heroes and crazy villains.

The show lasted three seasons and 65 wonderful episodes and late in 2014, Warner Archive finally released Batman: The Brave and the Bold: The Complete Second Season on Blu-ray. There are 26 gloriously goofy half-hour episodes here and they are at the least fun to watch and at their best, creatively satisfying. The conceit usually features a cold opening with one team-up ending as the main story develops. Whereas season one created the over-arching threat of Equinox, season two is all about Starro the Conqueror. Additionally, the emphasis has been on the full DC Universe, from the Justice Society of America to newer heroes such as the third Blue Beetle. While the more familiar Justice League colleagues are around, it’s been a lot more fun to see the first generation of heroes or lesser lights like B’Wanna Beast.

This season we see Bats partner with Plastic Man, Booster Gold, Zatanna, the Spectre, Black Orchid, the Atom, Firestorm, Enemy Ace, the Haunted Tank, Detective Chimp, the Question, Dr. Magnus, Sgt. Rock and the G.I. Robot, Kamandi, Dr. Canus, the Challengers of the Unknown and the Outsiders, most animated to resemble their best known four-color version. The most radical revision remains the blowhard Aquaman, but is done with such gusto and good humor it can be forgiven.

Similarly, the full rogue’s gallery (Kite Man ,Shaggy Man, Evil Star, Blockbuster, Black Manta, Catwoman, Gentleman Ghost, Steppenwolf, Per Degaton, the Gas Gang, Chemo, and the more familiar Joker, Penguin, Riddler) has been well mined for fodder and put to excellent use.

While Kevin Conroy might be the animated voice for the slightly more adult animated adventures found elsewhere, Diedrich Bader does a fine job here. There were some lovely touches in the guest casting such as Conroy voicing the Batman from Zur En Arh while Adam West and Julie Newmar handle Thomas and Martha Wayne in one flashback. Conroy is back as the Phantom Stranger, paired with Mark Hamill’s Spectre which is cool. Then there’s the first television Flash, John Wesley Shipp, as Professor Zoom.

The scripts include ones from comic veterans J.M. DeMatteis, Greg Weisman, and Gail Simone among others and they often have homages to stories from throughout DC’s 75 year history which is just a bonus for longtime fans. One example would be one with Firefly and his Rainbow Creature in a homage to Detective Comics #241 and Batman #134. None, though, can beat the Paul Dini written “Bat-Mite Presents: Batman’s Strangest Cases!” that includes a recreation of the Mad magazine parody “Bat Boy and Rubin”, Jiro Kuwata’s Batman featured in Bat-Manga!: The Secret History of Batman in Japan, and New Scooby-Doo Movies.

While the set lacks any extras, to be expected from Warner Archive releases, it does come complete including “The Mask of Matches Malone!” which was never broadcast stateside thanks a harmless sexual innuendo in a musical number. The version we get is the edited one with revised animation that still didn’t master CN muster.

The high definition transfer is strong accompanied with a good DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 stereo mix.

The two-disc set of Batman: The Brave and the Bold – The Complete Second Season includes the following episodes:

DISC #1

1 Death Race to Oblivion
2 Long Arm of the Law!
3 Revenge of the Reach!
4 Aquaman’s Outrageous Adventur
5 The Golden Age of Justice!
6 Sidekicks Assemble!
7 Clash of the Metal Men!
8 A Bat Divided!
9 Super-Batman of Planet X!
10 The Power of Shazam!
11 Chill of the Night!
12 Gorillas in Our Midst!
13 The Siege of Starro! Part 1

DISC #2

14 The Siege of Starro! Part 2
15 Requiem for a Scarlet Speedster!
16 The Last Patrol!
17 The Mask of Matches Malone!
18 Menace of the Madniks!
19 Emperor Joker!
20 The Criss Cross Conspiracy
21 Plague of the Prototypes!
22 Cry Freedom Fighters!
23 The Knights of Tomorrow!
24 Darkseid Descending!
25 Bat-Mite Presents: Batman’s Strangest Cases!
26 The Malicious Mr. Mind!

