Talespin - Volume 2

Posted by Robert Fure (robert@filmschoolrejects.com) on December 19, 2007

It’s hard for me to believe and tough for me to accept that Talespin came on the air 17 years ago. I’m getting older, I guess. And often times we find that as we age, the shows we loved in our youth don’t age with us. Surprisingly to me, Talespin managed to stay relevant as time passed.

When I popped Volume 2 into the player, I didn’t know what to expect. When I was first hit with theme song, I didn’t remember it and wasn’t excited. Then the episode started (the first on the disc is Baloo Switcheroo) and it all came back to me. Lovable Baloo, the disturbingly attractive Rebecca Cunningham, and my favorite character, Don Carnage! Carnage is, of course, a dingo-wolf looking air pirate who is self-obsessed with his own good looks. Classic.

This 3-disc set includes 27 episodes including fan favorite A Jolly Molly Christmas which is a great episode for the whole family to watch at Christmas time. In fact, for those of you with younger children, this makes a great gift with hours of family safe fun and entertaining animation and story lines that won’t put parents to sleep.

The series follows the exploits of Baloo, a cargo plane pilot who moved from The Jungle Book to make his way in the tough business of air freight. Yeah, ok, I don’t know why Baloo left the jungle and how he learned to fly a plane, he just does ok? Along with him are his best bud Kit “Little Britches” Cloudkicker, who sometimes takes to surfing the high skies on a custom collapsible board. Khan is also back from The Jungle (Book) and has taken to wearing suits and causing trouble. Naturally.

All of the episodes are great for kids, but adults can appreciate some of the humor on their own level as well. For Whom the Bell Klangs, My Fair Baloo, Citizen Khan, and Flight School Confidential, as you can tell just by the titles, offer up some cleverly inserted jokes and situations. A Baloo Switcheroo manages to draw together both Indiana Jones, Vice Versa and Big.

The picture and sound quality are both good, but unfortunately this DVD, like so many TV shows, falls very flat in the extras department. This disc has none. Zero. Being a cartoon I guess this is slightly more acceptable as there is just naturally less material around, but still some galleries or interviews would have helped complete this package. The DVD is easy to navigate and doesn’t have any real control hang ups to speak of.

Despite the bare bones nature of this release, it is a good one. I was pleasantly surprised at how much I still enjoyed the show and I’ll be happy to have it around to introduce to my children someday. Horrible thought I know, but one day I’ll probably have them and I’ll introduce to them to the wild ride in the sky that is Talespin.

Show Grade: B+

DVD Grade: C

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