When I was a child, one of my proudest achievements was getting my very first library card. Having a grownup hand me a card with my name on it -- my name!! -- that allowed me to borrow books that weren't mine, had me floating on cloud nine. And when the card was in my hands, I promptly ran down to the kid's section of the library and grabbed two Curious George books. Since there were only seven different titles at the time, i'd borrow them so often that I could recite each one from memory. In fact, Curious George Goes To the Hospital helped assuage my fears about the hospital during my first overnight stay. So when I heard that they were making a feature film, I was (pardon the pun) curious. As an adult who now has his own children, i'd have to say the cinematic version of Curious George delivers on all levels. The animation, in my opinion, is top notch, the voice actors do a great job and the music is fantastic.

Bonus Features: In addition to the music video for Jack Johnson's "Upside Down", which you have the option to watch with subtitles to "sing-along", there are fifteen deleted scenes that run close to 17 minutes long. I was surprised to see that they weren't necessarily whole "sequences" - they were just occasional slight cuts and they also featured work by the original voice actors. Unfortunately, there are no behind-the-scenes featurettes about the animation process. The closest we get is during A Very Curious Car, which is a five minute featurette that has some creators talking about Curious George's world and how they fit a Volkswagon into it. There's also "Drawn" to George, a five minute clip instructing kids how to draw Curious George and Monkey In Motion, a two minute clip showing Jeff Johnson as he draws a scene with Curious George. That's it. Nothing else.

Universal rounds out the remainder of the bonus features with a bunch of games aimed at their target audience. In Banana Hunt: Help Hungry George Find Bananas, you have to count the number of bananas on the screen as a copyright for Dole fruit sits in the corner. Where's George? has you using your remote contol to choose the location where you think George is hiding - not that they give you any visual clues or anything. There's also a Virtual coloring book that lets you choose from four different characters, the Man In the Yellow Hat, Maggie, Professor Clovis or even George himself, and then select different colors for each of their items. The final game, The Ever Changing Colorful Chameleon, has you pick one of four different animals to see how the chameleon reacts. Rounding out the bonus features is some DVD-ROM content with more games and printable coloring sheets. Oh, there's also a one minute commercial for SheaHomes.

Conclusion: As i've mentioned in previous reviews, I am very selective when it comes to cartoons when it comes to my children. However, Curious George will find a place on my kid's shelf amongst the Looney Tunes, Muppet Show and Disney DVDs. While I wish there was some discussion about the animation process (it seems to be part 2D, part CGI), I do realize that i'm not the target audience - my kids are - and they both enjoyed it. This is a very entertaining, heartwarming 87 minute film and Universal delivers a bright, vibrant picture and a great 5.1 audio track. Highly Recommended.