Just caught eight shorts from this Aardman Animations TV show on a screener copy of the new Region 1 disc, Shaun the Sheep: Off the Baa.

What fun! Silent slapstick shorts in wacky Aardman style. Shaun the sheep, from "A Close Shave," makes good in his own series. I love watching silents with kids, and it's delightful to see the joys of silents enjoying a mini-resurgence in family entertainment (Mr. Bean, Shaun the Sheep and now, in part, Wall-E).

I see the eight episodes we have is a hodgepodge from the show's season. Wonder if there will be a more organized DVD release in the future.

I love Aardman, and really look forward to seeing this. I thought Curse of the Were-Rabbit was one of the best films of 2005.

I've added Shaun the Sheep review info and Amazon.com links to my Three Amazing Adventures review.

SDG, I saw Shaun the Sheep at the grocery store today and picked it up on your recommendation -- and in the bundled version that came with Wallace & Gromit, to boot.

(I have the old Warner version of W&G, which was packed with bonus features, but not the later DreamWorks version, which had virtually none as I recall -- apart from the 'Cracking Contraptions' series of shorts, that is, which I gather are included on this new Fox version of W&G. I also do not have the original Fox Lorber version of W&G, which I believe is the only version that has the original soundtrack to The Wrong Trousers, complete with 'Happy Birthday' and 'How Much Is That Doggy in the Window?', etc. But I digress.)

Just wondering if you noticed that the W&G disc includes two Shaun of the Sheep episodes, one of which is on the Shaun disc and one of which is not. (Or so I gather from checking the menu screens. I haven't had a chance to play either disc yet.)

Woo hoo! Enjoy Shaun.

Although I asked for a screener of Shaun the Sheep bundled with Three Amazing Adventures, I got the unbundled version, so I don't have the extra Shaun episode.

OTOH, I did make a point of getting the Fox W&G with the original soundtrack, and I highly recommend that. OTOH, I don't have anything else, which means I have no Cracking Contraptions or other extras. Which set(s) would you recommend as the most effective way of collecting what there is out there to get?

SDG wrote:
: Which set(s) would you recommend as the most effective way of collecting what there is out there to get?

Hmmm. I haven't done a side-by-side analysis just yet, but with a bit of a memory jog from Amazon.com, I believe it goes something like this:

These are the four editions released on DVD in North America:

• Fox -- 1999 or thereabouts (it was already out of print by the time I got my DVD player on Boxing Day 2000)
• Warner -- 2001
• DreamWorks -- 2005
• Lionsgate -- 2007

And these are the various extras that have appeared, and the discs on which they have appeared:

• Nick Park's early animations [1999, 2001]
• Inside the Wrong Trousers [excerpts 1999, excerpts 2001, full 2007]
• BBC Christmas interstitials [1999, 2001]
• Introduction by Nick Park [2001]
• Audio commentaries [2001, 2007]
• The Amazing World/Adventures of Wallace & Gromit [2001, 2007]
• Biographies (text, not video) [2001]
• History of Aardman (text, not video) [2001]
• Storyboards for The Wrong Trousers and A Close Shave [2001]
• Behind the Scenes: A Close Shave [2001]
• Scrapbook with blueprints and photo gallery [2001, 2007]
• Robbie the Reindeer trailer [2001]
• Cracking Contraptions [2005, 2007]
• Behind the Scenes of Cracking Contraptions [2005]
• Sneak Peek of The Curse of the Were-Rabbit [2005]
• The Digital Special Effects in A Close Shave [2007]
• Shaun the Sheep episodes: Off the Baa! and Bathtime [2007]

So it looks like you'd pretty much have to get All Four versions if you wanted to have all the bonus features, etc. The 1999 version is obviously the most redundant, and could normally be ignored outright -- but it is also the only version that has the original soundtrack for The Wrong Trousers. (I gather its picture quality is slightly better than that of the 2001 version, as well; I don't know how either of those versions compares to the 2005 or 2007 versions.)

But, those concerns aside, it looks like the best bet for collecting the bonus features (and the extra animated short-shorts, such as Cracking Contraptions, the BBC Christmas interstitials and the bonus Shaun the Sheep cartoon) would be to get the 2001 and 2007 versions. Then you'd only be missing the behind-the-scenes featurette on Cracking Contraptions and the Sneak Peek of Were-Rabbit, both of which are on the 2005 version.

Caveat: It is possible that some of the extras have been modified.

I am hoping, for example, that the selection of "early works" by Nick Park is identical between the 1999 and 2001 editions. Ditto the items collected in the "scrapbooks" on the 2001 and 2007 editions.

And since I own the 2001 and 2007 versions, I briefly checked a few seconds of the audio commentaries to make sure they were identical -- and they were, pretty much. The only difference I noticed is that, whereas the 2001 version (accidentally?) kept the original soundtrack to The Wrong Trousers playing in the background, the 2007 version has the newer version playing in the background, with 'He's a Jolly Good Fellow' replacing 'Happy Birthday', etc.

I checked a few of the other bonus features as well -- and I noticed that a featurette called "The Amazing World of Wallace & Gromit" on the 2001 edition begins exactly the same way as a featurette called "The Amazing Adventures of Wallace & Gromit" on the 2007 edition ... but the 2001 version is 15 seconds longer than the 2007 version. I haven't a clue why that is.

I also note that the packaging on the 1999 edition clearly states that it contains only EXCERPTS from 'Inside The Wrong Trousers', but the packaging on the 2001 and 2007 versions do not state any such thing. However, the 2001 version of that featurette is less than 8 minutes long, while the 2007 version of that featurette is something like 24 minutes long. I don't know whether the 2001 version has the same set of excerpts as the 1999 version. And I am assuming for now that the 2007 version is the "full" version, though I suppose it is possible that it, too, is cut down from an even longer version, and that the excerpts on the 1999 and/or 2001 versions contained footage that escaped the 2007 version.

What, me, an obsessive collector?

Every time you write a post like this, Peter, I think of that Joker quote from The Dark Knight Returns: "I don't keep track. But you do. And I love you for it."

The video's offline already, but Cartoon Brew reports that the new Wallace & Gromit half-hour short, A Matter of Loaf and Death, will premiere in Australia tomorrow.