CLARISSA EXPLAINS IT ALL: SEASON 1 - DVD review

At the beginning of 2005, Paramount announced that it would begin to be aggressive when releasing its TV shows on DVD. The studio plans to flood the home-video market with TV shows. This is a welcome development because the studio gets to cash in on the TV-shows-on-DVD craze and because consumers finally get to collect the programs that gave them fond memories generated during both childhood and adulthood.

One of the beneficiaries of Paramount's new approach to TV-shows-on-DVD is "Clarissa Explains It All", starring Melissa Joan Hart. Ms. Hart is also known for her role on "Sabrina, the Teenage Witch" as well as for creating a storm of controversy when she posed wearing skimpy clothes in "Maxim" and "Bikini" magazines. "Clarissa" was Ms. Hart's big break; she became a famous TV star back when being famous still required some semblance of talent and before people were manufactured to be famous (like all those bubblegum pop divas).

The core cast was already in place beginning with the first episode. Clarissa Darling (Hart) lives with her health-nut mom Janet, her architect dad Marshall, and her younger brother Ferguson. Sam, her best friend and next-door neighbor, always visits her by propping a ladder up to her second-floor room. Mrs. Darling often served "health" food that seemed weird back in the 1990s but are now mundane parts of our "New Age" lives.

There are fifty-two weeks in a year. Most TV series have twenty-six episodes per season because twenty-six is have of fifty-two. The first season of "Clarissa Explains It All" has thirteen episodes, probably because Nickelodeon could re-air episodes over and over again without receiving complaints from its target viewers.

Disc 1: "Clarissa's Revenge", "School Picture", "No T.V.", "Urge to Drive", "Clarissa News Network", "Haunted House", "The Bully".

Disc 2: "New Addition", "Brain Drain", "Clarissa Makes a Cake", "Parents Who Say No", "Cool Dad", "Sick Days".

As you can see from the episodes' titles, "Clarissa" tried to deal with issues that figure centrally in kids' lives. The show is too hip and too self-aware to be as profound as something like "The Wonder Years". Nevertheless, Clarissa's direct-address method of narration made it seem as if she was everybody's best friend. Ms. Hart's winning performances kept viewers returning week after week, and she was many a boy's first crush. (Incidentally, she was born with a condition that prevented the growth of teeth next to her two middle-front teeth. Nickelodeon wanted her to delay getting corrective surgery, believing that the gaps in her mouth made Ms. Hart look younger than her actual years.)

The first episode, "Clarissa's Revenge", sets up the protagonist's long-running feud with her brother. "Clarissa News Network" allows Clarissa to formalize her moral lessons in the form of news broadcasts. The season finale, "Sick Days", shows students why it's silly to pretend to be sick in order to skip class. These are all stories that appeal to most viewers of a certain age as well as viewers who can fondly recall precious childhood moments.

Video:
The worst part about "Clarissa" hitting DVD is that the 1.33:1 (full-frame on 4:3 monitors) video image is rather bad. Reds and oranges bloom and bleed. Sometimes, whites are too hot, but at other times, the picture looks dull and unnaturally dark. It's possible that, back during the early 1990s, Nickelodeon wasn't thinking about selling the show directly to people via the home video market. Nevertheless, the lack of care in maintaining the show's freshness is a sad thing.

Audio:
Given the quality of the video, I was surprised that the Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo English audio tracks sounded very robust. The (in)famous "Na-na" title song sends serious vibes to the subwoofer. Dialogue is always clear and distortion-free. While the mixes aren't very dynamic or complex, they do sound forceful and "authoritative" when Clarissa or her parents deliver speeches about doing "the right thing".

Optional English closed captions support the audio.

Extras:
Disc 1 has some trailers for other Paramount titles. Disc 2 has the same trailers that Disc 1 has. Disc 2 also has a collection of Nickelodeon TV spots from between 1991 and 1993 as well as the "MTV Cribs" segment featuring Melissa Joan Hart's house. Ms. Hart's home looks cool, but the rapid-fire editing and aggressive camera movement gave me a terrible headache.

--Miscellaneous--
The DVDs are stored in individual slim keepcases. Both keepcases are housed in a cardboard slipcase.

Film Value:
"Clarissa Explains It All" is a great kids' show. It's colorful, eventful, and even morally educational. The writing is unusually sharp for a program aimed at pre-teens. It's also great that the main characters are a bit wacky. By being weird and normal at the same time, the Darlings show viewers how it's possible to be distinct individuals without being ostracized from society.