Walt Disney's Lady And The Tramp: 50TH Anniversary Platinum Edition Two-DVD Set Review

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Title: Walt Disney’s Lady And The Tramp: 50^TH Anniversary Platinum Edition

Region: One

Genre: Animated Fantasy

Feature length: 76 minutes

Extras: “Bella Notte” Music Video, Never-Before-Seen Deleted Scenes, Original 1945 Storyboard Version Of The Film, “Lady’s Pedigree: The Making Of Lady And The Tramp”, “Finding Lady: The Art Of The Storyboard”, Disney Dog Trivia Virtual Board Game, PuppyPedia: Going To The Dogs, Your Inner Bark: Personality Profile, Disney Virtual Puppy – DVD-ROM, Galleries, Trailers, Previews

Languages: English, French, and Spanish Language Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound

Subtitles: English Captions and French and Spanish Language Subtitles

Packaging: Single Size Two-Disc Keep Case

Chapter Stops: 22

Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound

Year of Theatrical Release: 1955/DVD Release: 2006

Theatrical Distributor: Walt Disney Pictures

Home Video Distributor: Walt Disney Home Entertainment

MPAA Rating: G

Reviewer: Mark A. Rivera

If there were anything “Lady And The Tramp” makes me want to do it would be to go out and adapt a puppy if not visit my parents so I can play with their dog. Great detail was placed into making the canine characters as realistic as possible long before digital motion capture was invented. The project was developed for decades before finally being released as Disney’s first cinemascope animated theatrical release. Walt Disney Home Entertainment has included both a widescreen version that preserves the manner in which the film was exhibited in theaters as close as possible for home video users and a more child friendly full screen version. In addition to the newly restored digital master that makes the colors and detail rich to the eye, a new English as well as French and Spanish Language Dubbed Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Soundtracks have been specifically mixed for home theater sound systems. English Captions for the hearing impaired and French and Spanish Language Subtitles are encoded onto the dual layered DVD as options too. The result is perhaps the finest standard definition home video version of “Lady And The Tamp” to ever be released in Region One North America. If I recall the restoration credits correctly, I believe Lowry Digital assisted in the project.

This DVD release is also the seventh Platinum Edition” Disney has released with the eighth entry in the series “The Little Mermaid” to be released in October of 2006. Buena Vista Home Entertainment in general is one of the few studios that still treats a DVD release with loving care by adding the little touches like an insert with DVD contents information and so forth that unfortunately many other distributors have abandoned now that DVD is the VHS of the early twenty-first century. I hope Disney continues to support standard definition DVD with the same care as they have and I also hope that the other distributors will follow the example at the very least for their “Special Edition” titles and whether it will be HD-DVD or BlueRay Disc, I expect a lot more care put into every facet of the packaging in general. Depending if one chooses to implement Disney’s Fast Play options witch takes the viewer through a series of previews before starting the movie or to go straight to the interactive menus and explore the disc contents manually, consumers will be treated to nice animated menus for both discs. One features Lady sleeping by the fireplace of her Master’s home while the other features Tony’s Restaurant from the film where the famous spaghetti scene takes place. All of the interactive menus on both discs are well rendered and easy to navigate. While Disney provides approximate running length information both on the disc and within the multi-folded insert, I usually go by what my DVD player states as the program running length so please keep in mind that this might be approximate to every player. A reel of Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound previews (8:40) that includes “The Little Mermaid”, “The Shaggy Dog”, “Chicken Little”, “Brother Bear 2”, “Air Buddies”, “Lady And The Tramp 2: Scamp’s Adventure: Special Edition”, and a promo for “Disneyland” conclude the extra materials on disc one.

The rest of the bonus features are all on disc two and as a whole there’s something here for young and older viewers alike and the total content is quite detailed. First there are two deleted scenes complete with an optional detailed introduction that includes a scene where Tramp describes what it would be like if Dogs were the masters and humans were the pets and an alternate version of the preparation for the baby (12:52). These scenes are presented as storyboards. Then there is rare footage of the recording session for the Siamese cat song (4:17) as well as a music video for “Bella Notte” performed by Steve Tyrell.

If you have a PC with a DVD-ROM drive there is a virtual puppy store where the winner is the one who gets the puppy to perform the most tricks. Set top activities include a trivia game, a dog personality profile, and a short featurette on dogs featuring Fred Willard (9:21). For those more interested in the making of the film, there is a making-of documentary (52:33), a seven part storyboards exploration (13:02), the original 1943 storyboarded version of the film (11:52) as well as excerpts from the “Disneyland” TV shows complete with an introduction that details on how the shows were produced with color in mind even though the network was still broadcasting in black and white at the time (4:01) and clips from various episodes that include “The Story Of Dogs” (17:29) as well as the promotional trailer for that episode (3:02), and “Cavalcade of Song” (21:39). The 1955 theatrical trailer (3:48), 1972 trailer (: 41), and 1986 theatrical trailer (1:27) are also included along with galleries that can either be viewed manually or as slide shows that detail the visual development of the characters of “Lady” (1:08), “Tramp” (1:30), “Siamese Cats” (1:30), and miscellaneous characters (1:50) as well as galleries of storyboard art (3:26), layouts and backgrounds (3:25), and production photos (5:40), which wraps up the materials within this two-disc set.

“Walt Disney’s Lady And The Tramp: 50^TH Anniversary Platinum Edition” two-DVD set is a worthy addition to anyone’s Disney cartoon collection and a comprehensive DVD release in its own right that is now available for a limited time at retailers on and offline courtesy of Walt Disney Home Entertainment.

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