Hatching Pete / Dadnapped Double Feature

For those of us who remember, Disney used to piggyback movies a lot for theaters, especially in the 1970's, when you would see "Lady and the Tramp" with "One Little Indian" or "Cinderella" with "One of Our Dinosaurs is Missing. It's kind of cool to have two recent wacky Disney Channel original comedies in the same package.

"Dadnapped" is the wackier of the two. It's almost a tween version of "It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World" with an familiar cast of Disney Channel regulars in a zany caper. Basically a young girl (Emily Osment) and her dad (George Newbern) bond because he, a popular kid's adventure series writer, is kidnapped. As is common with such comedies, the young characters are the most level headed and ultimately save the day, this time with trash, slime and dental floss for a gag-filled but nonviolent finale.

The actors are stars as far as frequent viewers of Disney Channel series are concerned. Most are given a chance to play roles outside the ones in which they are most frequently seen, particularly Jason Earles, who seems to be in more grown up role than on "Hannah Montana," playing a character named, yes, Merv. Ooooooooo. When this movie was promoted on the channel, they drew attention to "Phill Lewis as you've never seen him before," so part of the attraction was clearly seeing these transformations, though David Henrie of "Wizards of Waverly Place" is probably still eager for an opportunity to play a non-nerd.

"Dadnapped," being more or less a vehicle for the actors, is to my family a little less satisfying than Hatching Pete, which on the surface seems like a silly story about a teen who finds himself more popular in school from being inside a chicken suit at basketball games, but less popular as himself, is like the "Spider-Ma"n situation. There is an opportunity for some richness of character and relationships within the plot. Hatching Pete also benefits greatly from the boy-next-door appeal of Jason Dolley, who also scored well for Disney Channel as a lead in Minute Men.

As in "Dadnapped," various Disney Channel actors (a sturdy stable not unlike that of the early Disney days) have roles in "Hatching Pete," but in this film, the roles offer them a little more character range as well as changes of pace.

Both films offer some bonus material, though somewhat sparse. "Dadnapped" includes what amounts to a tag scene touted as an "extended ending" and a quite nice flash animated comic book style adventure featuring the character the Dadnapped dad created. "Hatching Pete" includes a short documentary about the mascot, which, according to my daughter, was not among the many interstitials from the Disney Channel.

Plus, an enclosed code allows you to unlock two music videos starring Emily Osment and Mitchel Musso -- again very much following a Disney tradition in promoting musical careers like Annette and Hayley Mills. It will be interesting to see where each of these performers go on their respective paths.

these are two great movies all in one package! they are both very good movies in hatching pete mitchel musso and jason dolly are very funny and in dadnapped emily osment is great i love both of these movies.buy it.great deal.

I thought these were cute movies, and was happy to find them sold as a package. My kids watched them many times.