Paul McCartney - Music & Animation Collection (2004)

Lighthearted Animation by Macca

If you're looking for rock and roll music and commentary, you're in the wrong space. However, if you like animation--Disney-like cartoon animals, stories with lessons for kids and adults plus some catchy background music, you've found a delightful product.

I found it totally relaxing and fanciful to kick off my shoes, sit back and enjoy Tuesday--the day the frogs (or pigs) take off on a flight of fancy. Let your imagination go like Geoff Dunbar and Paul McCartney did. Tis colorful and will bring a smile to your face after a long day. December 26, 2005

gorgeous!

I live in Mexico City and bought this product with a little fear as I was advised that it might not play here in my country, however I run the risk and fortunately it did! and I have enjoyed "the frog song" once more which I yearned to see for years as I was unable to buy it here in Mexico. October 11, 2005

McCartney with more frogs

Three video's, all three with frogs. Why? Why not.

The first video is the long awaited "tropic Island hum". Nice very nice indeed. I watch it together with my son of 18 months and he loves it and wants to see it over and over. Dad loves it as well. The characters are nice, the song is happy and lovely. And the "hum hum hum" of four elephants is amazing!

The second video is tuesday, this is pure magic! I love everything about it. It's nice for kids as well as grown ups. I can't realy explain it but the combination of a weird story beautiful music and the "Pink Floyd" (pigs) ending makes it a nice little journey as paul would describe it probably.

The third video is "We all stand together" Still a great video and the song is love here around the house.

The extra's are very nice as well.

Thanx again Paul. September 27, 2004

Let's be realistic about this...

Looks like the Macca "over-raters" are at it again. When this one came in the mail, I gathered the whole family (wife + 3 young kids) around the TV for what we expected would be a great time. After all, we all enjoy the "Rupert" laserdisc with "Oriental Nightfish" and "Seaside Woman." Everyone was pretty underwhelmed with this disc. Sure, Rupert is still great, but the kids were totally bored with the two new videos. We didn't like them much either--music or animation wise. The good thing is they were over quickly, the bad thing is this set is WAY overpriced for the short content and what you are getting.

Why in the world this doesn't include Seaside and Nightfish is beyond us, unless they were afraid of showing up the new titles. Which they do, especially Seaside Woman both musically and with its creative and distictive animation style. It's not like there was no room left on the disc for them...

At the same time we got "The Point" dvd. Everyone loves it, cost less than half the price of this one with more than twice the time of entertainment. Macca used to give people great quality and value for their money. Judging by the last several years and products, I'd say unfortunately those days seem to be over. Without Linda to guide him, I hope he gets "The Point" of not just being greedy again someday soon. May 27, 2004

Still magical after all these years...

This DVD collects three short films directed by Geoff Dunbar based on ideas/music/songs by Sir Paul McCartney: "Tropic Island Hum," from 1997; "Tuesday," from 2000; and finally "Rupert and the Frog Song," from 1985.

"Rupert and the Frog Song" is the real gem on this collection. It follows legendary comic character Rupert the Bear as he explores the country one night and finds a special gathering of frogs. I bought the DVD because of this piece; it was such a huge favorite of mine as a child I just had to revisit it and see if it still held the same magic it did as a child. I have to say, it still holds up very well. The song in it, "We All Stand Together" is a great song written by Paul and arranged by the Beatle's producer George Martin.

"Tropic Island Hum" is a fun little cartoon that Paul and his late wife Linda produced. Paul and Linda do nearly all the voices. It has a very good song at its core but doesn't quite capture the magic of Rupert. Interestingly, it was one of the last cartoons ever to be produced purely by hand animation where all the coloring is done by hand. Nowadays all the coloring in "hand-animated" films is done with a computer after the outlines are drawn by hand.

"Tuesday" has almost no dialog and features only a musical score with no song. It follows a group of bored frogs one Tuesday night as their lily pads take off and fly into the town so the frogs can have a night of fun for a change. I think it's the least successful of the three films because there are no main characters to follow. But it is a very atmospheric cartoon with great music. It's based on a storybook and follows the pictures in it almost exactly.

The three films together have a running time of about 45 minutes, including a short intro with Paul in a library expressing his love for animation.

Extras on the DVD are plentiful... There is a making of documentary for both Tuesday and Tropic Island Hum that are quite interesting and obviously had high production values since animation is actually interweaved with the live action in the documentary in a few places (kinda like the "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" effect). We get to see the animators in action, Geoff Dunbar directing it, and how Paul guides the whole process.

There is also a short interview with Paul in which he talks about how each film came to be and what his future plans for animation are (he wants to make a feature of Trpoic Island Hum).
There are line-drawings, storyboards and line tests for each film. These are hard to watch unless you are really interested in the in-depth technical details of animation. The rest of us will find this very tedious since it basically involves watching the films as line sketches without music in some cases. Still, it's nice they're archived for posterity on this DVD.

I would give 5 stars to this DVD but unfortunately it loses a star because it does not include the short animations "Oriental Nightfish" and "Seaside Woman" that were on the VHS of Rupert and the Frog Song.

Overall, I highly recommend this DVD to fans of family-oriented animation fans (and rabid Paul McCartney fans, since he is featured heavily on this disc). It has a very high re-watchability factor and I know if I had kids in the future they would love it, and I would enjoy watching it with them! May 4, 2004

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