Oliver & Company: 25th Anniversary Edition (Blu-ray/ DVD Combo Pack) by Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment

Shipped as advertised. A surprise gift well received!

I have a grand baby coming soon and I wanted to have this movie for her

Like other reviewers I remembered this series from the times when I saw it on TV as a MUCH younger man. Even then I was 25 and still enjoyed it. This was (and still is) very much a series for children and adults.Could it be as good as I my memory said it was?Wouldn't it be let down by poor visual effects and shaky sets?Were the 1st and 2nd series as good as each other?The answers, in order, proved to be a resounding "YES" and "NO" and, unfortunately, another "NO".The 1st season was and is a joy. In every sense of the word it's pure magic. Geofrrey Bayldon as Catweazle gives a performance to rival anything ever seen on Childrens' television - and on much of adults' television come to that. Every gesture, hiss and expression is wonderful and judged to perfection.The way in which everything that we take for granted seems mysterious and magical to Catweazle can only make you look at the world in a different way. Take as examples the 'sun in a bottle' and 'the magic telling bone'. Both are lyrical descriptions which nevertheless contain elements of fact - light bulbs are, in their way, suns in bottles, and old-style telephones did resemble bones from which speech could be heard. Cars are chariots, planes are great metal flying birds, electricity is electrickery and windows are solid air. An old abandoned water tank becomes a castle and is adopted by Catweazle as his home.As for visual effects - you don't need them and, indeed, they would be irrelevant because the whole joy of the scripts and the series is that Catweazle isn't truly a magician esxcept for the time when he sent himself forward 900 years into the future in episode 1.Whenever his spells work, it's usually because of coincidence. For example - a local retired colonel has a pet monkey called 'Boy'. When Catweazle is angered by his young friend he casts a spell to change his shape. When he then encounters the monkey and hears him referred to as 'Boy' he jumps to the obvious wrong conclusion. That whole episode of swapped or mistaken identities is worked out perfectly.Not enough credit is given to the quality of Richard Carpenter's scripts. They play on every possible misinterpretation and re-interpretation of everyday words and objects from the 20th century and modern ways of life. Just as Bayldon's performance is so good, so too are Carpenters writing. The combination of the two make this entire series .... do I need to say it again? .... pure magic.This is a series that children today would benefit from seeing. Just as JK Rowling re-introduced so many to the joys of reading and using their imaginations, so Carpenter's scripts bring to life the cleverness and richness of well-used words and sideways slanting views of ordinary things in a world which, to Catweazle, seems to be built upon magic.But now we come to the 2nd series.Apart from Catweazle, the entire cast and locations change. Now, Catweazle's friend is 'Owlface' played in a very 'actorly' way by Gary Warren. There is none of the gentle innocence of 'Carrot' from the 1st series. Warren's acting seems very mannered and (to be frank) amateur, affected and unbelievable. That wouldn't really matter, but the other characters of a foppish Lord and his air-headed Lady and the move towards slapstick humour in a series of staged one-off stories is very disappointing and distracting when compared to the much more interesting backdrop of the farm in Series One.I know Catweazle as a character and a storyline is fantasy, but everything in the 2nd series seems very contrived and strained. Only the skill and continuity of Geoffrey Bayldon's acting holds everything together.So, very unusually for me, I felt that I needed to edit my original 5 star critique and knock off a star because of the disappointment and weaknesses of the second series.The 5th 'Bonus' DVD is no more than a set of stills and some pdf files that can be accessed by computer. The best 'Extra' is to be found at the end of Series One where Catweazle and Carrot are reunited at the farm to talk with great affection about the time when they made the series.Oh yes - and it's not many sets of DVD's that come in a case AND in a sack!!!

Fantastic and fabulous, Catweazle was an endlessly entertaining series, and one that brightened up Sundays when I was a child. Geoffrey Bayldon was superb in the lead role and brought a real pathos to it. The scripts were consistently good, the acting predictably sound and the settings deliciously rural. All in all, quality stuff. They don't make this kind of gentle escapism any more.

Love Catweazle. A blast from days long gone by when as a child I was intrigued by Catweazle and thought he really existed. !! Memories of happy care free days. A great collection of the wonderful Catweazle.

Well packaged and lovely to have all the episodes together in one set to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of Catweazle. Also nice to have the additional information and interviews with the cast. Can thoroughly recommend this this 40th Anniversary Edition.

I really love this DVD I will be passing it on to mu grandson who has never seen the series. It would be great if someone did another series, following on from the original one.