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DVD Features
- DVD Release Date: March 18, 2008
- Original Air Date: 2005 & 2007
- 1.33:1 Fullscreen, Digitially Mastered
- Subtitles: English for the Hearing Imparied
- Suggested Retail Price: $19.99
The Movie
Now, I have to be honest with you before giving this review, I am a huge fan of this television series. I asked for the privilege of writing the review because my whole household watches this show weekly and I was extremely curious to see how Disney was going to bring this show to the DVD format. While I consider myself to be a fan, I tried to remain as unbiased as I could in reviewing this DVD.
Johnny & the Sprites started out in 2005 as a series of 3 minute shorts shown randomly in between various shows on Playhouse Disney. The original concept for the show was developed by John Tartaglia of Avenue Q fame. After a successful showing as shorts, the show was extended into a full 24 minute format for Saturday and Sunday mornings in the Playhouse Disney lineup starting in the beginning of 2007. About midway through 2007 the show moved into repeats before returning to new episodes in late fall of 2007. The show began it’s third season in January 2008, trying several new concepts with the format of the show. Though I am not happy with all of the changes this new season has brought, the core of what made me like this show in the first place still seems to be present.
In 2006 Johnny & the Sprites made a live appearance during Walt Disney World’s “Playhouse Disney Weekends”, and returned again in 2007. I missed the performances in 2006, but was able to see them in 2007. The live performance was much like watching a really long version of the show itself.
The basic concept of the show focuses around a man named Johnny, played by John Tartaglia, and his friends the Sprites. Johnny has moved to a house in the woods to work on his music writing (as is denoted by the starting lyrics of the theme song). The theme song goes on to further explain how Johnny has discovered this place to be magical and introduces the characters of the Sprites. The Sprites are a reminiscent mix of part Muppet/part Fraggle/part Faerie. Through the rest of the theme song the audience is led to understand that no other humans other than Johnny (and we the audience) can see them or their magical home “Grotto’s Grove” and the viewers are invited to join in and sing along with Johnny and the Sprites.
Johnny and Johnny’s friend Gwen, played by Natalie Venetia Brown who some may recognize as “Gary Coleman” from the original Broadway cast of Avenue Q, are the only two humans in the primary cast of characters. All the other characters are portrayed by puppets, with the exception of the occasional human guest star. The Sprites include: Ginger, Basil, Lily and Root, along with Sage “the oldest and wisest Sprite in all of Grotto’s Grove (who happens to be voiced by John Tartaglia as well). Beyond the Sprites the other puppet residents include a character named Seymour, who is what is known as a schmole and the Sprite assistants, referred to as Fuzzies (which look an awful like a fuzzy puffballs with eyes, and remind one of the characters of the Dozers from Fraggle Rock).
The show is very upbeat and in every episode uses songs to illustrate and highlight the messages of each segment. The music is very clearly written by people with musical theater background, in fact the theme song itself is written by Steven Schwartz who most currently is best known for the music he wrote for the musical Wicked.
Each episode of the television show as it originally aired on Playhouse Disney ran approximately 24 minutes and would include the theme song and then two 10 minute segments separated by the music video “Head’s Up”, which is included on this DVD. For the DVD the episodes are not shown as they were originally aired, instead only 5 of the 26 segments from Season 2 were used for this DVD, along with the music video “Heads Up” and the 5 original shorts that made up the introductory season. Below is a list of the episodes included on the DVD and a short review of each episode.
Episode Breakdown:
“Ginger’s Antenna Dilemma”
Songs: “Muddle in the Puddle” & “There’s Nobody Quite Like You”
This is one of the first stories to air after the show extended into a full show format. Airing originally on 1/13/07, this segment was shown in the same episode with another segment “Turbo Car Johnny”. The storyline focuses on Ginger’s reaction to finding out her antenna are actually much “curlier” than she knew them to be after seeing a painting of herself done by her Sprite friend Lily. This episode is highlighted by two songs, one sung by Ginger and the other sung by Johnny. The second song “There’s Nobody Quite Like You” is a great song to help kids understand that their being unique is what makes them special.
“Roots Dadoots”
Songs: “What a Surprise!”
This segment was originally aired on 1/14/07 along with “The Rare Nospotalotacus”. Johnny is struggling to write a song when his Sprite friend Root comes down with a case of the “dadoots”, which is similar to hiccups for humans except that with Sprites it causes them to make a dadoot sound and shoot dust out of their bellybutton. Basil attempts to help Root cure his case of the “dadoots”. This episode includes Johnny’s friend Gwen, who cannot see the Sprites and thus causes Johnny to create cover-ups for the sounds caused by Root’s “dadoots”. Oddly, it inspires Johnny to finish his song by working the “dadoots” into the song. This episode also introduces Gwen’s tag line, “You never know what you can do, until you try something new” to which Johnny always responds “True.”
“Where’s the Water Lily?”
Songs: “Reason and Rhyme” and several reprises
This segment first aired 3/17/2007 along with “Spring Tuning”. The episode includes another visit by Johnny’s friend Gwen, who arrives just in time to help him fix his new fountain. A running gag in all episodes is Gwen’s diverse jobs and talents, and this episode is no exception to that rule. Shortly after Johnny’s fountain is fixed all the water in Grotto’s Grove disappears and it’s left to Lily, the water sprite, to solve the problem. Through several reprises of a song called “Reason and Rhyme” Lily discovers it’s Johnny’s fountain that dried up the water in Grotto’s Grove. Together the Sprites and Johnny come to a reasonable solution that works for everybody.
