Search - Thomas The Tank Engine And Friends - Hooray for Thomas on DVD

Narrator is hard to follow

broomhandle | Sacramento, CA | 07/15/2005

(1 out of 5 stars)

"my 1 year old loves the Ringo Narrations, he will not watch this one with this Narrator. The Narrator is all over the place, and his voices are dumb. I cant even watch it because it makes me go insane. I love the Ringo ones and so does my 1 year old. This DVD is going right up on Ebay."

Brandon's narration prevents 4 stars

01/12/2006

(3 out of 5 stars)

"This DVD would have been so much more enjoyable had there been another narrator apart from Michael Brandon. His voices are what really let him down this time around. Not only is he totally inconsistent with them, but he chooses unsuitable voices for nearly all the characters. Rusty sounds like a raving madman, Rheneas sounds stuffed up, and Edward and Skarloey's voices are too high-pitched. And he also tries a bit too hard with the minor characters, giving them voices that are completely weird and wacky (if you listen to his voice for Rheneas's driver, you'll see what I mean). Brandon also sounds really amateur; there are numerous scenes in "Edward's Brass Band" where his narration is out of sync with the on-screen action, and at one point in "Rheneas and the Roller Coaster" he rushes through his narration to try and keep up with what's happening on screen.

The music on this DVD is also somewhat half-hearted (the original music worked so well, why couldn't they have stayed with it?). However, the music video at the end ("The Red Balloon" is truly beautiful...the last moments always bring a tear to my eye. At least they included something from the original composers on here!

The episodes on this DVD are all well-written and fairly original (I especially like "Edward's Brass Band"), so it is a great pity that they are spoiled by Brandon's shoddy narration and below-average music. Young children might like it, but this shouldn't be on your "must-have DVDs" list."