New DVD releases: Care Bears, Animal House

SAN FRANCISCO -- CARE BEARS FLURRIES OF FUN

Holiday DVDs -- the ones with candy canes, winter wonderlands and starry skies on the covers -- are piling up on reviewers' desks. There are the usual reissues of seasonal classics, but also plenty of collections of recently made spun-sugar fare starring familiar figures such as the Care Bears and Strawberry Shortcake. The contents are safe and predictable, and most parents already know whether their preschoolers have a taste for these things. The new "Care Bears: Flurries of Fun" set offers three stories, all previously released individually, including "Oopsy Does It!," in which Cheer and Grumpy build a Care-a-Lot amusement park, only to have it accidentally wrecked by Oopsy. This disc includes a "We Are the Care Bears" music video, and the set comes with an activity booklet and card game. A similar new package from Fox is the "Strawberry Shortcake Holiday Dreams Collection," a three-DVD release of adventures ("Berry Merry Christmas," "Let's Dance" and "Big Country Fun") starring the ever-upbeat Strawberry and such friends as Angel Cake (but beware of the Peculiar Purple Pie Man). This box includes five greeting cards.

CARE BEARS FLURRIES OF FUN

2007

NOT RATED

FOX HOME VIDEO

$26.98

(THREE DISCS)

ANIMAL HOUSE: 30TH ANNIVERSARY GIFT EDITION

"I think this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture." Words to live by, even 30 years later. "Animal House" was a primal howl of crass comedy, and its numerous offspring are still showing up in movie theaters and on DVD shelves. It made a movie star out of John Belushi and Hollywood players out of writer Harold Ramis and director John Landis. And it made a national phenomenon of the low-down blowout called a toga party. Several generations of college students thought this was how life on campus was supposed to be. The film, about a group of misfits at a frat house at fictional Faber College, is based on National Lampoon writer Chris Miller's memories of life at Dartmouth in the early 1960s. Extras in the basic set include a favorite-scenes game and interviews with many of the principals (including actors Kevin Bacon, Peter Riegert and Karen Allen). The edition is also available in a more expensive gift set that comes in a special box shaped like a frat house and includes two additional features: new interviews and a "collectible" Faber College yearbook. (Note: "Animal House" has had several previous incarnations on DVD, including the "Double Secret Probation Edition" of 2003.)

ANIMAL HOUSE: 30TH ANNIVERSARY GIFT EDITION

1978

RATED R

UNIVERSAL STUDIOS

$34.98

(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)