The Corner Penthouse

Giant Interactive recently released The Gruffalo (2009) and The Gruffalo's Child (2011), as well as eight other animated shorts, separately on MOD Recorded Blu-rays. Although the two titles were released individually, I am reviewing them together. Read on to find out more...

[ SYNOPSIS ]


The Gruffalo (2009) - The magical tale of a mouse (James Corden) who sets foot on a woodland adventure in search of a nut. Encountering predators who all wish to eat him - Fox (Tom Wilkinson), Owl (John Hurt), and Snake (Rob Brydon) - the brave mouse creates a terrifying, imaginary monster named The Gruffalo (Robbie Coltrane) to frighten them away. But what will the mouse do when he meets this frightful monster for real?


The Gruffalo's Child (2011) - When a little Gruffalo (Shirley Henderson) is feeling brave, she ignores her father's (Robbie Coltrane) warnings and tiptoes out into the snow, through the forest, in search of the Big Bad Mouse (James Corden). Does he really exist, or was her father just telling a story and is it all a trick?

[ SPECIFICATIONS ]

Each short is presented in a 1.78:1 aspect ratio with a runtime of 28:08 for The Gruffalo and 27:29 The Gruffalo's Child. Both shorts have not been rated. For both, the audio languages include English. For both, the subtitle languages include English SDH.

[ SPECIAL FEATURES]

On The Gruffalo disc are the few items listed below.

• Trailer (0:34)
• Gallery (3:49)
• Retrospective (8:40) - Really a look at the 10 shorts in this Blu-ray series than about The Gruffalo itself.

On The Gruffalo's Child disc are the few items listed below.

• Trailer (0:34)
• Gallery (2:43)
• Behind the Scenes (22:36)

[ ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ]

No digital copy code voucher is included inside the standard one-disc blue Blu-ray case.

[ NOTES ]

Wow, what a freaking rip-off! Each of these Gruffalo recorded (BD-R format) Blu-rays contains LESS THAN AN HOUR OF CONTENT! Both shorts and the few extras could, easily, fit onto one Blu-ray disc, yet Giant has the gall to put them onto two discs and charge full price (MSRP $27.99) for each of them. These two Gruffalo discs are part of the "Magic Light Pictures Presents The Gruffalo and Friends" recorded Blu-ray collection, which contains the 10 titles listed below (individually numbered). I will try to obtain them for further reviews, but I think I could safely say that they all could have been combined into just five discs and released together as part of one "collection" release for a much cheaper price than it would cost you to buy all ten.

01. The Gruffalo (2009)
02. The Gruffalo's Child (2011)
03. Room on the Broom (2012)
04. Stick Man (2015)
05. The Highway Rat (2017)
06. Zog (2018)
07. The Snail and the Whale (2019)
08. Zog and the Flying Doctors (2020)
09. Superworm (2021)
10. The Smeds and the Smoos (2022)

As for the two Gruffalo shorts, both were previously released on DVD by NCircle in 2011 and 2012: The Gruffalo and The Gruffalo's Child. According to the notes at DVDCompare for the first short, the Ncircle DVD contains a 13-minute "Making Of" featurette and some Storyboards, which are not included on this Blu-ray. No info is provided for the second short's NCircle DVD, but it probably has some extras that are missing from this Blu-ray, too. It certainly isn't missing due to lack of space.

Both shorts are based on children's books by Julia Donaldson & Axel Scheffler, and those are available for purchase: "The Gruffalo" and "The Gruffalo's Child".

As an FYI: The release I'm reviewing is a Manufacture On Demand Recorded Blu-ray, not a factory-pressed disc. If online artwork and the case spine says "Blu-ray Disc" in plain text, it's a BD-R recorded disc. If it has a Blu-ray logo, it's a factory-pressed disc. If you have the disc in hand, a purple bottom is a recorded disc, and a silver bottom is a pressed disc. It is said that factory-pressed discs last longer than recorded discs, aside from those made by Warner Brothers in the late 2000s. I don't know if that's true, but if it matters to you, I'm letting you know.

This item has been provided by Giant Interactive for review on this site.