Nnewts Book One: Escape from the Lizzarks
By Doug TenNapel
186 pages, Scholastic Graphix, $19.99 (hc)/$10.99 (pb)

There is no doubt Doug TenNapel is a highly imaginative and creative storyteller. I look forward to the day when he works with an editor to bring out the very best in his worldbuilding and stories. After a series of one-off stories, including Cardboard, Tommysaurus Rex, Ghostopolis, and Bad Island, he embarks on a series set in a new reality.

In Nnewts, he pits amphibians versus lizards in a realm that is far from Earth and focuses on Herk, a young Nnewt who yearns for being fully amphibious but his weak legs, a product from birth, prohibit that. Still, when disaster strikes Nnewtown, he is the sole person to make it out and embarks on the Hero’s Journey to find help.

At one juncture, he encounters the Lizard God and a few things are revealed including the god stole Nnewt’s proper legs to hamper him since he is the, gasp, “chosen one”. Nnewt manages to steal his true legs, attach them as if they were clip-ons and continues on his way, with one angry god in pursuit.

There’s a lot of charm to TenNapel’s designs and the color work from Katherine Garner, enhances the story’s mood and atmosphere. Once more, there remain storytelling gaffes that spoil the fun and adventure. Early on, two characters debate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches versus ham and cheese sandwiches. In another reality, neither would exist and feel thoroughly out of place. Other times, problems arise and are resolved a little too quickly for proper suspense.

When Nnewt finds out he’s the “one” there’s no pause for the impact of those words or that the Lizard God stole his legs years early. The emotional payoff is thoroughly missing throughout the story. At one point he meets the King of None who explains how they will stay in touch then the method is never used, even when it could have helped out plucky little hero.

The first volume draws to a close with the revelation that there may be one “other”, a brother he never knew. In fact, the story ends with a cliffhanger so it’s nearly 200 pages of setup and no delivery. There’s no satisfaction to reading what is essentially chapter one which is a shame because there is a lot of promise to this world.

The migration of young adult dystopias from bookshelf to silver screen has been a mixed bag, some being incredibly faithful, some less so. However, we have reached a point where these depressing, unrealistic worlds have saturated the screen category to the point where they seem cut from the same pattern. Now, I admit, far too many films adhere to the predictable three act structure but in this sub-genre, the seams are far more obvious with a lot less variety. As a result, it befalls to the producer and director to find a way to be interesting.

This fall we welcomed the latest contestant in this competition and The Maze Runner, based on the novel trilogy by James Dashner, wins points for atmosphere. After that, it is stunningly dull. In this near-future world, some great solar flames have laid waste to most of the world. As a result, a disease known as the Flare has continued to thin humanity and a dedicated group has taken it upon themselves to spend countless billions designing and building a maze to test selected teenagers to see who is a good candidate for the cure. Or something like that.

We don’t learn a lot of this until the final minutes of the movie and the majority of the time is devoted to the teens trapped within the maze. A new one arrives once a month, coming laden with fresh supplies to sustain the group. The massive door to the maze opens on a schedule and over the years, they have tried to map the ever-changing configuration in order to get free. Of course, it’s not that simple with huge, mechanical beasties chasing them.

Enter Thomas (Dylan O’Brien), the latest arrival, who at first lacks his immediate memories, including his own name, part of the process of transition it appears. The largely anonymous gang shows him the ropes and before you know it; his very presence seems to have upended the “natural” order of things. And before too much longer, the one and only girl Teresa (Kaya Scodelario) arrives with a note saying she is the last.

The screenplay from Noah Oppenheim, Grant Pierce Myers, and T.S. Nowlin spends far too little time on developing the characters or their Lord of the Flies existence. What do they do between maze runnings? There’s no sense of sports, arts, warfare….anything. There are rules and there appear to be factions but only when they need to serve the story. We’re left following Thomas as he navigates the gang and the maze, accompanied by Teresa. A girl surrounded by a bunch of teenagers who haven’t seen a female in years and no one tries to befriend, touch, kiss, or romance her? Absurd. The flat emotional tone, except for utter terror, robs the film of energy and blame goes to director Wes Ball who, in his debut, seemed more interested in the atmosphere and effects than the characters.

