The Christmas spirit continues today on SMC with another classic animated TV special on Blu-ray, How the Grinch Stole Christmas. This was released at the same time as A Charlie Brown Christmas and Horton Hears a Who! by Warner Bros. This is oddly the first time I’ve owned this special on any format, but at least I’m starting with the best.

The Grinch looks great in HD, and much like the Charlie Brown Christmas, it seems like it couldn’t ever get any better. A lot of the bonus features from the previous versions are here, including the awesomely cheesy TNT special hosted by Phil Hartman. I remember watching this at my sister’s house every year (that’s probably why I’ve never bought it), and it’s as fun as it was in the 90s. There are also a few more featurettes, a commentary by legendary June Foray and Phil Roman, and a DVD and Digital copy.

Is it worth upgrading from DVD? I think so, but I’m an HD junkie. It’s definitely nice to have some more classic Christmas content on Blu-ray. How the Grinch Stole Christmas is available on Blu-ray now.

It’s so refreshing to see some classic holiday animation coming to Blu-ray. Until now, there hasn’t really been any classic animation on the format from anyone but Disney, but Warner Bros. is showing their support in a big way recently. All at once they dropped A Charlie Brown Christmas, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and Horton Hears a Who! on Blu-ray. Sweet.

A Charlie Brown Christmas doesn’t really need an introduction, and it’s been written about so many times online. This is the first time it’s been available in high-definition though, and it looks amazing. I didn’t think a Peanuts special would look this good in HD, but I’m pretty sure that this is about as accurate of a reproduction of the original cels and painted backgrounds that you could get.

The special itself looks great. Normally, when I watch something 4:3 on my TV, I stretch it out to reduce the chance of burn-in on my plasma, but this looked so good I finally got over my paranoia (this article helped too). The colors pop and the familiar designs we’ve come to adore for decades look better than ever.

Included in the set is It’s Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown in HD, which is a plus or not, depending on what you think of the 1992 follow up to A Charlie Brown Christmas. The real draw in the bonus features is the 16 minute, surprisingly in-depth documentary on the making of the special.

Other than the documentary and the bonus special, there is a DVD copy (as if we don’t own it three times over already), and a digital copy.

A Charlie Brown Christmas + Blu-ray = pure awesomeness, so get yourself a little something extra this year and pick it up, it’s available now.

Disclaimer: This review is based on product provided by Warner Bros.

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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Well, I might be a year late, but I’ve finally watched the new Clone Wars TV series. Since we don’t have TV (we have a tv, but we just use it for movies, digital files, and games), I haven’t been able to watch more than a few minutes of this show until now. The complete first season was just released on Blu-ray by Warner Bros, and I got my hands on a copy.

The Blu-ray is a three disc box set that includes a pretty cool “art of” booklet inside the case. There are all kinds of conceptual sketches, photos of models, and notes. There’s a grand total of 22 episodes, and 7 of them are presented as director’s cuts. They don’t have the original cuts on the discs, so I don’t really know what they changed.

There is a behind the scenes featurette for each episode, and a ton of 3D and 2D art to scan through. Besides that there are a few promos, one for season two, another for the new Clone Wars game, and the last about StarWars.com (in case you’ve been living under a rock or in an Amish community for the last 12 years).

The Verdict

I like this show a heck of a lot more than I thought I was going to. I’m a huge fan of the original 2D Clone Wars series by Genndy Tartakovsky, so I didn’t know what I would think of this new Genndy-less series. Beyond the typical prequel-universe annoyances (droids, droids, Anakin, droids), the series has a strong grasp of the Star Wars Universe, and benefits from its short episodic stories.

I like how they took risks like centering whole episodes on Clone troopers or an obscure character. While not as over-the-top and stylized as the Genndy Tartakovsky series, The Clone Wars is a fun show.

The Season One set is also available on standard-def DVD. It’s available now.