The Good

As cheesy, corny and whatever else this show may be, it was an institution for me on Sunday nights when it first aired.

The Bad

How can there be no commentary tracks with Soleil Moon Frye?

Punky Brewster: Season Three was something that I demanded I be allowed to review. There was a time in my life where my brother and I would sit in my parents living room and hang on every word uttered on this show. Although, I think we only did that for the first one or two seasons, we didn't fall away from the show because it had gone bad, we just gravitated to different things and I think it in fact was me who kept the torch for this show burning.

Season Three sees Punky (Soleil Moon Frye) up to her same antics, yet this show had enough juice that it could get top acts like DeBarge in on the fun (in the Reading, Writing, and Rock & Roll episode). We also see Punky and her friends fighting City Hall, bonding as young girls and boys do, falling into and out of love and Punky's home life with her loving caregiver Henry Warnimont (George Gaynes).

Features

It's Punky Brewster

Spread out over all four discs is 2 1/2 hours of the animated Saturday Morning cartoon It's Punky Brewster. Aside from this show featuring a lot of the voices from the TV series, I have to admit that I thought this was pretty bad. First off, the animation looks poorly done and as if it's about to fall apart. Secondly, I just didn't find the storylines anything to write home about. I would have really liked to have seen a featurette on the show or listened to some commentary tracks.

Video

Full Screen. There is something about the compression on these discs that seems to have bumped up the quality of the credits, however the actual episodes seem to look about as good as when they played on TV. While usually everything looks like it's been affected in a good way by compression, I found it odd that these shows (though not that old) didn't sparkle like I thought they would.

Audio

It doesn't say what kind of audio is on these discs but I think, considering when these shows were made, that it's probably of the mono variety. Also, since Sony has had a hand in putting out these discs, I think that audio would a department that wouldn't really lack much. It's not like the mid-1980s were so far away that the sound would have deteriorated that much anyway.

Package

Punky graces this front cover in her multicolored outfit with the words Punky Brewster: Season Three above her. The back gives us a description of the show but sadly the way the colors mesh make it hard to read. There is a Special Features listing, two small pictures from the show and some very miner technical specs. All four discs unfold out in one piece of artwork, with images of the cast underneath each tray holding a disc. Simple packaging that might have been better off being in smaller digipack.

Final Word

While the times have certainly changed since I watched this show when I was a kid, I found that their was a lot in Punky Brewster: Season Three that kids could learn from today. I admit that the cheese factor and Punky's "can do" attitude could get a bit mind numbing after awhile, there are universal issues addressed on this show that I think girls and boys would like to discuss. Also, after watching this DVD set I was inspired to check IMDB to see how Soleil's post "Punky" life has gone, and it turns out that she has had quite a healthy career. In a business where talent is easily discarded it's nice to see that one of TV's good people got what she deserved.

Punky Brewster was released .