Wayside School Season One DVD Review

Wayside School Season One

DVD Review
Paramount Home Entertainment
Nickelodeon
Released: August 19, 2008

Nickelodeon’s Wayside School showcases the stories of author Louis Sachar, and manages to be an animated show that can appeal to both kids and adults. Wayside School Season One has been delivered to the DVD format thanks to Paramount, and does a good job of presenting viewers the first season of the series as a whole.

Wayside School focuses on, you guessed, it a school. The school is huge, with classrooms stacked on top of each other, and plenty of students in it at all times.

You meet characters such as Todd, Mrs. Jewels, and others throughout the season, and get introduced to their troubles and such.

Some of these characters are truly whacked to b e quite honest, such as Mrs. Jewls, who is happy that one of her kids sleeps through class, as well as the class genius Dana, and a kid who decides to wear a Halloween costume to class every day.

Some of these episodes are truly funny for all ages. One of my personal favorites was one which a cow walks into the class, and the kids assume the cow is the substitute teacher, giving it a name and all.

There are 13 episodes in Wayside School Season One, with the majority of them being of high-quality.

The video quality for this DVD release is presented in 1.78:1 and actually looks very impressive. I was surprised with just how vibrant the colors and such were presented here, as everything comes across very strong throughout. This is a highly-impressive transfer considering it was from a TV animated show.

The audio is presented in Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo audio, and is decent, allowing the dialogue to focus on the center channel, with music filling the left and right front channels most of the time. Nothing over-the-top, but it gets the job done.

Unfortunately, there are no bonus features included on the disc. The only add-in is a paperback book from author Louis Sachar, Sideways Stories from Wayside School.

This DVD release will not disappoint fan of Wayside School, as the episodes are of high-quality, and the presentation is spot-on. This is definitely not your typical kids cartoon, and manages to be a fun one to watch.

Episodes: 8.0 A very fun cartoon, good for both kids and adults.

Video: 8.5 A great video transfer, extremely vibrant colors, very solid!

Audio: 7.0 The audio is as good as it has to be, focusing mainly on center channel dialogue.

Extras: 5.0 The add-in paperback book is a nice touch, but there are no extras in the actual DVD set.

Final Score: 7.5

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