In the
criminal
justice system there are two opposing but equally important -
wait. Wrong DVD, OK, start over. Who's the man in the suit? Who's
the cat with the feet? He's Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law,
defender of cartoons in legal trouble. Whether it's cute, bow-tie
wearing Boo Boo Bear accused of being the "Unabooboo," or Shaggy
and Scooby busted for possession, there's just one ex-superhero
manbird to see. Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law. And this is his
DVD.
CRITIQUE
I've never heard of
Harvey Birdman Attorney at Law until I read a review of the
DVD. From the description alone it sounded pretty funny so I
requested it for review. It only took two or three episodes before
I "got" the show's comedy. This isn't your typical cartoon series,
not at all. There's lots of strange stuff going on, but the more
you see the funnier the show gets as a whole. The animation of the
Hanna-Barbera characters is all new so the show isn't restricted
in terms of movements and such, plus the writers come up with some
pretty good stories in which they place the characters. The voice
work is impressive and silly at the same time. Gary Cole is great
as Harvey, Stephen Colbert voices various characters, Michael
McKean shows up briefly, and veteran Phil LaMarr, among others,
makes an appearance.
Probably my favorite
story is when Harvey takes on the case of Fred Flinstone who is
accused to living the mobster life; the show's opening even
mirrors that of The Sopranos, which had me cracking up
good. Harvey must also defend Boo Boo Bear, Mr. High (a private
detective is fired for being too short) and himself (for
first-degree murder) in court, while outside the court has to
survive attempts at his life by X The Eliminator who comes back
years later to finish the job. At 12 minutes the episodes run at a
good pace, which also means you can get through this DVD in a
matter of a few hours.
Disc 1:
Bannon Custody Battle; Very Personal Injury; Shaggy Busted; Death
by Chocolate; Shoyu Weenie; The Dabba Don; Deadomutt Part 1 and
Part 2
Disc 2:
The Eliminator; SPF; The Devlin Made Me Do It; Trio's Company;
High Speed Buggy Chase
THE VIDEO
Warner Bros. presents
Harvey Birdman in 1.33:1 fullscreen format. The animation
of the early episodes have some flaws but the latter half are
presented more clearly and with slightly better quality. The
picture looks decent.
THE AUDIO
Warner Bros. presents
Harvey Birdman in an English 2.0 soundtrack. Dialogue is
easy to understand and the music cues are presented fairly well,
too. Standard stuff.
THE EXTRAS
There are several
audio commentaries available, and they're actually fun to
listen to. Almost three minutes of deleted scenes are
featured for two episodes. The second disc includes a Live
Action Open (0:50) of the show, a Harvey Birdman Movie
Trailer (1:28) for a movie that doesn't exist (...yet), some
photos of the show's crew, a Casting "What If's"
(1:12) featurette if Gary Cole and Stephen Colbert switched roles,
a Pencil Test and Final Animation: Shaggy Busted
video comparison (0:52), and something called Tab Can Redux,
With Lyrics (1:18).
FINAL THOUGHTS
Harvey Birdman
Attorney at Law is funny stuff. The video extras don't offer
much content, though they're nice. My only complaint about this
first volume release is that there aren't more episodes included.
