Ruby Gloom: Grounded in Gloomsville

 

 

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Finally! A North American release of this wonderful cartoon!

This DVD contains the first four episodes of the show (Gloomer Rumor, Grounded In Gloomsville, Doom With A View, and Missing Buns), along with a bonus episode of "Jane & The Dragon". As if the episodes themselves weren't great enough (and trust me, they ARE), among the special features on this disc are some behind-the-scenes looks at the episode "Hair(less): The Musical"! An excellent addition to an already excellent package, no doubt about it.

I would highly recommend this DVD for fans of any of the following: family films with a unique sense of humor, semi-gothic characters a la Tim Burton, great voice acting, and high-quality animation. If any of these fit you, grab a copy of this right away! If you were lucky enough to pre-order this item, you'd have gotten away with $13.99 CDN (an absolute steal for the bonus features!); now the list price is $19.99 CDN, which still isn't that bad, pretty standard for most new releases.

Consider this customer completely satisfied. You can bet I'll be first in line to order the next volume of the series! Hopefully enough it'll come out soon!

I caught Ruby Gloom on YTV one day and have been hooked on this show ever since. I was so happy to learn that a DVD of this show exists, even if it is only the first 4 episodes (better than nothing!). Hopefully more releases will follow if the DVD does well.

I was pleasantly surprised by the fact that the DVD is in its correct aspect ratio of 1.85:1 (fills a 16x9 widescreen TV) since the show is animated in widescreen but airs in 1.33:1 "full screen" 4x3 ratio (when aired, the sides of the widescreen image are cut off to create a "full screen" image which is common for televised shows, so it's nice that the image is properly in widescreen on the DVD). The video quality on the DVD release is stellar and I actually noticed more details in objects on the show which is actually pretty neat. This image is perfect.

Another pleasant surprise is that the audio on the DVD is in Dolby Digital 5.1 and it actually sounds spectacular on a home theatre. The sound designers must have taken special care to mix the audio for 5.1 and it shows when watching the episodes. The rear channels are used frequently (and used well) for music, voices and sound effects, and it really adds to the enjoyment of the show, while the front soundstage properly disperses the left, centre and right channels' audio correctly too. I did not receive a sense of over-"boominess" with the subwoofer channel so I believe it is accurately set as well. The audio overall is perfect. Note that only the English audio track is in Dolby Digital 5.1, the additional French audio track is in Dolby Digital 2.0.

The menus on this disc are also in 16x9 widescreen and easy to navigate. The main menu is a static image and the audio is an instrumental version of the show's theme song. Extras on the DVD include a behind-the-scenes look at the Ruby Gloom musical (4x3 full screen) which shows the voice actors working and the finished show using split screens; a full episode of another Nelvana show "Jane and the Dragon" (16x9 widescreen); and a "sneak peeks" section of trailers that run together for "Jane and the Dragon," "Grossology," and "Di-Gata Defenders" (all in 4x3 full screen).

If you are a fan of this show then there is no question of whether or not to get the DVD -- get it now! If you have not seen Ruby Gloom before and are interested but unsure, the show is somewhat similar in look and feel to the animated Beetlejuice series (gothic/comedy, child-friendly, enjoyable for adults) and with perfect audio and video and some worthy extras I'd say this release is great for new fans as well.

This is an excellent series! The show is truly funny and unique and it has an incredible opening sequence with the catchiest little tune (For which I still have it in my head days later!). I Simply love it and I can't wait to see more! :-)

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4.0 out of 5 stars Just great!
This is a very nice little cartoon series, whose first DVD impressed me. As others have said, it features the first four episodes of the show, presented in high quality 16:9... Read more

Published on Nov 25 2009 by S. Harchun

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