Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)In the endless mucking about through hundreds of cutesy kids shows a few do come out on top as being innovative, educational, and above all entertaining. The Littles was one of those kinds of shows. While the episodes had a moral to them that moral tends to be shown in a more practical way than your standard "always brush your teeth after each meal... and knowing is half the battle" kind of prachy message. In other words it entertains. As a youngin' myself I found this show wasn't condescending to little kids while at the same time engaging them.
The Littles is based on a widely popular book series and is about a family of little people (very, very little people... think Tom Thumb little) going about their daily adventures in a world of giants (that would mean us regular folk). The animation is surprisingly good with some nice art and nice frame rate compared to other Saturday morning cartoons. Considering this is a show for kids between around 8 and 13 it does get goofy and you do get those silly sound effects every time somebody (or rather Dinky) falls over and the like. Part of the fun is seeing how they use our common small household items as creative inventions for their own environment. That includes anything from basic tools and furniture to airplanes and other vehicles. The cast is a good blend of characters and include:
Tom Little - A 13 yr old with an adventurous streak to him.
Lucy Little - The ten year old sister to Tom who tends to be the sensible one.
Dinky Little - A 21 year old little who pilots the airplane and tends to be the clumsy Gilligan of the group.
Grandpa Little - The brave and somewhat wise one of the bunch that, with the help of Dinky, keeps the kids from getting in over their heads.
William and Lucy Little - They are Tom and Lucy's parents and don't really adventure much, but they are there for the kids.
Henry Bigg - If you haven't guessed by his name this is the normal sized boy that befriends the littles and helps them along.
With this DVD set you get the entire series of half hour 28 episodes (well less than a half hour if you count commercials). Not only do you get all of the episodes but you also get the Weekend Special Feature "Liberty and the Littles", which is a made for TV special that's over an hour long. Unlike many cartoon DVDs (or television DVDs for that matter) you also get a host of extras as well. Here is the breakdown:
- Featurette " Little Ideas for Big People"
- Interview with show writer Marc Scott Zicree
- Storyboard comparisons
- A little snippet on the history of the DIC logo (the show's production company)
- A host of printable material including series bible, episode storyboards and episode outines.
If you have kids in this age range that have any imaginative flair to them and you want them to learn some good moral and practical lessons without being preached to them this would be a good set for them. Obviously since the show is from the 80's it won't have the kind of "newness" you would get from more recent shows, but at the same time these characters are timeless and the show tends to follow that trend.
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