Sheep on the Loose [DVD] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC]

Young and young-at-heart fans of "Shaun the Sheep" are going to love the newest adventures of the little sheep and his friends. With six features, each six minutes long, "Sheep on the Loose" is shorter that the others in the series, but it makes up for it in leaps and bounds with the ten additional minutes (not listed) of great, never before seen bonus features on the making of Shaun.

The adventures include:

* Sheep on the Loose - Shaun tries to keep the farmer from finding out his whole herd has disappeared after hitching a ride to the town fair.
* Saturday Night Shaun - an old record player and disco music are an invitation for party time at the barn.
* Tidy Up - It's cleaning day at the farm. Shaun and the gang have a run in with THE most powerful vacuum cleaner ever.
* Shaun the Farmer - Farmer's sick and his dog is taking care of him and must delegate. Or so he says. See what happens when Shaun takes over the chores at the farm.
* Camping Chaos - Never set up camp and go off hiking when sheep are around.
* If You Can't Stand the Heat - A warm wooly coat and a farmer enjoying a cool dip in the pool are a recipe for mayhem.

The bonus features include "Building a Pig", a 6-minute real-time workshop with children (8 years old or so) on how to make one of the pigs using plasticine (google "home plasticine" to make an easy homemade version or buy a whole set Plasticine Master Crafter). The children all enjoyed it and it was easy to follow along, with pretty good results.

This was followed by "The Mini Making of Shaun", a step by step mini-documentary of how the features are made, including the storyboard phase, using computers, the making of the models with a moveable skeleton inside to let them move, building of the sets, how they get everything to look so real, and the use of stop motion animation.

Don't be put off by the length. At 48 minutes total, it's right up there with other kid DVDs. Moreover, I have newfound respect for this type of labor-intensive clay animation after finding out it took 12 shots, each time moving the figure a tiny bit, to get just 1 second of footage. That's 4,320 pictures to get just one 6 minute feature!

My toddler loved the adventures and kept giggling throughout, but didn't really care for the extras (he's too young but an older child would probably like this). I loved the bonus features and learning all the secrets behind bringing the barnyard gang to life. Funny kid-friendly story lines, great extras, excellent quality overall. Can't get better than that!

I love the Shaun the Sheep shorts and the shorts on this DVD are as good as the previous 2 DVDs. Note, however, that unlike the first two DVDs, this DVD only has 6 episodes and not 8. I hope that this isn't a new trend for these DVDs.

The episodes on this DVD are: Sheep on the Loose, Saturday Night Shaun, Tidy Up, Shaun the Farmer, Camping Chaos, and If You Can't Stand the Heat. There are also a couple of features: The Mini Making of Shaun (a quickie look at how an episode is made) and Building a Pig (sort of a demonstration of how to build a model of one of the pigs using plasticine).

I wish that the series had been released as a complete set in the US (as it was elsewhere).

We bought this for our toddler daughter and we love it as much as she does. The attention to detail is amazing and every time we view it we see new stuff. Clever and sweet tales appropriate for any age group.