Geneon has released Volume 4 in the claymation Hello Kitty: Stump Village series, entitled Time to Dig In! This volume contains four, eleven minute episodes of little Kitty and her friends as they work, play, and occasionally fight in their isolated, beautiful Stump Village. Claymation has always intrigued me, so I was looking forward to these short animated shows, and I wasn't disappointed. Charming, adorable, with frequent bursts of decidedly weird and non-kid friendly humor, Hello Kitty: Stump Village - Time to Dig In! had me laughing right out loud.

Created in 1974 by the Sanrio Company of Tokyo, Japan, Hello Kitty has become a merchandizing phenomenon, with the sweet little white-faced kitty plastered on every product known to man. So it's not surprising that Hello Kitty would show up in a variety of filmed media, including, finally, claymation. I wasn't really sure what to expect when I put the first disc in; I had no Hello Kitty background, so I just assumed that Hello Kitty: Stump Village - Time to Dig In! would be an innocuous series of animated adventures, aimed at preschoolers.

And for the most part, it is. Plots are kept rigidly simple (the better to translate to a maximum number of countries and cultures), revolving around Kitty and her friends Pompompurin, Cinnamoroll, My Melody, and Bad Badtz-Maru as they entertain themselves in their little hideaway village. What first struck me about these adventures were how work-oriented and industrious the little characters are; no one just lays around in Stump Village. Someone is always planning an event, building sets or costumes for a play, or baking bread for a planned party. With the aid of a narrator (Wendee Lee for this English-language version), we follow the various threads of each short little story. The narrator is necessary, because all of the characters speak in baby cooing sounds, used for emphasis that even the smallest child can comprehend (again, this technique also allows endless dubbing possibilities).

With the roly-poly, chubby little characters inhabiting Stump Village, it's not difficult to get children's attention, who seem immediately drawn to their funny little claymation movements and their baby cooing sounds (my kids were right up on that widescreen). For such simple characters, they possess quite a bit of charm and interest, filling certain broad stock characteristics to hang the stories on: Bad Badtz-Maru is naturally the little naughty one; Cinnamoroll is the nurturing one (always baking bread); Pompompurin is the strong builder; My Melody is the sweet, shy, scared one; and Kitty is the stable anchor. And it's hard to deny that they're cute and cuddly, and that the simple stories are perfect for the smallest children's attention spans.

But certainly there are also elements in Hello Kitty: Stump Village - Time to Dig In! - some decidedly weird elements - that add a slightly bizarre feel to the episodes, that I found hilarious. When the opening credits start, there's not much indication that anything in Hello Kitty: Stump Village - Time to Dig In! is going to really grab you. Then, they show a brief shot of Bad absolutely freaking out on a set of tom-toms and then an electrical guitar. And you immediately go, "Wait a minute? Did I just see that?" And you start to hang in there for Hello Kitty: Stump Village - Time to Dig In! And sure enough, you then start to notice some strange goings-on for a supposedly kid-friendly DVD.

First, the level of slapstick runs fairly high for a supposedly sweet-natured show. Characters are constantly getting thrown around or they fall, with their little eyes spinning like pinwheels as they try to shake their heads to clear them. Funny sound effects also elevate the comedy, with a repeated gag of having the characters use a tool or utensil, only to nonchalantly throw it over their shoulders with a funny whoosh sound. After about the fifth time this happened, I could just imagine all the "educators" out there, gritting their teeth when they think about how much time they spend, teaching their charges to neatly put away toys and school supplies.

Combining slapstick with bad manners, the Hello Kitty characters often indulge in outright confrontations, without motivation. In episode 17, Don't Be Picky, a hysterical food fight erupts for no reason, with the characters pelting each other with sliced veggies, while they exchange angry looks at each other. But the topper has to be the final episode on this disc, Candy Tree, where Bad, doing something naughty again, gets hit by lightning for comic effect! My one little girl didn't think that was funny, and became very angry with me because I was giggling uncontrollably. What a comic lightening strike is doing in a small children's claymation short is anybody's guess, but I for one loved it (read my review for Volume 5 to see what happened to Bad). Those kind of moments in Hello Kitty: Stump Village - Time to Dig In! kept surprising me, and delightfully so; I may have had a better time watching it than did my small children.

Grape Juice
Hey, Hello Kitty and her gang are moonshiners! No wait; it's only grape juice (but not if they leave it those kegs for too long). Watch everybody start throwing grapes at each other.

Mask Party
Bad decides to sneak off with a Dracula mask he found in a book, whereupon he proceeds to terrorize all of the inhabitants of Stump Village!

Don't Be Picky
A veggie party turns into a food fight, but Cinnamoroll makes everything better again.

Candy Tree
Lesson learned: Don't shake the Candy Tree, or you'll get hit by lightning. Just ask Bad.

The DVD:

The Video:
The full frame video image for Hello Kitty: Stump Village - Time to Dig In! is wonderfully bright and colorful, with no compression issues.

The Audio:
The English 2.0 stereo soundtrack is perfectly fine for this presentation. English subtitles are available, too.

The Extras:
There are no extras for Hello Kitty: Stump Village - Time to Dig In!.

Final Thoughts:
I honestly wasn't expecting anything for Hello Kitty: Stump Village - Time to Dig In!, but once I saw how occasionally twisted it was, I joined right in with the fun. It's official: I'm a Hello Kitty fan (there goes my membership in the OFCS). Claymation fans will like it; Three Stooges fans will like it. And of course, the little kids will, too. And thank god it's not educational. I highly recommend Hello Kitty: Stump Village - Time to Dig In!.