The film has been released as a digital download from 20^th Century Home Entertainment and will be out on disc Tuesday. The digital picture is swell along with the sound and it comes with the full array of special features to be found on the Blu-ray disc. (I still dislike watching movies at my desk but maybe I’m just behind the times.)

These include Deleted Scenes (with optional Audio Commentary by Ball), none of which address my issues with the story. There’s a worthy five-part Navigating The Maze: The Making of The Maze Runner, with some interesting behind-the-scenes tidbits; The “Chuck Diaries”; Gag Reel; Visual Effects Reels and Ball’s short film Ruin. The Audio Commentary by Ball and Nowlin is pretty straight-forward. There are two nicely produced Digital Comics that build out the world just a bit.

We think of Marvel Studios as having the golden touch with can’t-miss hit films one after the other. As a result, our selective memory obscures Hulk and Iron Man 2 (and for some, though not me, Iron Man 3) as creatively underwhelming. Instead, we look at the box office totals only and, ahem, marvel at their track record. As a result, some had their knives out ready to skewer the studio for being audacious enough to offer up Guardians of the Galaxy. After all, who ever heard of them? How quickly one forgets. Critics were saying the same thing in 2008 when Iron Man arrived, wondering if enough non-geeks would turn out to see a B-list hero with a former addict in the lead.

Even the entertaining trailers, which clearly signaled the tone was going to be substantially lighter, couldn’t make people hold their judgment. Then the film opened. The results speak for themselves as the movie was a top ten success around the world and just in time for the holidays Walt Disney Home Entertainment has released the movie as a Combo Pack (Blu-ray, DD, digital) and has been offering it as a digital download for weeks.

The second time around is just as entertaining thanks to director James Gunn, rising above the crap that was Movie 43, bringing a sense scale along with some genuine human humor. With pitch-perfect casting and top-notch effects, the rag-tag band of adventurers and assassins are brought together with pleasing results.

Admittedly, the story from Nicole Perlman and Gunn was pretty mundane: yet another object of immense power is up for grabs and everyone wants it without fully understanding the consequences of unleashing such energy. Dissipate forces come together to do what is right and save the day but not without some pain and suffering along the way. However, the movie’s straight-forward story is nicely enhanced by setting it against our first real look at the cosmic aspects of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, filled with lots of colorfully-hued humanoids and cultures that are far advanced than dear old Earth.

Each of the five Guardians – Peter Quill, the Star Lord (Chris Pratt), Thanos’ adopted daughter Gamora (Zoe Saldana), Drax the Destroyer (Dave Bautista), mercenary Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper), and his companion Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel) – wants the object for different reasons and don’t immediately bond. When all four of them wind up in the same place at the same time, each gets to one-up the other but all wind up imprisoned anyway where their fifth member enters the fray.

Meantime, the religious zealot Ronan the Accuser (Lee Pace) wants the orb to help him eliminate the hated Xandarians, led by Nova Prime (an underused Glenn Close). But the one who desires it the most is Thanos (Josh Brolin), since has been the force behind the others powerful objects across the last few Marvel movies. It’s out first look at the major threat, who first cameoed at the end of The Avengers, and Gunn admits in the commentary he had to be shoehorned a bit and it sort of shows if you look.

As each member of the team is revealed we see their underlying desires, most of which are fairly simple and you feel for Peter, snatched from Earth the day his mother died, or Rocket,  painfully enhanced mammalian lifeform lonely in a heavily populated universe, or even Gamora, ready to betray her father and rival “sister” Nebula (Karen Gillan).

The object is too powerful to let Thanos obtain it so they leave it with the Nova Corps but no doubt it won’t stay with them for long. As a chapter in Phase Two, culminating this summer with The Avengers: Age of Ultron, it furthers some of the cosmology and metastory very nicely but that is all background to a story of five people finding a place in the universe where they can themselves. Here, Gunn does wonderful work with his cast, mixing human moments with action, thrills, and yes, lots of humor.

The 1970s soundtrack also undercuts the melodrama and lets the wider audience connect with the story and characters. All in all, a very satisfying experience.

