Lazytown: New Superhero [DVD] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC]

"LazyTown" is a show marrying live-action and animation, a fairly recent port to the United States from Iceland. It's part of the new breed of children's animated programs these days --- programming especially focused on making viewers "get up and go" and as far as this goes, it's at the top of its game.

"LazyTown" features a human girl, Stephanie, a human hero, Sportacus and his human nemesis, Robbie Rotten. The rest of the characters are CGI animated and quite well too. The setup is this --- generally in each episode, Sportacus (advocate of getting up and going) battles the plots and schemes of Robbie Rotten (trying and endlessly failing to make those in LazyTown lazy, also a master of disguise.) He just can't stand all the activity in LazyTown, but usually ends up expending a lot of energy himself trying to stop it. The simple fact is, no one's lazy in LazyTown anymore, largely thanks to Stephanie, an energetic girl with bubble-gum pink hair. She's still fairly new in town and living with her Uncle, Mayor Meanswell. Her group of friends is Ziggy, Pixel, Trixie and Stingy.

"LazyTown" is loaded with high energy, fun songs. The opening theme and "funny words" songs can be heard in every episode and there's also at least one other new song in each one.

This DVD features three episodes of the show, including a special double-length episode --- "LazyTown's New Superhero." This one plays around with the format a bit, as the kids decide to give Sportacus a vacation. While Sportacus struggles to relax and take it easy, Stephanie does her best to become the new town superhero. Also included in this DVD are "Cry Dinosaur," in which Robbie Rotten dresses up as a dinosaur to scare "Sporta-Crybaby" and "Dr. Rottenstein," in which he tricks the kids into believing they have spotty vegetitis and must swear off vegetables and eat nothing but junk food. Not only that, but under the guise of Rottenstein, he bans Sportacus from LazyTown "forever," another one of his old tricks.

In case you're wondering why I gave this four stars instead of five, it's because of the special features. I truly believe that DVD releases these days must have great special features in order to receive a five-star rating. Unfortunately, this DVD just doesn't measure up. All you get are written character profiles that you can browse through, a couple of pages of "Nicktrition" tips and some short previews for Dora and Blue's Room DVD releases as well as "My Little Pony: A Very Minty Christmas." These are okay, there's definitely nothing wrong with them, but it only takes about five minutes to go through at most. It couldn't have hurt to put at least a bit more effort into some nice special features.

For those not familiar with the popular kid's show, Lazytown is a place where the citizens preferred not to do any kind of strenuous activity until the arrival of Stephanie, an energetic young girl with bright pink hair, and Sportacus, the super fit, super strong, weirdly mustached superhero who lives in a sort of blimp-like airship.

Soon Stephanie and Sportacus have the residents on the right track to good health, exercise, and fruit and vegetable consumption, punctuated by upbeat pep rally type songs and spine bending dance steps.

This does not meet the approval of the town bad guy, Robbie Rotten, who spends his days plotting the undoing of Sportacus, with various ingenious and despicable schemes.

Previously only viewable on television, this DVD allows kids to watch favorite episodes over and over again, and introduces a double-length episode where Sportacus is given a forced vacation while Stephanie takes on the Superhero role. There are two previously aired episodes on the DVD - one where Robbie dons a dinosaur disguise to scare Sportacus, and one where he disguises himself as a doctor and makes them stop eating vegetables.

With a combination of real actors and puppets, this is a very positive family oriented show, advocating good living habits, mixed with song, dance and humor. Highly recommended for anyone with kids between 2 and 6 years old, even though many adults may find it a little cheesy.

Amanda Richards, September 2, 2005

Well I didn't think it was possible but I believe Sportacus has replaced Dora on the top of my 23 month old daughter's favorites list.

She has to watch this DVD at least once a day. I really enjoy this program too since it promotes healthy habits and has very charming characters.

It helps that Magnus Scheving is easy on the eyes too!

I highly recommend this DVD.