Hey Arnold. Rocko's Modern Life. Doug. And not the arguably horrible Disney version that added the new *** **** 'Guy': the original, Nick version.

How long have you sat around, asking, wondering when these classic Nicktoons would see the light of day on DVD, contemplating whether or not Nick simply just hated you? For me, it's been a few years. But with a stroke of luck (I.E.: I wasn't even looking for it and just came across it on Amazon), low and behold, all three shows have come to DVD recently. (Like yesterday.)

Rocko with 2 vol's of his 'best episodes'. (Why not the seasons Nick?), Hey Arnold with the first two seasons with Doug finishing the way with his 1st and 2nd season out. All at the same time. It's like Nick finally heard my cries of protest (or the Voodoo dolls started working) and got on the ball of adding their old classic cartoons on DVD. And not just that: the 1st and 2nd seasons of said cartoons at the same time, for a reasonable price! (None of them are over $40 bucks or even $30!)

So how could this possibly be seen as a double edge sword?

Well, we can start with...

1.Burn on Demand = Problems on Demand

Where to begin? Apparently, this is an 'Amazon Exclusive', meaning it's very unlikely to be sold in stores. It's 'Burn on Demand', meaning they worked out a deal with Nick: when the DVD's are ordered, they burn and ship them to the customer. Which leads to the first main and arguably worst issue I could possibly list: The dvds, for the most part, will NOT work in a majority of DVD players. By their own admission: "The discs are expected to play in DVD Video "play only" devices, and may not play in other devices, including recorders and PC devices. This product is manufactured on demand using DVD-R recordable media."

And did I mention that it skips? Apparently light can effect the disc and make them skip in places.

Oh, and there's also the possibility that the disc won't play even if it does work on DVD player just because it's burned and they don't actually *check* any of them before they're shipped out. Wonderful.

2. Special Features
Or lack there of, including listening to the DVD's in different languages. Okay, I know Special Features are more or less a perk. But honestly? Not even a duel language? I know a guy that burns DVD for a living down the street that can do better then that Nick. These are suppose to be professionally done DVD's, at the very least, give me another language to listen to them in! That's like the most basic thing you could do these days. Come on! (Esp. on Rocko, which is only 2 disc long while the others are 3 to 4. Even the Super Mario Bros. Super Show set had special features! Heck, Mario 3's devoted an entire disc to it! What's YOUR excuse Nick?)

3. Uncut? Not so much.
Another perk I suppose but still kinda crappy. Some of the fun of buying a box set to a show is that you'll finally get to see everything you missed out on when it aired because of 'rating' this and 'not enough time for' that. Rocko's set seems to suffer the most from this, which definitely sucks. I mean honestly, if we couldn't get a special feature at all, at the very LEAST give us the uncut version!

4.The price = Are you KIDDING me?

Yes, 20-35 bucks for the box set (depending on which you get, 80 if you try to get the first of all three) is WAY to much money for a boxset that a guy from down the street would charge maybe 8-10 bucks for. I mean honestly: the dvd's are burned, may or may not work depending on if they're burned right or what player you have, have no special features and are uncut. Heck, the right website can do better than that!

Honestly: what was Nick THINKING? Just look at other ****c show box sets: PPG's was awesome (The entire series for $55 bucks (after tax where I live) and that includes special features? You don't get much better then that!), Darkwing Duck has most of the first season out with two vols. and at the very least the quality is great and you can play it in French. Tiny Toon, Freakazoid, Animaniacs...all great box sets that actually shoved a heck of a lot of episodes if they were only 'vols.' or the entire season on their discs plus special features and great quality.

And what does Nick do? Burn on Demand, no features, questionably quality, cut episodes, barely works, and even has the nerve to charge the fans the same price as better quality DVDs?

:sigh: This really saddens me.

...but probably for all the wrong reasons.

Honestly, I'm using this as a place to rant. Whatever is bothering me at the current moment, that's what I shall put in thy Blog.

And man, this entire original character thing in fanfictions is really starting to piss me the hell off.

How HARD is it be well, original these days? Seriously. But that will come. Soon.

Tah for now!