I’ve gotten a late start to the holiday season this year, but Warner Bros. is helping find my Christmas spirit with all their awesome DVD and Blu-ray releases of late. Following up on the 1960s and 1970s collections, today I’ve got my hands on I Want a Dog for Christmas, Charlie Brown in a deluxe edition DVD.

This Peanuts special is a rare beast. It’s a modern production (2003), and it’s very enjoyable. It revolves around Linus and Lucy’s younger brother Rerun trying desperately to convince his Mom to buy him a dog for Christmas. She doesn’t budge, so he settles for spending some quality time with Snoopy. Snoopy’s brothers make appearances and there is a lot of genuinely funny dialog.

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Previously I told you about how I have recently become a Harry Potter geek, thanks to the Ultimate Edition Blu-rays. Much of what I said about the Sorcerer’s Stone is true for the second film’s box set. It’s just as great.

This time around Harry and the gang are a little older, and have to deal with magic a little darker than in the first film. I was watching this for the first time, and I really enjoyed it. On this set, the Creating the World of Harry Potter documentary series continues with Part 2: Characters. Mrs. SMC and I were a little surprised when the documentary went beyond the second film and started talking about characters we hadn’t seen yet. But, I think it’s smart for them to structure the documentaries like that, because when all eight are released it will make for one massive feature.

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Hello, my name is Tommy, and I’m a Harry Potter geek. I wasn’t before last week, in fact I had only seen one Harry Potter film in the theater, and I was about 16 years old at the time. I was more of a Lord of the Rings guy.

Well, when the Half-blood Prince was released this summer, I realized that there was a ton of Potter movies now, and that it might be fun to get into it, even if it was a little late. Then Warner Bros. sends me a huge Ultimate Edition Blu-ray, and I’m hooked.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone Ultimate Edition Blu-ray is a massive box set (the largest on my Blu-ray shelf) that contains everything you see above. I like how they’re going about this Ultimate Edition series. Each set will have a documentary that will cover a different aspect of the whole Harry Potter saga. When all the films are released in Ultimate Editions, that will add up to over eight hours, and this is a much better put together documentary than what you’d find on a normal DVD or Blu-ray.

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Previously I wrote about the Warner Archive release of The Flight of Dragons. Today I watched another rare Warner Archive release, this time of the 1980 made-for-TV movie Yogi’s First Christmas.

I’d never seen Yogi’s First Christmas before (that I can remember), so we popped it in this weekend expecting a relatively short holiday special, but we were surprised to find out that it was feature length.

The feature is aptly titled, because it all revolves around Yogi’s first Christmas at Jellystone. I’d never thought about it before, but hibernation would totally screw up the holidays. When Yogi and Boo Boo accidentally get woken up, they finally get to take part in Christmas. The stakes are high this year due to Jellystone’s hotel manager flirting with the idea of selling the lodge, and Yogi and the gang try desperately to keep her happy to change her mind.

Yogi’s pals Huckleberry Hound, Snagglepuss, and Augie & Doggie Daddy are there for the party, but the hotel manager’s evil nephew Snively is too. He hates everything, including Christmas, and is hell-bent on ruining the gang’s plans.

Yogi’s First Christmas is pretty funny, if a little cheesy. There are a few forgettable musical numbers, but also plenty of slapstick to make up for it. All in all, it would make a great addition to your Christmas special shelf (everyone has those, right?), especially since this is the first time it’s been available on DVD.

You can buy it on DVD today at the Warner Archive.

This review is based on product provided by Warner Bros.

Good news! The 1982 Rankin/Bass animated fantasy film The Flight of Dragons is finally available on DVD, via the Warner Archive. The movie is based on a couple books from the 70s, and stars John Ritter as a Dungeons & Dragons-type board game inventor who gets transported into the world of his game (which is really the world of his ancestors, go figure).

I had never seen this movie before, as it was just a little before my time, but it was pretty entertaining. Not in the way that Rankin & Bass intended, I’m sure, but it was entertaining nontheless. It kind of feels like a cross between Dungeons & Dragons and Monty Python at times.

It stars John Ritter, James Earl Jones, Bob McFadden, and Don Messick, and even includes a title song by non other than Mr. American Pie himself, Don McLean.

You can pick it up exclusively on the Warner Archive website today.

Further Reading
The Flight of Dragons on Wikipedia.