I remember watching this back in the day.
I was a huge Beano and Dandy fan, still am, but I'm not fond of the new comics. I only like the ones before the 2000's. Because that was when they got the design of Dennis to look right.
Before that, his chin was way too big. He looked like Mugsy from the Looney Tunes.
But in the mid-90's, they shortened his chin, which made him look natural. And that's the look that I am familiar with.
His new look in the late 2000's, he was WAY too skinny and his hair was WAY too big. I didn't like his appearance. But they went back to the 90's look now and it's okay.
Anyway, this 50 minute straight to video special is all different sketches featuring the Beano characters; Dennis, Gnasher and Gnipper, Minnie the Minx, The Bash Street Kids and The three Bears.
All of the sketches are taken from the comics, I guess from the 80's, because I had never read those ones.
The animation is okay. Sometimes the characters are animated in a very crude way. Characters in the background appear to be frozen.
Mind you, they did have a low budget when they made this feature.
The animation is not as good as the 90s Dennis and Gnasher cartoon, but its watchable.
Despite this mild problem, what makes this feature work are the voice acting and comic timing.
All the characters have the perfect voices. The late Susan Sheridan is brilliant as Dennis and Minnie. Jonathan Kydd also works as Smiffy. The character has only 5 lines, but his voice is just spot on.
The direction is very well timed. Normally in a straight to video feature, the filmmakers don't give a toss and they lazily direct scenes and they're not funny in the slightest. But here, the makers took their craft seriously, even though they knew they were making a very low budget straight to video feature.
The music is also great. They fit the sketches very well.
Overall, if you're a 90's Beano fan, you'll get a kick out of it. You'll find it on YouTube.
But for some reason, the title of the DVD is different to the actual feature. I dunno why. Maybe Dennis The Menace swapped the titles.
