Wizards
and warriors, knights and princesses will never leave us — there’s just
something indubitably kick-ass about chain metal — but the box-office
success of The Lord of the Rings franchise has definitely
helped unearth and reposition a veritable treasure trove of fantasy
adventure and Camelot-era entertainment product, and one such offering
is the animated Prince Valiant series.

Winner of the
1993 Humanitas Award in the category of Children’s Animation and three
Silver Angel awards honoring productions that uphold values of “moral,
ethical and/or social impact,” Prince Valiant is based on Hal
Foster’s comic strip of almost seven decades ago. In charting the
quests and escapades of its titular headstrong nobleman (voiced by
Robby Benson) and his quest for knighthood under King Arthur (voiced by
Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.), the series offers up lightly moralizing lessons
about navigating treachery and betrayal, “true worth being on the
inside” and the like. Along for the adventures are the loyal Arn
(voiced by Michael Horton) and feisty maiden Rowanne (voiced by Noelle
North), while wise old wizard Merlin (voiced by Alan Oppenheimer) also
pops up from time to time with shrewd advice or a helpful gift.

Accessible perhaps to a fault in its flatly rendered style, Prince Valiant’s
matte animation will likely bore latecomers to the medium who’ve been
raised on Pixar’s leaps-and-bounds improvement in background detail and
convincing shading. Likewise, those who don’t naturally gravitate
toward template narratives of honor, duty and sacrifice will likely
find the staid stories and bloodless action of no permanent consequence
herein fairly tedious. Still, across the 33 episodes gathered here
there are enough recognizable guest voice talents (Patty Duke, Wil
Wheaton, Roddy McDowell, Teri Garr, Marilu Henner and Ron Perlman,
among others) to help give the show a bit of a goosing nostalgic
appeal, if only one has sympathetic inclinations for the outmoded
technique on display.

Spread out over five discs and presented in 1.33:1 full screen, Prince Valiant: The Complete Series, Volume 1
comes housed somewhat awkwardly in a double-wide Amray case with a
snap-in tray and a bottom-entry cardboard slipcover. A nice,
eight-page, full-color insert booklet includes episodic summaries, but
the real bonus reward is found in the fifth disc’s collection of
interviews with series creator David Corbett, writer Brooks Wachtel and
comic strip historian Rick Norwood. An impressive storyboard gallery of
well over 150 images, a slideshow of character drawings and background
paintings, a selection of five scripts in PDF format and two episodic
audio-commentary tracks with Corbett, Wachtel and voice talent North,
on “The Trust Betrayed” and “The Awakening,” help mitigate transfers
that import wholesale grain and other artifact inconsistencies. C- (Show) B+ (Disc)