Dr. Seuss’s Green Eggs and Ham and Other Stories Blu-ray Review

Posted June 12th, 2012 by Brandon A. DuHamel

Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Video Codec: AVC/MPEG-4
Resolution: 1080p/24 (23.976Hz)
Audio Codec: English DTS-HD Master Audio 1.0, Spanish Dolby Digital 1.0
Subtitles: English SDH, French, Spanish
Subtitles Color: White
Region: ABC (Region-Free)
Rating: NR
Run Time: 25 Mins.
Discs: 2 (1 x Blu-ray + 1 x DVD)
Studio: Warner Home Video
Blu-ray Release Date: June 26, 2012
List Price: $24.98

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Overall

The Film

Video Quality

Audio Quality

Supplemental Materials

Click thumbnails for high-resolution 1920X1080p screen captures

(All Blu-rayDefinition.com screen captures are lightly compressed with lossy JPEG at 100% quality setting and are meant as a general representation of the content. They do not fully reveal the capabilities of the Blu-ray format)

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The Film

Dr. Seuss’ television classic Green Eggs and Ham finally joins other Dr. Seuss classics on Blu-ray such as Horton Hears a Who! and How the Grinch Stole Christmas! in this “Deluxe Edition” release that also includes The Zax and The Sneetches. The brief 25-min release, reportedly remastered by Warner, contains all three Seuss tales on one disc, hosted by the beloved Cat in the Hat.

The stories start off with The Sneetches, a thinly veiled tale about acceptance of differences that finds the star-bellied sneetches discriminating against the ones without stars until a charlatan comes along and gets them all mixed up by removing and replacing stars from both kinds until they no longer remember who was who anymore.

In The Zax, the shortest tale of all on disc, two zax, a southbound zax and a northbound zax, refuse to yield to one another. So stubborn are they, that the whole world passes them by as they stand in one spot.

Finally, the classic we all know and love finds Sam-I-Am imploring an unsuspecting character to try his favorite dish of green and eggs and ham. The moral being, of course, if you don’t try something how do you know if you like it or not?

Video Quality

The 1.33:1 AVC/MPEG-4 1080p transfer of this brief (25-min) title from Warner is line with previous Dr. Seuss and Peanuts releases we’ve seen from the studio. The animation obviously has gone through an extensive or expensive restoration like, say, Alice in Wonderland, The Lion King, or any number of Disney titles, but it seems adequately spruced up and watchable. It retains a film-like texture with a small amount of visible source damage. It hasn’t been DNR’d to death either.

Audio Quality

There isn’t much to say about the monaural soundtrack included other than Warner has finally decided to get with the program and at least included lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 1.0 (48kHz/24-bit) rather than Dolby Digital with these. There is still a bit of crackle that can be heard, but that is due to the source. The sound is a bit clearer and fuller than some past releases.

Supplemental Materials

Four Dr. Seuss Interactive Puzzles are included as on-disc supplements for kiddies of all ages.

The supplements:

Green Eggs and Ham Interactive Puzzle No. 1
Green Eggs and Ham Interactive Puzzle No. 2
The Sneetches Interactive Puzzle
The Zax Interactive Puzzle
DVD – Standard DVD of Green Eggs and Ham and Other Stories is also included in the package.

The Definitive Word

Overall:

Three deserving tales from Dr. Seuss in their memorable, television animations make their way onto a solidly rendered Blu-ray. The only problem here is, is this really worth the $24.98 list price, even with a DVD included for only 25-mins of content?