RELEASES - THE COMPLETE FIRST SEASON DVD

Teen Titans: The Complete First Season
Release Information:
Studio: Warner Home Video
Announce Date: 11/16/05
Street Date: 2/7/06
Closed Captioning: Yes
MSRP: $19.98
Packaging Type: Amaray Case
Disc Configuration: 1) 9-Dual Layer 2) 9-Dual Layer
Run Time: 286
Contains the episodes: Divide and Conquer, Sisters, Final Exam, Forces of Nature, The Sum of His Parts, Nevermore, seasonone, Deep Six, Masks, Mad Mod, Car Trouble, Apprentice (Part 1), Apprentice (Part 2)
Subtitles: English, Francais, Espanol
Original Aspect Ratio: 1.33, Standard [4:3 Transfer]

Official Description: With awesome super skills and powers galore, these crimefighting partners kick butt and squash evil like nobody's business. But as roommates in Titans TowerT, it's every hero for themselves when it comes to living in peace. Not even super heroes can settle fights over who's in control of the TV remote. In these 13 action-packed adventures, the Titans face all your favorite villains - Mad Mod, The Puppet King, Mumbo and of course, their archnemesis Slade - in one power-packing showdown after another. Some battles even pit the Titans against each other. Featuring bold animation, funky music and fun characters, this complete season one from the hit TV series is an intergalactic knockout.

Special Features:
-Finding Their Voices: The Secret Information Behind the Making of Teen Titans
-Toon Topia Bonus Cartoons: The Hiros Episodes 1 and 2
-Puffy Ami Yumi Featurette: The Ultra-Hip Female Group Performs and Talks About Its Hit Teen Titans Theme Song.
-Puffy Ami Yumi Music Video
-Sneak Peek at Hi Hi Puffy Ami Yumi TV Show.

Review by Zach Demeter

If you haven’t been aware of Cartoon Network’s smash hit show Teen Titans, then you’ve no doubt been living under the animation rock. The show, debuting in 2003, recently wrapped up its production with its sixth (and final) season. Fans will debate the fluctuation in quality throughout the recent seasons, but one thing they can almost all agree on is how solid the first two seasons were, making this complete first season release all the more special with it’s excellent crop of episodes that you will want to watch and re-watch time and time again.

Fans of Teen Titans no doubt already have the first season on DVD via the single disc releases, which got up to Season 2, Volume 1 before the first season set was announced. I imagine WHV will hold off on Season 2, Volume 2 in favor or just doing a season set release—a smart move if they make it, no need for two different season sets with the same episodes on them.

One positive thing you can be happy about in this double-dip release is that all the special features from the single discs are on here, as well as a new special feature (“Finding Their Voices”). Not really a whole lot to warrant a second purchase, but getting the first season in one neat, little package is almost worth it.

Speaking of the package, Teen Titans: The Complete First Season arrives in a double-disc tray Amaray case with a double sided insert that lists the episodes and special features, a bonus game card for the new “Teen Titans Battle Communicator” and an offer for a free DVD (Batman: The Legend Begins, Batman: Tales of the Dark Knight, Justice League [“Secret Origins”] and Static Shock: The New Kid) and advertisements for the Teen Titans video games fill out the DVD case.

Starting out on disc one, we’re treated to a fancy menu opening with rotating characters (the main Titan five) and the theme playing over it. Choose the “Episodes” option and you’ll notice the episodes are laid out differently from the single disc releases. Eight episodes grace the first disc with the final five and special features on the second disc. Not a big deal, but worth noting that WHV wanted to balance out the discs so they didn’t have to go for a third disc. I was also disappointed to see that there were no chapters in these episodes, despite WHV having started doing that with their other TV shows on DVD releases. I guess they simply wanted to save the time and just re-use the past episode copies on the single disc releases.

Disc two gives us the final five episodes and all the special features for this release. Since all the other special features on this release are just repeated from the single disc releases, I’ll focus on the one new one: “Finding Their Voices.” This featurette dives into the casting process of the Titan voices and we hear from each one of the voice actors (sans Hynden Walch) both in and out of character. Fans and younger viewers alike will no doubt enjoy seeing the faces behind the voices—something I still to this day enjoy seeing.

The other features on the disc are very much worth watching if you haven’t seen them on the previous releases. “Comic Creations” and the Puffy Ami Yumi featurette are entertaining (running over half an hour combined), but the other features are really just kid friendly filler. Toon Topia episodes of “The Hiros” and a sneak peek at the Hi Hi Puffy Ami Yumi show (which is coming out on DVD in the coming months, I believe) and a few trailers round out the special features.

Also not something I saw the first go around was that there are easter eggs on the second disc! On the special features menus, if you highlight each option (all but "Puffy Ami Yumi Featurette") and hit left, you hit a spot on Beast Boy or Cyborg's arm. The eggs range from random bits on the favorite tech of the show, Beast Boy's best transformation, best villain, in-jokes, a "Thank You!" from a few of the cast members of Teen Titans, a bit of an in-joke given by producer David Slack and the coolest of all, a full-on music video from Mad Mod. An introduction by Kristopher Carter brings us up to speed on the history of the video: it was an alternate song that went over the musical chase sequence in the episode and not only that, but it's sung by Starfire's voice actress, Hynden Walch! It's a real treat to see and I don't mind saying that it's quite the catchy song as well.

Video and audio are identical to the single disc releases, so no real complaints here. The video does have its fair share of compression but with digital animation and the insane clarity they come with, it is bound to show up (especially on such a light and colorful show such as Teen Titans). Interlacing and aliasing is abounding, but, again, not a big concern to me anymore—almost all animation releases come with it. Audio is strong and clear in Dolby Stereo quality.

If you’re like me and hate the snapper cases that the single Teen Titan releases came in, then you’ll want to pick up just for the new packaging and special feature. The single-disc size case frees up shelf space and just looks better overall than the single disc releases. To fans it will be worth it, but if you’re just a casual viewer who owns the singles already I’d advise you to just hang onto them.

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