On high definition, the transfer is lovely and the colors are rich without being overwhelming. The 7.1 DTS-HDMA is sharp which helps you hear the dialogue, sound effects and soundtrack without a problem.

The special features, like the film itself, do not take themselves too seriously with fun 8-bit computer graphics connecting the various vignettes found in the multiple Making-of featurettes. You get enough of a taste to understand how they designed the look of the aliens, the world, the starships, makeups, and special effects. The gag reel is as funny as one would expect and the revelation is Pace, having a dandy time as Ronan. Gunn’s audio commentary points out some nice touches you would miss otherwise and shows his appreciation for performers he’s worked with in most of his other films, notably Michael Rooker and Gunn’s brother Sean. One interesting take-away from the bonus pieces is how much Rocket is the result of Sean Gunn’s stand-in work, Cooper’s voice work, and the CGI animators so no one person should get the credit for the indelible creation.

Finally, there’s a brief look at Joss Whedon on the set of the new Avengers film so you see some of the new performers at work sans special effects so while you learn nothing new, it does its job of keeping you highly anticipating its May release.

Opening Batman: The Complete Series, I said, “This is my childhood in a box.” When the ABC series debuted in January 1966, I was seven, the exact perfect age to be utterly captivated by seeing a comic book faithfully adapted to the small screen. Without fail, I was glued to the television set on Wednesday and Thursday evenings right until the final episode aired in March 1968, leaving indelible images in my mind. These were reinforced just a few years later when local syndicated reruns burned the stories, sounds, and characters deeper into my psyche.

I was too young to understand the context of the show and its impact on popular culture, DC Comics, or the world of licensing. I didn’t get the wry jokes, it’s knowing pop camp approach to storytelling, or how it cleverly worked on multiple levels (a rare occurrence on prime time back then). Instead, I just knew that it was the Dynamic Duo getting into amazing fights, escaping inventive death traps, and keeping Gotham City safe.

As the show continued to be rerun, I grew up and came to appreciate the challenges confronting William Dozier, hired by 20^th Century Fox to adapt the character. He wanted Dick Tracy or Superman, but those rights weren’t available. 20^th settled for Batman in 1964, just as the character was being reinvented by editor Julius Schwartz, saving the Gotham Guardian from possible cancellation after a decade of benign neglect. It was also a time of convergence as a new wave of influences was seeping throughout American culture. The Beatles had stormed America. Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol were rewriting the rules of modern art. Fashion designers were shortening skirts and introducing brighter colors. American households were buying more and more color televisions so by that fateful January nearly all of prime time programming was being broadcast in color, in some cases highly saturated color.

Batman was also the beneficiary of good scheduling. ABC had several shows perform poorly that fall so conceived the marketing concept of a Second Season launching right after the holidays. As a result, it received tremendous marketing and a hungry audience awaited that first fateful episode.

Lorenzo Semple Jr. worked with Dozier to set the tone that would be slyly wink at the parents, offer sexy molls to the teens, and pure action for the main viewers: the kids like me. His two-parter was almost perfect with Frank Gorshin’s manic Riddler, Neil Hamilton’s stoic Commissioner Gordon, Jill St. John as the distracting femme, and of course, Adam West and Burt Ward as our dashing heroes. The camera angles, jazzy soundtrack, and brilliant colors all came together and ignited Batmania.

The 120 episodes comprising the three seasons are incredibly uneven in their quality, especially the full second season which seemed to exhaust all concerned. There is lazy acting, very bad writing, and increasingly implausible storylines and death traps as the camp overshadowed the other aspects that made the initial season so memorable. Also, as the second season rolled onward, rather than continue to mine the comic books for villains plot lines, the writing staff seemed encouraged to find roles to fit available actors or try and match two decades of inventiveness from DC’s stable of writers, led by Bill Finger, Batman’s co-creator. It’s a shame Finger only got to write one two-parter given how much of his DNA can be found throughout the show, from the origin story (mentioned rarely) to the oversized props.

