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STUDIO: Warner Bros.
RATED: Unrated
RUNNING TIME: 80 Minutes
SPECIAL FEATURES: Making-Of Featurettes
The Pitch
"Okay gang this is gonna be great. See, we’re Warner Brothers, we own tons of properties. Popular properties at that. There are so many things we could put out on DVD but here’s what we’re going to do. Let’s import this dinky little cartoon from Germany! Those Animaniacs fans can suck it! <evil laugh>"
The Humans
A bunch of people you’ve never heard of
The Nutshell
Lars is a little polar cub. Or…a polar bear cub. Just bear cub? Anyway, so he’s hanging out on his glacier and he does stuff. An adventure here, a mishap there, your basic polar bear lifestyle. In and around his life are his friends Robbie the Seal, Nemo the Cat, Theo the Tiger…well the list goes on. Lars makes a lot of friends.
Tony the Tiger didn’t think The Coke Bear was that g-r-r-r-eat! (Oh boo yourself!)
The Package
I tend to always start with the cover art because it’s the first you thing you see. Why did I just tell you that? I don’t know. There’s not a lot of stuff here so I’m padding. Bear with me (See…that’s funny cause…ah never mind). The cover art is ok. I’m not sure if this got a theatrical release in Germany but if it did this was probably the poster art. Lars and friends chillin’ on a glacier (again, see what I did there? Puns are funny *ducks*). Not great but not bad – it sells the idea and is a decent representation of you’re to find inside. Now, with the audio and video. I’ll just come out and say it – a better writer would find more interesting ways to say "it’s nothing to get excited about." I’m not that writer, so you know what? The audio and video – nothing to get excited about. Widescreen with a Dolby Surround track. The quality looks like your typical PBS fare. It’s slightly washed out and the lines are a little wiggly. I know I know…blah blah blah. In the bonus arena, there are two featurettes – animation and foley. They’re slightly informative but unless you like subtitles there’s no point in watching them – they’re in German.
The Lowdown
Okay, I’ll admit it. This wasn’t so bad. Actually, it wasn’t bad at all. It somewhat held my attention through the running time, which is halfway impressive since this is intended for the pre-K crowd. Granted, I kinda HAD to watch it since I was reviewing it, but it wasn’t a chore.
Will your kid like it? Well, that depends. Does your kid like Arthur? How about Franklin? If yes, then yeah – your kid will definitely dig this. What’s good about the Little Polar Bear (and maybe what’s bad about it too, depending on how you look at it) is that it’s soft and easy. There’s no loud noises, no flashy animation, no hypnotic quality that’s going to have your kids glued to the set in a slack-jawed, wide-eyed trance.
"And just who in the blue hell are you calling ‘Hungry Hungry?’ I’ll cut you man – I’ll cut you good."
In the end, I don’t think it’s something that will get a lot of rotation in your player, but your kid will enjoy it while it’s on. And, well if they don’t enjoy it – leave it in. They’ll get all pissed off and go play. It’s a win-win situation.
5.0 out of 10