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The Wiggles - Space Dancing
ABC/Roadshow Entertainment . R4 . COLOR . 46 mins . G . PAL

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A short time ago in a galaxy far, far away... those multicoloured kiddy rockers The Wiggles find themselves rocketing into outer space. When Captain Feathersword jacks a visiting space ship (a pirate is a pirate after all), the owners of the vehicle - the visiting Zeezaps - are left to hold court with the cows around Wiggle House while our intrepid songsters are rather unwillingly speeding to galaxy of Whoos-ka seven trillion kilometres from Earth.

A few songs and Wiggly adventures ensue, including a visit to planet Rock-star and its incumbent monarch King Mondo (Ross Wilson), planet Teeny-Weeny - populated with tiny leprechauns - and the aptly named Planet Gloom as The Wiggles and their friends attempt to get back to Earth. Suffice to say those gloomies don't know what hit them.

A Wiggles release like no other, Space Dancing is a fully animated 3D adventure from Australian company Plastic Wax. Produced using animation tool 3DS-Max, it sees The Wiggles and their friends looking like Thunderbirds with gigantically oversized heads, and singing a relatively small number of songs for the 46 minute running time:

The Zeezap Song
What's This Button For?
Eagle Rock - featuring Ross Wilson
Dance The Gloomies Away
Going Home

Given these changes from The Wiggles norm, Space Dancing may well be more appropriate for your more mature Wiggles fans; given more story and less chance to bounce off the walls with arms and legs flailing. My test audience here at home seems to support this, with my four-year-old niece loving Space Dancing as much as previous releases, while it failed to overcome the short attention spans of my two-year-old daughter and nephew. Call me an old cynic, but personally, with only five songs and a wishy-washy story, the whole thing reeks of both gimmick and a quick buck.

  Video
  Audio
  Extras
Contract

Presented on a single-sided, single-layer disc from Roadshow, Space Dancing continues the high standard that we’ve come to expect from The Wiggles and other ABC Kids releases; more so given the pristine nature of the digital source material. Furnished with a flawless, artefact-free transfer, Space Dancing’s full-frame CG image is full of vivid, perfectly saturated colours all supported by deep solid blacks. And although containing far less detail than your typical Pixar production, the sharp image puts it all up there on screen without anything in the way of aliasing-related problems.

In terms of audio, the Dolby Digital stereo soundtrack is also typical of Wiggles releases, with a simple yet solid stereo presentation supporting the on-screen action. While the wiggly-wobbly dialogue remains clear and distinct throughout, channel separation is low, and the entire production sits squarely in the front-channels. During the musical numbers a small proportion of the sound was re-routed to the rear by my trusty Prologic decoder, but not enough to get excited about.

In terms of extras, a few titbits are provided for your kiddy’s watching pleasure. About the characters provides six pages of text about The Wiggles themselves and the other characters who appear, including the Zeezaps, King Mondo and the Gloomies. Featurette The Making of Space Dancing is a seven minute overview of the production, narrated by Wiggle Jeff, that presents home video showing pre-production meetings, The Wiggles writing songs and sound recording, as well as interviews with the staff at Plastic Wax. Meanwhile, An Audience with King Mondo presents an interview by young Olympia with Ross Wilson, discussing his track Eagle Rock, and what it was like working with the Wiggles. Lastly, the Return to Earth Game provides seven multiple-choice questions that test how closely your little ones have watched The Wiggles’ wacky space adventure.

An entirely different beast to much of The Wiggles' back-catalogue, Space Dancing is more of a sit-and-watch than a jump-and-sing release. Certainly for tots who enjoy romping around the lounge-room there are far better Wiggles titles... Nevertheless, Space Dancing contains lashings of that toothy Wiggles charm and boundless enthusiasm that hard-core Wiggles fans will no doubt enjoy.


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  •   And I quote...
    "Yet more evidence that kiddie rockers The Wiggles have gone interstellar... "
    - Gavin Turner
      Review Equipment
    • DVD Player:
          Toshiba SD-2108
    • TV:
          Panasonic TC-68P90A TAU (80cm)
    • Receiver:
          Yamaha RX-V795
    • Amplifier:
          Yamaha RX-V795
    • Speakers:
          B&W 602
    • Centre Speaker:
          B&W CC6 S2
    • Surrounds:
          JM Lab Cobalt SR20
    • Subwoofer:
          B&W ASW-500
    • Audio Cables:
          Standard Optical
    • Video Cables:
          Standard Component RCA
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