Handy Manny: Big Construction Job (a J!-ENT Children’s DVD Review)

November 9, 2010 by J!-ENT 

“Handy Manny: Big Construction Job” is a release that brings in a new form of interactivity for educational DVD’s for your children.  With the new “Discovery Mode”, children can now use the “Mickey Mote” (sold with the DVD or without) while watching an episode and partake in several fun questions about colors, shapes and sizes.  Definitely a big step for educational interactive DVD’s for the children.  Definitely recommended!

Images courtesy of ©Disney. All Rights Reserved.

DVD TITLE: Handy Manny: Big Construction Job

DURATION: 67 Minutes

DVD INFORMATION: Dolby Digital, NTSC, Family Friend Widescreen (1:78:1 – Enhanced for 16×9 Television), Spanish Language Track

COMPANY: Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment

RATED: TV Y

RELEASE DATE: November 16, 2010

Created by Roger Bollen, Marilyn Sadler and Rick Gitelson

Directed by Charles E. Bastien

Teleplay by Mike Rabb

Story by Rick Gitelson

Executive Producer: Rick Gitelson, Roger Bollen and Marilyn Sander

Associate Producer: Luis Lopez

Theme song performed by Los Lobos

Featuring the voices of:

Wilmer Valderrama (voice of Manny)

Carlos Alazraqui (voice of Felipe “The Phillips Screwdriver”)

Dee Bradley Baker (voice of Turner “The Screwdriver”)

Nika Futterman (voice of Squeeze “The Pliers”)

Tom Kenny (voice of Mr. Lopart)

Fred Stoller (voice of Rusty “The Wrench”)

Nancy Truman (voice of Kelly)

Kath Soucie (voice of Dusty “The Saw”)

Shelley Morrison (voice of Mrs. Portillo)

Robby D. Bruce (voice of Quinn)

Put on your hard hats and team up with Handy Manny on an awesome full-length adventure! Join Manny and his Tools as they head out of town to work on an exciting construction project in Concrete Falls. Meanwhile, back in Sheet Rock Hills, Mr. Lopart tries to fill in for Manny – with hilarious results! Can Kelly convince Manny to come home and save the day? Introducing new Power Tools, new songs, and a wonderful message about the rewards of taking on new challenges, Big Construction Job is fully loaded with tons of fun for everyone!

You break it, we fix it!

Welcome to the world of Sheetrock Hills where Manny Garcia, a bilingual Latino handyman helps save his city (from breaking down) with making repairs with his team of talking tools. The children’s CG animated series is created by Roger Bollen, Marilyn Sadler and producer Rick Gitelson (known for writing/producing for animated shows such as “Rugrats”, “LazyTown” and “Dragon Tales”) and is shown on Playhouse Disney.

“Handy Manny: Big Construction Job” will be one of the launch titles along with “Mickey Mouse Clubhouse: Mickey’s Number Roundup” to utilize a “Mickey Mote”, a child-friendly handheld remote to answer fun questions about colors, shapes and sizes.  It’s important to note that you can use your regular DVD remote but the “Mickey Mote” is child friendly and will be much easier to use for children.

In this latest DVD release of “Handy Manny”, for “Big Construction Job”, Manny is offered a job to work in a big construction job in Concrete Falls.  At first, Manny is reluctant to go but the townspeople encourage him to get the experience and thus, Manny and his tools travel to work on the construction project.

Meanwhile, while Manny is gone, everyone is depending on Mr. Lopart to take care of Manny’s handywork around town.  Of course, Mr. Lopart is not that good when it comes to repairs and has trouble with multi-tasking and thus, everyone in town especially Kelly hope for Manny to return back home.  But when Manny thinks that the town is doing just fine with Mr. Lopart, he feels that he doesn’t need to go back home, even though his heart misses home.

Also included is a never-before-seen episode titled “Good Fences”/”Butterflies”.

In “Good Fences”, Manny and his tools build a fence but Bernardo and his neighbor Mr. Kumar disagree on what kind of fence should be built.

In “Butterflies”, Manny is creating a special entrance for a place where butterflies. Rusty is scared of butterfleis and one day, the door was kept open and bluesie the butterfly escaped.  Will Bluesie return back home?

“Handy Manny” focuses on the following characters:

Manual “Manny Garcia – Voice acting by “That 70′s Show” actor Wilmer Valderrama. Manny is half Puerto Rican and half Mexican. He is the repairman that many people call if they are in need of a talented and trustworthy repairman.

Manny’s talking tools:

Accompanying Manny to his jobs are his tools such as:

Felipe “The Phillips Screwdriver” – The tool who suggests ideas that can make problems worse. Considers himself important but also the Spanish translator of the tool group.

