Release: June 7, 2005 (Dreamworks Home Entertainment)
Color/2004-2005
MSRP: $29.99
Number of Discs: 1 (Double-Sided)
Number of Episodes: 14
Running Time: 228 Minutes
Total Run Time of Special Features: Approximately 90
minutes
Audio: English Dolby Digital 5.1, 2.0
Subtitles: English, Español, Français
Closed Captioned
Special Features:
• Three never-before seen episodes, including the
original pilot
• The lost tale (Animated Storyboards + Audio of an
episode that never reach the animation department)
• Audio Commentaries by Rob Cohen, John Groff, Cheryl
Holiday, Jon Pollack, and Jon Ross
Introduction:
The complete (short) series of Father of the Pride is
now on DVD! The series is a CGI animation sitcom
about a family of white lions who live in Las Vegas
and work for Siegfried and Roy. The show has an
original take on everything from show business to
alternative lifestyles, aging, racial prejudice,
drugs, women’s empowerment, and whether it’s okay to
murder your zebra neighbor to replace a ruined animal
rug (haven’t we ALL had that problem at one time in
our lives?)
The family is headed up by Larry (John Goodman), a
lion with a tendency to speak before he thinks, who
just wants to sit on his couch, watch TV, and be left
alone. He’s helped and hindered by his wife Kate
(Cheryl Hines), best friend Snack (Orlando Jones),
daughter Sierra (Danielle Harris), son Hunter (Daryl
Sabara) and father-in-law Sarmoti, an aging lion who
tends to see himself as the feline member of the rat
pack. The chaos is presided over by Siegfried & Roy
(Julian Holloway and David Herman), quite possibly two
of the most over-the-top characters in the history of
television. Need proof? In the third episode
(production order what the DVD is), Siegfried & Roy
take over a 7-Eleven.
Memorable Episodes / Notable Guest Stars:
For those of you who never quite understood what was
going on in the series, watch the original pilot
first. It’s a good episode that actually explains
the madness quite well, and answers a lot of questions
that were never explained in the series. The second
episode is also great, as the episode title
suggests Sarmoti moves in. In the third
episode, Larry & Kate find catnip (a.k.a. “the ‘nip”)
under a vase in Sierra’s room, and think it’s hers.
In the fourth show, Snack finds a new girlfriend, and
when she dumps him mid-date Larry covers for her by
telling Snack he ate her. In the same episode,
Sarmoti manages to win all of the money gambled in a
poker game by Sierra’s boyfriend, and Sierra tries to
win it back. Most of the episodes follow the same
level of quality of the first two shows, so you really
can’t go wrong with whatever episodes you watch. The
show had MANY guest stars in it’s brief run. Richard
Kind, from the sitcom Spin City, voices the zebra in
the first-produced episode, Sarmoti Moves In. In
episode 4, [episode title], several guests are
featured. Christina Applegate (Married with
Children) voices Snack’s new girlfriend, Candy. Garry
Marshall appears for the first of 3 appearances as one
of Sarmoti’s friends, Bernie. R. Lee Ermey (Full
Metal Jacket, Switchback, and Leaving Las Vegas)
guests as Sergeant Bunny the rabbit trainer of a
dieting Larry. Dom DeLuise and Pauly Shore also have
small parts in the episode. Lisa Kudrow, formerly of
Friends, begins her recurring role of the panda
Foo-Lin in the next episode. In the episode, Andy
Richter also guests as Nelson, the new panda and
possible mate for Foo-Lin. In the episode “Larry’s
Debut and Sweet Darryl Hannah Too”, Matt Lauer guest
stars as himself. Also, John O’ Hurley (Seinfeld)
voices Blake, one of Siegfried & Roy’s signature white
tigers. (He would again voice Blake in the episode
“Possession” and in “Stage Fright”) Garry Marshall
returns as Bernie, plus Joe Garagiola voices himself
in the 1970s Today Show flashback.
In the episode “And the Revolution Continues,” Danny
DeVito voices Emerson the Lobster (FBI Political
Prisoner file #16324), the political activist trapped
at the restaurant that Siegfried, Roy, Larry, Kate,
and Sierra eat at. No other guest spot was more
promoted in the show’s brief history than in the
episode “Donkey”. Eddie Murphy reprises his role of
Donkey from Shrek and Shrek 2 for the episode. In
the episode Road Trip, David Spade voices a coyote
helping Larry and Sarmoti reach Little Bavaria. In
Kelsey Grammar guests as himself in the unaired
revised pilot, Stage Fright. Dave Foley, from
Newsradio, voices Kelsey Grammer’s cat who helps
Larry work through his stage fright. Finally Lisa
Kudrow returns as Foo-Lin in “The Siegfried & Roy
Movie Fantasy Experience Movie”, another of the
unaired episodes.
