Review of Complete Fingerbobs

Introduction

Yoffy lifts a finger...and a mouse is there. Contender lift a finger, and The Complete Fingerbobs arrives on DVD. Featuring every episode ever made (and there weren`t that many as this series was endlessly repeated), you can take a trip back in time for another three hours of television from a golden age for children. Just to refresh your memory, the episodes were:-

Bumpy, Stones, Feathers, Sounds, Wood, Shiny, String, Shadow, Shapes, Bricks, Paint, Seeds, House.

No snappy puns or cheap word play here, just episode titles that "do exactly what they say on the tin". Each week`s story is directly connected to the title, with one of the four main characters taking their turns to be the star attraction. Those four characters were of course Fingermouse (a mouse obviously), Scampi (don`t need to explain that one either), Gulliver (a seagull) and Flash (a tortoise). Look out for others such as Prickly Friend (hedgehog) and Twit (owl).

Fingermouse himself went on to more fame and fortune with his own self-titled spin-off show, but it wasn`t as good as this original show and sailed quietly off into the sunset.

Video

A 4:3 presentation as you would expect from such an old TV programme. However, someone must have kept a nice clean copy of this somewhere because it looks relatively undamaged. The title sequence comes off worst, with lots of little black and white flecks and specks appearing everywhere. But when you`re watching the programmes themselves they all look remarkably good for their age. They`re nowhere near as good as anything produced today of course, but they are impressive when compared against some of the other classics that we`ve seen on DVD.

Audio

A DD2.0 soundtrack, which is the original mono broadcast replayed over both channels. Everything sounds pretty good too, with the sound mostly clear, although with one or two muddier moments.

As soon as that title song starts, you`ll instantly regress back to your age when you first saw the programme. Each character has their own song too, and some of these are quite amusing. More on those in just a moment.

Features

And we even get a brief set of extras.

There`s "Fingerbobs Jazz Club", a brief clip of the characters with some musical instruments, with a very brief voice over which fans of The Fast Show will crack up at.

Also to be found here, Fingerbobs Karaoke, which lets you sing along to each character`s song in the privacy of your own living room. There are also some pages of text covering the history of the programme.

And finally we have the "Create your own Fingerbob" bit, so that you can really get into the full Fingerbobs experience.

Conclusion

Another classic show arrives on DVD. This really is a reminder of a forgotten era, when TV shows for children were about education and entertainment, not huge marketing and merchandising campaigns, and seeing how many stupid number one singles you can wring out of your characters before confining them to the scrap heap and getting children hooked on the next fad.

When the characters themselves were so simple to make, everyone could join in at home, and parents didn`t have to spend 12 days waiting in line at Christmas to get the latest over-priced piece of tat fresh from some far eastern sweat shop.

So buy this DVD and relive this golden age. And if you`re a parent who wants to avoid the experiences mentioned in the previous paragraph then let your children watch this instead of Tweenies or Teletubbies. The video and sound quality aren`t up to today`s standards, but are very good for their age. And the DVD even shows you how to make your own Fingerbob. What more could you ask for?