Yay! It is time for more fun with Strawberry Shortcake and the gang in the new DVD release, ‘Strawberry Shortcake: Fun Under The Sun’. As usual, the girls were really excited to watch this one as we had already seen the Sunshine Girls music video from the “Berry Big Help” DVD, a song which is featured prominently in the three episodes included in the “Fun Under The Sun” compilation.
Usually these Strawberry Shortcake compilation DVDs contain three episodes centered around a common theme, but this time around they’ve included three consecutive episodes that build on a singular narrative. My girls really enjoyed this format and (ignoring the beginning and ending credits on each episode) it felt like one long movie.
The DVD contains the following episodes:
“No Blueberry is an Island” – Season Two, Episode 7
The fun begins when Blueberry overhears Strawberry saying that she wants to plan a surprise tropical vacation for all of her friends. She can’t keep it a secret and tells the rest of the gang and they start practicing their surprise faces for when Strawberry reveals the big surprise to them all. It turns out Blueberry misunderstood and Strawberry was just reading aloud an essay that she was working on for a “describe your dream destination” contest. So now Blueberry has to let everyone down and tell them she made a mistake and that there was actually no trip to Beyond The Berry Breeze. However, instead of telling them the truth and disappointing them, she keeps digging herself deeper with more and more lies.
With a dose of good humor, the episode teaches a good lesson about telling the truth.
“Where The Berry Breeze Blows” – Season Two, Episode 8
Having won the essay contest, Strawberry and the gang are about to head out for their trip to the Berry Breezy Bay resort, when they receive a letter saying that the Berry Breezy Bay Hotel had to be closed down for the rest of the season due to bad weather. The girls decide if they can’t go to the island, they’ll bring the island resort to them and set about creating a tropical resort of their own right at home. Orange starts micromanaging the project, trying to make their resort look EXACTLY like the Berry Breezy Bay resort, and no one is having fun. Eventually she learns that it doesn’t matter what the resort looks like, just that they have fun building it and enjoy their new Berry Bitty Resort.
“The Berry Best Vacation” – Season Two, Episode 9
The final installment includes a visit from celebrity gossip queen Mavis Maraschino and the filming of her new show Lifestyles of The Berry Bitty Stars. She wants to feature Cherry Jam’s vacation at Berry Breezy Bay Resort, but when she discovers Cherry Jam will be staying at the girls’ resort, she is skeptical and wants her viewers to see glamour, not a homemade resort. Mavis is bossy and nosy, so the girls try to trick her to get rid of her, but then feel bad about it afterwards. The girls realize that just because your vacation doesn’t end up exactly as planned, it doesn’t mean you won’t still have fun.
What’s Included on the DVD:
Episodes:
DVD:
- 3 episodes of the series (71 min)
- “No Blueberry is an Island”
- “Where The Berry Breeze Blows”
- “The Berry Best Vacation”
- Widescreen 1.78:1
- Audio: English Dolby Digital 2.0, Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0
- English SDH, Spanish subtitles
- Closed Captioned
Digital Copy (Redemption Deadline 5/13/2017):
- UltraViolet Digital Copy
Extras:
- “It’s a Beautiful Lovely Wonderful Day” Music Video
- Printable Coloring Pages
Final Thoughts:
Emily and Claire had a great time watching this latest DVD episode compilation. While easily watchable as three individual episodes, when watched back-to back, Strawberry Shortcake: Fun Under the sun feels like a 71 minute animated film rather than three completely separate episodes. There are call-backs to characters and things we’ve seen in previous episodes of the series and the three episodes included here really gel nicely together and build up a fun, complete story.
Once again, the girls didn’t take their eyes off of the fruit-filled action for a moment, except during the credit sequences between episodes. Their favorite characters (Raspberry, Plum and Cherry Jam for Emily, Blueberry and Plum for Claire) were all featured nicely in these episodes. Any time the song ‘Sunshine Girls’ started up, they started singing/humming along and occasionally dancing. At one point during the film (err…episodes), Emily (with a huge smile on her face) pointed out that the music from ‘Sunshine Girls’ was being used as a score.
We were a little confused why the “Sunshine Girls” music video wasn’t included on this DVD as well seeing as the song was featured so prominently in the episodes, instead we got the “It’s A Beautiful Lovely Wonderful Day” music video which was a decent song, but just felt a bit out of place.
To shake things up, this time for our initial viewing we watched the UV digital copy which looked crystal clear. It doesn’t include the music video, so I stuck in the DVD to see that and the girls ended up re-watching a number of their favorite parts of the episodes all over again. Lemon with a green (or orange) face is comedy gold to the the 4 to 7 year-old crowd.
Other than the digital copy, which this time around was only UV (no iTunes code is included) and the singular music video, the only other extra are some printable coloring pages, which will definitely get some usage in our house. So once again, the extras are a little lacking comparatively speaking, but pretty much the standard fare for these Strawberry Shortcake releases.
Fun Under The Sun was another big hit in our house—fun, funny and includes some good life lessons. If one-plus viewings in the first night is any indication, I expect this DVD to see a lot of play time in our house, car, etc. in the coming months.
