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Teacher's Pet
Disney // PG // June 15, 2004
List Price: $29.99 [Buy now and save at Amazon]
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Teacher's Pet is a family movie for people who instinctively wince upon hearing the phrase "family movie". Those two words bring to mind sappy sentimentality, lame stabs at humor, and mind-numbing, plodding inanity. Although Teacher's Pet doesn't approach the height of Pixar's output or The Iron Giant, it's clever, witty, and likely to appeal to both children and their parents. Kids will probably be sucked in by the story and songs, while older viewers ought to appreciate the innumerable gags scribbled in the margins and just the basic fact that Teacher's Pet doesn't feel like it's pandering to the junior set. Not too many kiddie flicks leave its characters stranded in underwear, have an eyeball dangling from a misshapen mutant's eyesocket, or a pelt hanging onto a cat's skeleton by a thread. Despite how that might sound, there's nothing gruesome or offensive in the movie, although apparently the MPAA felt obligated to nudge Teacher's Pet into PG territory. The description given on CARA's site is "crude humor", as ambiguously defined as that is. I'm not surprised that Teacher's Pet was slapped with a PG rating, but I wouldn't have been shocked or appalled if it had been rated G either.
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Audio: Complementing the anamorphic widescreen visuals are a pair of six-channel soundtracks, one in Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kbps) and the other encoded in DTS. The movie's dialogue comes through with crystal clarity, and the lyrics in the dozen musical numbers are also clear and easily discernable, never drowned out by the instrumentation. Actually, some of the music in the earlier songs struck me as too low in the mix. I guess I expect a multichannel musical to be booming and expansive, engulfing every square inch of the room. The first few songs sounded almost restrained, despite being reinforced in the rear channels. The surrounds also prominently come into play in some of the more energetic sequences, most memorably a Willy Wonka-ish jaunt through Spot's noggin. There are also a few nice scattered uses of low-frequency effects, particularly blasts from Dr. Krank's N.E.A.T.O. transmogrifier. All in all, it's a good mix with an impressive amount of stereo separation across the fronts, but I do wish the first few songs were a little beefier. Teacher's Pet also includes English subtitles and closed captions.
Supplements: Although Teacher's Pet begins with a scoopful of exposition to help bring new viewers up to speed, the uninitiated will probably want to take a peek at the pilot first, which is helpfully provided on this disc. "Muttamorphisis" has 22 minutes to introduce characters and establish the series' basic premise versus the couple of minutes crammed into the movie, so things are obviously a little better fleshed-out in this bonus episode. It doesn't hurt that it's extremely funny either, as clever and well-written as the movie. The episode (4x3; stereo) looks and sounds about as great as its big-screen counterpart too, definitely a sizeable leap over what I'd expect to see on cable TV.
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There are also two deleted scenes, shown in animatic form with the actors' voices playing over the storyboards. "Pretty Boy & Mr. Jolly on the Road" (1:52) shows more of Spot's fellow pets clawing their way to sunny Florida, and their journey is resolved more clearly in the slightly-different alternate ending of "N.E.A.T.O. Awards" (0:52).
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The DVD opens with a few plugs for other Disney animated releases: full-frame promos for special editions of Aladdin and The Lion King II, as well as letterboxed trailers for The Incredibles and The Three Musketeers. These are also viewable by selecting "Sneak Peeks" from the main menu, which additionally include a look at a special edition of Mulan and the Disney Channel series Dave the Barbarian. The disc includes a set of 16x9 animated menus, and the movie's been divided into fourteen chapters.
Conclusion: Smart, funny, and completely under the radar, Teacher's Pet is a movie that's worth discovering on DVD. If you haven't seen the series before, be sure to dive into the Bonus Features menu and watch "Muttamorphisis" first. I wouldn't have complained if the price were a few bucks lower, but animation fans of any age should consider giving Teacher's Pet at least a rental. Recommended.
Related Links: DVD Talk's Danielle Henbest recently conducted an interview with Cheri Steinkellner about Teacher's Pet. Gary Baseman has an official site for anyone who wants to take a look at some of his other art or buy some swag.
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