> Called 'Magical Children's Favourites with Sooty' this release
will
> more likely feature episodes from Year 49 as they more likely want
> to go down the classic look instead of the last three years using
> the retro looking puppets (made to look like Harry Corbett's first
> version of Sooty, Sweep and Soo. With Scampi and Butch made in the
> retro style and Miki taken the look of Kipper the Cat even know
> Kipper was a male cat and Miki is a female cat for a 50 series
type
> thing). This DVD will include magic theme episodes from Thomas &
> Friends, Barney The Dinosaur, Bob The Builder, Fireman Sam among
> others which won't be a bad thing. This makes a change from over
20
> years ago when Children's Favourites VHS included Button Moon and
> Rainbow plus are much loved childhood hero Sooty.

I got it slightly wrong and the episode that have added is from the
retro looking puppets Years. The episode is from Year 50 and is
called.... Sooty's Magic Garden

The show got an 8 out of 10 rating when we first review the show
back in 2003. It's the first DVD release featuring an episode from
Richard Cadell's era so this will be the first time most Sooty fans
could see how the new guy has been doing since Matthew retire. This
release needs to be a big hit because its the first release from its
current owners and will show peoples want for Sooty and could lead
for The Sooty Show and Sooty & Co season sets and possibly a warm
return worldwide like back down under where our friends at "Sooty &
Sweep Online" got started because of its cult status.

So please remember to buy the DVD out tomorrow not because you are a
Sooty fan because you will support the effort to get its new owners
to put more money into the longest running children's show, Sooty.

And remember come back here and discuss you views about the dvd
release and what you think of the episode if its the first time
you've seen it and do you agree with my review. And if this is the
first Richard episode you have seen, what do you think of him and
remember that IF sooty returns down under these will be the episodes
shown and this one episode will give you a preview of what to
expect. Richard is here to stay so no more "We want Matthew back" as
apart from a possible cameo IT WON'T HAPPEN

Here is the list of episodes on 'Magical Children's Favourites with
Sooty'

Kipper - The Magic Lamp
Rubberdubbers - Tub the Magician
The Wiggles - Imagination
Angelina Ballerina - William the Conjurer
Pingu - Pingu The Apprentice Magician
Barney - Stick With Imagination
Bob The Builder - Wendy's Magic Birthday
Fireman Sam - Wishing Well
Sooty - Sooty's Magic Garden

Special Features
* Continuous Random Play (plays all episodes, randomly NON STOP)
* Brand Descriptions
* Subtitles
* Animated Menu

This is a re-post of the review of "Sooty's Magic Garden". Like
always it details what happens in the episode

SOOTY'S MAGIC GARDEN
(Episode six of Series 50, Sooty's Golden Jubilee year)
Rating: 8 out of 10

Could the writing talent of Simon Rushton give the Golden Jubilee of
Sooty the boost it needs after the average of sixes and sevens the
previously five episodes has got. In my words yes, far from being
counted as the best episode of Richard's realm of being Sooty's
right hand man, but it's a nice step on the journey of finding the
perfect episode.

Miki is in depth with her favourite comic `Wonder Duck' but doesn't
like when they leave the really excited bit to the next issue. Vicki
comes in from the Garden Centre with stuff of Richard that he needs
for the hotel garden. Soo's thinks Richard is bonkers for talking to
the flowers to help them to grow and the rest of the gang agrees.

Sooty and Sweep likes Richard hobby and would like to take up
growing Sunflowers. They don't like the idea that you have to wait
for the sunflowers to grow so Richard tells Sweep it's useless
saying `Grow You Stupid Plant'. We have a nice and warmly welcome
routine of putting a fake branch in the flowerpot with the whole
idea being `my sunflower has grow faster than yours'. Slowly but
surely the Corbett formula is coming back but its going to take time
and we have no choice but to wait on them getting the `if its not
broke, don't fix it' motto back into Sooty.

Vicki has more stuff from the garden centre and Miki's Wonder Duck
comic was put in that stuff and its ruined. Richard tells them this
stuff will help your flowers to grow but Sooty has another way in
helping their sunflower seeds to grow. Sooty's Magic Wand is put
into play and by waving his wand their flowers do grow but as usual
more chaos is just around the corner. The following song `Izzy
Whizzy' follows the story of turning all the flowers in the hotel
with magic.

But its also to note from `Sooty's Magic Garden' is a pretty major
character change for one of our longest running characters which is
all but a bit too hard to shallow. The character in question is Soo,
change from the days when she was Sooty's girlfriend and now turn
into a spoilt little brat. While they are improving the whole show,
this is wrong and Soo has become the most unpopular character. Going
onto children's message board and chat rooms and when I bring up the
subject of Sooty, the usual "It's not the same since Matthew left"
we get "I Don't like Soo". She once was a little girl favourite
choice of the range of characters but serious action needs to be
taken to fix Soo. Change the voice, PLEASE CHANGE THE VOICE and use
something created by Vicki Lee Taylor. Whatever she can come up with
is far better than the voice they currently have.

Richard discovers Sooty has used his magic wand to make a Gardeners
Nightmare (lots of weeds if you don't know that meaning) and orders
Sooty to fix this problem. But he tells him his wand is lost within
these weeds and they have to find it. Once they got the wand, he
magic everything away and that includes our duo's magical
sunflowers. But in time those sunflowers that Sooty and Sweep were
fanatic about start to grow with Sweeps being the bigger of the two.
Miki did receive her next issue of Wonder Duck but as always hates
when they leave the exciting bit to the next issue.

Sooty's Magic Garden is what I've said a nice step along the journey
in finding the perfect episode of Richard's Realm. While this
episode doesn't come close it starts to bring back the old fashion
and really popular Corbett formula but also sees an unwelcome change
of character, which needs change quickly. But overall starts of
hopefully better things for Sooty and his chums at Hotel Sooty.

Laughter 07
Classic Appeal 08
Slapstick 09
Sooty´s Magic 08
Returning 08
080

[Review by Brian and posted on Yahoo Group: Reaching Brand New Sooty
Heights on Monday 24th of November 2003, 20:50pm. No other site can
have claim of this review or any information featured in this review
without contacting me, the Webmaster at reachingbrandnewsootyheights-
owner@... first].

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http://reachingbrandnewsootyheightssite.moonfruit.com
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Full Information on how to buy the VHS and DVD version is on the
main site.
BRIAN