Turner “The Flat Screwdriver” – The grumpy tool who is always at odds with Felipe.

Stretch “The Tape Measure” - Loves to measure things and loves to count.

Squeeze “The Pliers” - Impatient and always ready to fix things.

Pat “The Hammer” – The funny and talkative person of the group, also not too smart one in the group.

Dusty “The Handsaw” – Always gives good advice and enjoys cutting wood.

Rusty “The Monkey Wrench” – Always worrying and is often scared.

Fllicker “The Flashlight” – Speaks Spanish and speaks very little English.

“Handy Manny: Big Construction Job” utilizes the new MickeyMote, a child-friendly handheld remote control, shaped like Mickey ears, that will take children’s viewing experience to a whole new level by providing an engaging interaction with their favorite Disney characters.  With multiple levels of play, the new Mickey Mote will provide hours of fun, engaging and challenging adventures for kids age 2-5.

According to Disney:

The Mickey Mote works with any Disney Preschool DVD that includes Discovery Mode™, the interactive “Watch & Play” feature on the DVD! All parents have to do is program the remote control – there‟s an easy and quick set-up guide in each DVD- and select the Discovery Mode feature on the menu screen. Within minutes, kids will be easily responding to questions, throughout the story, about scenes they just watched (such as “What color is Goofy‟s hat?”) by pressing one of four color-coded buttons on the device — a yellow star, green circle, orange triangle or blue square – to click in their responses. Discovery Mode features include two levels of play, which provides more challenging questions as the child grows.

And Disney does have plans to release more Discovery Mode enhanced DVD titles that utilize the Mickey Mote.

Once families have purchased a Disney Preschool DVD that comes packaged with the Mickey Mote, they can continue to build their Disney Preschool libraries as the Mickey Mote works in compatibility with any Discovery Mode enhanced DVD. For example, kids can immediately use the remote with any of the following titles: Mickey Mouse Clubhouse: Road Rally, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse: Mickey’s Adventures in Wonderland, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse: Mickey’s Choo Choo, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse: Minnie’s Bow-Tique, Handy Manny: Manny’s Motorcycle, Adventure Handy Manny: Manny’s Big Race, Little Einsteins: Fire Truck Blast Off, My Friends Tigger & Pooh: Super Duper Super Sleuths, My Friends Tigger & Pooh: Bedtime With Pooh

Note: Discovery Mode can also be played using any DVD remote control.

VIDEO & AUDIO:

“Handy Manny: Big Construction Job” is featured in 1:78:1 widescreen. The animation is 3D and colorful and the type of animation that children have enjoyed from the popular Disney TV series.  As for audio, audio is presented in English via Dolby Digital Sound and comes with a Spanish Language track.

Subtitles are in English SDH.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

“HANDY MANNY” comes with the following special features:

• DISCOVERY MODE – Using your Mickey Mote (or DVD remote), viewers can partake in Discovery Mode where they can answer fun questions about colors, shapes and sizes.  Children have the choice of selecting Level 1 and Level 2 for more challenging questions.

For families looking for an educational DVD for their children, especially for young boys who are craving for animation that deals with construction and tools, you really can’t go wrong with “Handy Manny: Big Construction Job”.  You get one special episode and one bonus episode included in this DVD release.

But most importantly, I like how Disney is now going towards creating more educational DVD’s.  Before, these shows were more for children’s entertainment but with the addition of the new “Discovery Mode”, these releases are now educational DVD’s.

Although you don’t need to purchase a release with the new Mickey Mote, for younger children, it’s quite convenient as it’s pretty big and you only have four buttons:  yellow star (up), blue square (left), green star (right and orange triangle (down).  A regular remote may be too difficult and confusing for the younger children. For those that are curious about purchasing “Handy Manny: Big Construction Job” with  the Mickey Mote, you will need two AAA batteries.

It’s very simple to use, just watch the episode and answer fun questions that are asked throughout the stories.

But this is a pretty big step for Disney as they are really wanting to make these DVD releases interactive and the release of both “Hand Manny: Big Construction Job” and “Mickey Mouse Clubhouse: Numbers Roundup” is a pretty big deal, especially for parents and children who are familiar with the Disney characters and Disney animated shows.  It’s important to note that if you buy one, there is an $8 off coupon included, that you can use to purchase the other title.

Overall, “Handy Manny: Big Construction Job” is an entertaining children’s release.  You get the one special plus a bonus episode (which has two episodes) and for parents who have been wanting more educational DVD releases, Disney has taken a pretty significant step by now providing that with these new “Discovery Mode” DVD releases.

Definitely recommended!