“Basil’s Band”
Songs: “What a Surprise” & “That’s What Friends Do”
Guest stars: Cast from the Off-Broadway musical Altar Boyz
Originally aired on 5/19/2007 with “The Sprite’s Rules”. In this segment Basil is supposed to be gathering vegetables to help with a potluck taking place at Johnny’s. After seeing a performance of one of Johnny’s songs by a group called “Stu and the Stubbies”, played by guest stars the cast of the “Altar Boyz”, Basil has aspirations of becoming part of a performing group. The fuzzies approach him to join their band, and Basil gets wrapped up in choreographing and performing with them so much that he forgets his responsibilities. When he arrives at the potluck and there is no food, he realizes his error and not only gathers all the necessary supplies, but performs a song with his new “band” accompanied by a montage of special sprite memories to apologize for his mistake.
“The Sprites & the What?!”
Songs: “How it Works”
Originally aired along with “Doctor Basil” on 1/27/2007. The storyline centers around Johnny’s colander. Johnny is planning a dinner for himself and his friend Gwen, and his colander goes missing. Seymour finds it and carries it around and, with each Sprite giving his or her personal take on its use. When Johnny realizes it’s missing he panics and tells the Sprites, who upon Seymours return of the item, proceed to tell Johnny their personal uses for the item through the song “How it Works”.
“Head’s Up” Music Video
Originally used as the separating sequence between segments during each Johnny and the Sprites weekly episode, this music video is about 2 minutes in length and is presented here as the last offering before the Goodies.
The Goodies
There’s not a lot as (far as goodies go) in comparison to what I am used to seeing on a Disney DVD. There are only two “extra” features to the DVD.
The first is “Music Time” – Sing Along With Johnny & the Sprites. This feature turns on the equivalent of subtitles for just the songs, with the same highlighting commonly used for a typical Disney “Sing Along Songs” video. The songs aren’t separated out from the episodes, so you have to watch the episodes through and wait for the songs to appear, at which point the subtitling appears for the songs, with the words highlighting as they are sung. As these episodes have some of my favorite songs, it’s an enjoyable feature that accentuates the importance of the songs to the story lines.
The second feature is really what I consider the true bonus to the DVD as it is the Original Shorts that launched the series. There are 5 episodes in total : “Who’s On First?”, “Laugh,Basil, Laugh”, “Leave A Little Lettuce”, “Yes You Can!”, and “Waiting For the Stars”. These five original shorts last no more than 4 minutes each, and that’s with the intro song and one song per episode. In these original shorts the theme song was much shorter as they had not yet introduced the concept of Grotto’s Grove nor the characters of Lily, Root or Sage. The only cast members were Johnny, Ginger & Basil, Seymour the schmole and an unusual character named Mrs. Moldystew (who is Johnny’s nosy neighbor played by none other than John Tartaglia himself dressed as a strange old woman). Personally, I am partial to these first couple of episodes. Even though they are extremely short they manage in that brief time to get across a good message to the viewers as well as a catchy song to take away and sing the rest of the day. It was these first few episodes that really started the spark of what would be become the show it is today.
Audio, Video and Interface
Video: The use of Digitally Mastering did wonders for picture quality. I have to say, it seems to be even cleaner than I remember it being when it was aired on my cable. The picture appears sharper and the colors more intense, which is great considering the bright colors used for the Sprites and all of Johnny’s shirts. The DVD is presented in Full Screen, as it was a television show and was never aired in Wide-screen, this is not surprising.
Audio: The audio is crisp and clear and the levels appear well balanced, not getting incredibly louder when the songs play, or quieting when the singing ends.
Interface: If you allow this DVD to run itself upon start-up, it will work it’s way through the various previews before starting directly into the episodes. If allowed to play through on it’s own it will run through the five episode segments, the music video, and straight into the 5 original shorts. Otherwise, there is a root menu that opens with an introduction to all the Sprites, then settles on an image of Grotto’s Grove with Johnny and the Sprites popping up periodically for about 30 seconds with various on screen menu options including: Play, Scene Selections, Bonus Features, Set Up, Sneak Peaks and a button for Fast Play. If you hit nothing for over 30 seconds, the DVD will start into the previews again before moving back into showing the episodes.
The Final Evaluation
This is a decent DVD for anybody who is interested in checking out this show for the first time. The episodes they chose to include give a nice introduction to the characters and concepts of the show. If you are a die-hard fan of the show, you may be disappointed in the small number of episodes available on this disc. I am hoping this is just the first in a long line of DVDs, in which case would explain why it is not a full compilation of the available episodes from Season 2. Also, the lack of any really “unique content” may be disappointing to the hardcore fan. All that said, this is a great show for both kids and adults and the concepts it teaches are universal. If you are a parent; a fan of the Muppets, Fraggles, or other puppet based show; or just happen to enjoy Musical Theater, this is a would be a great DVD for you.
