Fall used to be that time when the new Saturday morning cartoon season would hit. You’d go to bed Friday night eager to wake up and overload on Frankenberry and animated joy. Since the broadcast networks run news on weekend mornings, the new cartoons pop up all year round on the kid oriented cable channels. Two of the more recent series are coming out on DVD with P. King Duckling: Seize the Day! and Kuu Kuu Harajuku: Super Kawaii.
P. King Duckling is from Josh Selig. He might not sound like a superstar. But along with winning 10 Emmys as a writer on Sesame Street, Selig created Wonder Pets and Small Potatoes. P. King Duckling follows the adventures of P. King Duckling, a young duck who has not been cooked into a Peking Duck entrée. Instead he’s a plucky young bird that rarely knows fear. Unfortunately this leads him into coming up with ideas that gets him in a bit of trouble. Luckily he has two pals in Wombat and Chumpkins, a pig that help get him in the clear. There’s 14 episodes on P. King Duckling: Seize the Day. “Wombat’s Big Surprise!” has the duck wanting to set up the greatest surprise party ever for his friend. “The Tetherball King” puts the ultimate ball on a chain game into the spotlight. The basic element of the show is to let kids grasp how to solve problems with creative thinking. And also give them reason why solutions might be too creative and be worse than the problem they are solving. It’s a fun show and the animation isn’t as weird as Wonder Pets.
Kuu Kuu Harajuku: Super Kawaii continues the animated adventures of Gwen Stefani and her four BFFs. The quintet live in the magical Harajuku and are a band. People can’t get enough of G., Love, Angel, Music and Baby. The only things not going right for them is their cursed manager Rudie. He’s the one who always screws up and the girls have to fix the problems. He books them into the wrong places and doesn’t seem to keep track of anything. It’s not wonder they haven’t signed away their publishing rights to an evil record company executive. He’s just horrible. You’d figure after the second episode, they’d fire Rudie and hire the manager for Gwen Stefani. Luckily the five women seem to like overcoming obstacles so Rudie has a day job. The show is fun and should appeal to young girls that enjoy seeing Gwen on The Voice. The DVD has 12 episodes from the first season.
The video is 1.78:1 anamorphic. The transfers for both shows bring out the quality in the animation. The audio is 5.1 Dolby Digital. Gwen’s show has a bit more music that’s mixed well with the dialogue. P. King Duckling is subtitled. Kuu Kuu Harajuku is Closed Captioned.
Meet the Voice Cast (22:10) is a bonus feature on Kuu Kuu Harajuku. It takes kids inside the recording sessions for the dialogue.
Shout! Factory presents Kuu Kuu Harajuku: Super Kawaii . Starring: Charlotte Nicdao, Daisy Masterman. Boxset Content: 6 episodes on 1 DVD. Released: September 26, 2017.
Shout! Factory presents P. King Duckling: Seize The Day!. Starring: Benjie Randall. Boxset Content: 7 episodes on 1 DVD. Released: September 12, 2017.