But when the series was good it was very, very good and rewatching them as an adult, some even got better. The performances from the core villains, starting with Gorshin but including Burgess Meredith (Penguin), Cesar Romero (Joker), Victor Buono (King Tut, the only original creation that worked) and Julie Newmar (Catwoman) showcase some genuinely fine performances and its clear all are enjoying their work. Newmar’s Catwoman was slinky to the 7-year-old and downright sexy and alluring to his adult self. They get to chew the scenery with gusto but credit also has to be given to silent film star Hamilton and Alan Napier (Alfred) who worked hard to ground their characters, so the absurdities were heightened.

By season three, ABC saw the craze was dying out and cut the show from two nights to one, cramming a lot of story into thirty minutes while also introducing Yvonne Craig as Batgirl, a logical way to extend the franchise. Her cute face and balletic moves endeared her to males of every age while girls finally had their own positive role models. But even she was not enough to save an oversaturated public and like a brightly burning candle at the end of its wick, the light went out.

As has been made clear through the years, there were numerous reasons why the series remained unavailable before this week. The best coverage appears to be at Wired but one good thing has come from the delay: technology has advanced to a degree where the digital restoration work is the highlight. The colors are more vibrant, the detail to the costumes and props is riveting, and the care means we’re getting the best possible version of these now cherished episodes.

The series comes in a variety of packages and price points but reviewers were sent the Limited Edition box set which has all the bells and whistles you could want, starting with the sound chip in the packaging letting you hear the Neil Hefti theme. There’s the Hot Wheels diecast metal Batmobile, complete with Batcave background panel and a sampling of 44 of Norm Saunder’s fine artwork from the Topps Batman trading cards from that era. Within the colorful box is a small book with photos from Adam West’s collection, which is a nice assortment of familiar and new images.

There are twelve discs in the box, the final one being nothing but special features. If there
is any fault in the collection it is that many strong opportunities were missed in favor of some overly simplified, gimme pieces. The Bat-gadgets and villain props should have received recognition and in some ways George Barris’ groundbreaking work on the Batmobile is underplayed while no real mention is made of the Batboat, Batcopter, or Batgirl’s frilly cycle. Craig herself is oddly missing from all the interviews, which is a shame since she is one of the few remaining performers still left. None of the secondary players even get a chance to discuss what it has meant to be on the show. Finally, a piece about the comic book’s influences on the show, including which issues provided inspiration, would be in order but the comic is often left out of the discussions at all.

Which is not to underplay the value of the extras we do get. We start with the West-centric Hanging with Batman (29:56), a career retrospective that shows what the struggling actor’s career was like before receiving this part. Perhaps not enough is done about the dry spells of the 1970s and 1980s before his career renaissance at the hands of my generation who were now in a position to hire him.

Holy Memorabilia Batman! (29:59) heavily spotlights collector and radio personality Ralph Garman and Guinness record holder Kevin Silva as both show off their vast collections. West even visits Garman’s home and tries on a replica cowl, having fun at the same time even he seems awed by how much stuff was generated in so short a period of time. Fiberglass replica master Mark Racop is the only one to give the cool car and Barris their due.

Batman Born! Building the World of Batman (29:41) is the one piece that takes a serious, academic approach to putting the show’s phenomenal success into perspective. Of course, much of that comes from former DC president Paul Levitz, who can reliably be counted on for such things along with the ubiquitous Michael Uslan, West, Ward, Newmar, animation director Bruce Timm and even comics historian Andy Mangles helps flesh things out. This should have been the disc’s centerpiece and needed far more time to properly explore the subject.

On the other hand, Bats of the Round Table (45:08) sees West host a conversation with director Kevin Smith, Garman, actor Phil Morris, and DC Comics’ copublisher Jim Lee. Why on Earth is Morris there? There needed to be people with more gravitas to make the conversation more useful and less gushing. (And someone should have been there to correct all the misstatements of fact.) If you skip any feature, this is the one.

West recorded audio commentary for the episodes some time back and it would have been nice to have them here. Instead, we get the interesting Inventing Batman in the Words of Adam West, as he sits with his pilot script and walks us through how he developed his performance, showing off his original handwritten notes. As result, we can rewatch “Hi Diddle Riddle” and “Smack in the Middle” and see an actor working on his craft but you’re dying to hear him riff about working with Gorshin or St. John, et. al.

