DVD Review: Fireman Sam Hero Next Door
HiT Entertainment, Lionsgate Films' BBC Stop-Motion series
Jun 5, 2009
In the early 1980's, two former firemen from Kent went to Welsh television station S4C with an idea for a children's show: a stop-motion animated series that promoted fire safety. The resulting show, Fireman Sam, first aired in 1985 and moved to BBC1 in 1987.
Fireman Sam first went off the air in 1994, but , due to its continuing popularity in syndication, Calon TV revived the series in 2003. These new shows detailing Fireman Sam's adventures in the Welsh town of Pontypandy went off the air in 2005, but HiT Entertainment and Lionsgate have taken those new episodes and released them onto DVD.
(Note to fans of the original show: this is not a reissue of the 1987 VHS cassette entitled The Hero Next Door. This DVD features episodes from the 2003 - 2005 series.)
HiT Entertainment, Lionsgate Films' Fireman Sam: Hero Next Door DVD
The titular character, assisted by female firefighter Penny and the dimwitted Elvis, is the town firefighter of the seaside village of Pontypandy. He often dispenses fire safety tips to the town's denizens, including practical joker Norman Price and Caribbean-born mother and daughter team Helen and Mandy Flood. Sam is always right, and is always on-hand to save the day: an admirable, but not terribly interesting, hero. Carl Fredericksen, he ain't.
While Fireman Sam's intentions are excellent, they do come at the expense of the show's entertainment value. There are several instances where characters act dumb in order to further the plot (shopkeeper Dilys Price drops some newspapers on a space heater so Sam can preach about remembering to change the batteries in your smoke detector). The jokes seem afterthoughts: tacked on to save it from getting too turgid.
It's as if the writers said, "Okay, we need to teach this lesson today: how do we tell a story in order to do it?"
It's an admirable concept but, as J.R.R. Tolkien (a man who knew something about telling tales) once said: "Just tell the story and let the morals take care of themselves."
From a technical standpoint, there several instances where the volume rises and falls on the DVD. Of course this can easily be solved with a hand on the remote control but, considering this show is meant for little kids, it means parents need to be on-hand at all times. That gets in the way if Mom or Dad just wants to plonk the kidling in front of the electronic babysitter for 45 minutes. In the case of multiple kidlings, this only sets the stage for a bitter fight over the remote control.
DVD Extras
Other than the trailers for other kids shows like Barney and Aardman Animation's Shaun the Sheep, there's an episode of Roary the Race Car, which features Roary getting miffed at his best friend after she scratches his paint. Although the series is very British in tone, HiT has replaced the British voices with American ones (presumably hoping to push the show in the US). This gives Roary the Race Car an unbalanced quality.
As the failure of Flushed Away proved, sometimes making concessions to what people think Americans want can hurt a show's chances of getting over with all audiences.
The Final Analysis
While Fireman Sam often comes off as self-important and preachy, it does offer important lessons on fire safety that even adults could stand to remember. However, a sloppy transfer and plots that emphasize morals over good story-telling don't help this DVD.
One would also wish that the title character was just a little less all-knowing and a little more interesting. A little more sugar would help this medicine go down easier.
Fireman Sam: Hero Next Door gets a 5/10.
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