Packaging:
The front cover features the CGI Siegfried & Roy in
front of Las Vegas on the bottom half of the cover,
Larry & the family (plus Snack) on the top half, and
the Father of the Pride logo in the center. The
reverse cover has Larry with the DVD features box,
plus Siegfried & Roy on a two-seat bicycle, and Snack
leaning against a still shot of Larry, Kate, and the
zebra from Sarmoti Moves In. The set itself is a
single-disc keepcase the type of packaging used for
most standard movie releases.
Menu Design and Navigation:
The menus are exceptionally done. They begin with an
introduction with an instrumental version of “There’s
No Business like Show Business”, that keeps up through
the main menu. The introduction has each of the
family members getting introduced with a clip one by
one. After it finishes, it goes into the main menu,
which features the same shot on the top half of the
front cover, but this time the gang is in front of 12
panels playing clips from various episodes. The set
doesn’t have a Play All feature, but the episode
selection menu is intuitive, so it only takes a press
of the OK button to go to the next episode. The
episode selection menu on both discs features Larry in
front of various still shots from the series. The
setup menu (containing audio channel [5.1 or 2.0]
selection and subtitles] has a similar (though with a
purple instead of green tint) look, with Kate, Hunter,
and Sierra instead of Larry. The Special Features
menu features none other than Siegfried & Roy. Same
setup as the other 2 menus, this time with a pink
tint. They’re fairly easy to navigate, and easy to
read, even from across the room on a small screen.
The first seven shows (including the original pilot)
are on Side A, while the other side features the other seven episodes.
Video and Audio Quality:
The video is an amazingly high quality transfer.
Dreamworks made sure to keep the series in it’s
original 1.78:1 aspect ratio which is greatly
appreciated by fans of the show (all three of us).
Audio comes in two flavors, 5.1 and 2.0. Both sound
great. There are NO visual OR audio defects that I
could find with the set. Episodes only run in the
neighborhood of 20:00 to 21:00, however, the series
WAS this short when originally aired. That’s one of
the “perks” of increased commercial time. The
production values looked right up there with
Dreamworks CGI movies - that should give you an
indication of how fine this set looks and sounds.
Special Features:
On Disc 1 is the commentary track before the original
pilot (21:57), the only special feature on the disc.
Rob, Cheryl, John, Jon, and Jon do 1:25 of
introductory commentary before the original pilot
starts up. The episode itself is commentary-free.
Flipping the disc over to side two reveals more
commentary. Possession (21:10), Road Trip (20:39),
and Stage Fright (21:20) each have commentary.
Cheryl, John, Jon, and Jon do the commentary tracks on
all three of the above, while Rob joins the four for
Possession. Included in on disc two are the two
unaired regular episodes (“The Siegfried & Roy Movie
Fantasy Experience Movie” and the revised pilot,
“Stage Fright”) as well as a “Lost Tale” (24:35) an
episode’s storyboards and sound-work animated
together. It’s quite a treat for those of you who
want to see what a cartoon looks like before it’s sent
to the animation studio. For the purposes of this
review, the two unaired episodes that WOULD have aired
(Fantasy Experience, Stage Fright) aren’t counted
toward the final special features time, while the
original pilot is.
Final Comments:
Although its short run on NBC shows about how popular
this show turned out to be, I for one loved it. Can’t
really describe what drew me to the show…there was
just something appealing about it. The set and the
series for that matter is a technical marvel. The
graphics look amazing, regardless of the size of the
screen the show is viewed on. The 5.1 audio track
sounds amazing, and the 2.0 isn’t too shabby either.
I wish they’d aired the pilot as it actually lays
out the groundwork for the episodes that DID air.
As-is, the series went straight into episodes without
the standard introduction, which left many viewers
baffled.
Since there won’t be any future releases as the show
only lasted a year, it’d be pointless to talk about
what I’d like to see for future sets - but there are a
few things with the set I wasn’t completely satisfied
about I’m not a fan of double-sided discs, but given
the run of the series, I can’t blame Dreamworks for
wanting to cut costs and just put everything on one
two-sider. Two discs with actual disc art would have
been nice, but oh well. Also, I think they could have
at least tried to get the cast in for commentary of
course, if I were on a show that got the boot in 13
weeks, I’m not sure I’d be eager to do MORE work for
the show. Also, the various promos NBC ran for the
show in it’s brief run could have been included, but
they’re not exactly a must-have item for a set.
Otherwise, it’s a great set.
For all of you that blew off the show while it was on
NBC give this set a rental at just under four
hours for the entire series run, it’s not a major time
investment. Who knows, you might actually like it.