Na Na Na Batman! (12:15) is a filler feature where the camera crew wandered the Warner Bros soundstages and interviewed cast and crew from their other series about Batman. Some of it cute but given what’s missing, this stands out as a very cheap marketing ploy.

Finally, we have Bat Rarities! Straight from the Vault, nicely cleaned up versions of things we’ve seen before but want now.  We have the mini-Batgirl TV pilot (7:54); Adam West and Burton Gervis’ screen test (including solo Gervis moments proving he, now named Burt Ward, deserved the role (6:16); a screen test featuring Lyle Waggoner and Peter Deyell, making it clear why Deyell did not get the role while Waggoner would have been interesting (4:23); and an archival clip of James Blakeley, the series’ Post-production Supervisor, which is interesting since he was the one to develop the way of splicing in Joe Letterese’s onomatopoeia text during fights (2:24).

Summing it up: given how long fans of all ages have been waiting for this released, Warner Home Entertainment does not disappoint. For those curious about the frenzy, these are the versions you want to sample in their clean, crisp, uncut glory.

All things come to an end and the true death arrived for HBO’s True Blood earlier this year. This week, HBO Home Entertainment offers up The Complete Seventh Season along with a mammoth complete series box set. In looking back on the series, it probably hung around a little longer than necessary, especially as things spiraled from over-the-top to insane crazy after series creator Alan Ball left.

The seventy episodes veered further and further from Charlaine Harris’s The Southern Vampire Mysteries novels and even she wrapped up her prose stories recognizing the time had come.

Bon Temps is under attack as things open up, picking up where season six dropped us. The Hep V Vampires are running amuck as many of our favorite supporting characters have been threatened. Pam continues her hunt for Eric leaving Sookie as the calming voice of reason and she’s not feeling all that steady. Meantime, Bill is on his own and every scene brings us closer to the end of his arc and there’s a sense of inevitable melancholy from the beginning.

His arc is the only one that gets the right amount of time to resolve. While things ratchet up in intensity, we watch one familiar face after another die in vastly imaginative ways. But it also brings several sub-plots to hasty or abrupt conclusions. Luke Grimes, who played James, walked away when he was unhappy with his story and was replaced with Australian actor Nathan Parsons, who is fine. The uneven pacing also serves to winnow down the cast for the final two episodes when the main figures take center stage. As usual, poor Tara gets the worst treatment as if the writers could never get a handle on her after the first brilliant season. Alcide’s departure barely gets noticed.

On the other, it’s nice to have Hoyt back and reaching a satisfying conclusion with Jessica so it isn’t all gruesome. With Jessica back in Hoy’t sarms, Jason needed someone to love – as befit his character from the first episode. However, how quickly he found it with Bridget and received Sookie’s blessing came way too fast for my taste.

And then we’re down to Bill, Eric, and Sookie the enduring triangle that was twisted like so much Silly Putty across the years. Is it entirely a happy or unhappy ending? Your call but it does wrap things up in a tidy package which is fine. The show grew more and more uneven through the seasons so this was about as good a wrap-up as one can expect. (And there’s a lovely cameo of novelist Charlaine Harris in the final episode, her way of saying bye-bye.)

As we have come to expect, the three disc set comes packed with the usual assortment of special features starting with audio commentaries for five of the ten episodes. Directors Howard Deutch, Gregg Fienberg, Angela Robinson, and, Simon Jayes; screenwriters Kate Barnow, Daniel Kenneth, Craig Chester, and Brian Buckner; and actors Kristen Bauer van Straten, Carrie Preston, Lauren Bowles, Chris Bauer, Anna Paquin and Stephen Moyer all weigh in on the stories. It’s nice to hear from Paquin and Moyer in the final episode since they carried the emotional load and saying farewell to the show they fell in love with (along with one another).

There’s the fifteen minute True Death: The Final Days On Set, an informal look as the cast and crew wind up their work. Then there’s True Blood: A Farewell To Bon Temps, a twenty-eight minute retrospective that explores the attraction of vampires with Ball, Buckner, and the main cast offering their well-earned observations on that and other aspects of making the series. An updated True Blood Lines timeline is offered once again along with the previews and recaps.