The idea behind Harvey Birdman: Attorney At Law is certainly a quirky and cool one as creators Michael Ouweleen and Erik Richter have taken characters from old Hannah-Barbara cartoons and brought them into a bizarre universe where anything can happen at any given time. Granted, the idea of spinning old characters into new directions was done earlier on fellow [adult swim] toon, Space Ghost: Coast To Coast, but it's still somewhat fun to see characters you remember from your childhood getting up to all sorts of adult themed situations. It's too bad that the idea isn't attached to a show that's really worth watching.

Having not seen Harvey Birdman before receiving this volume in the mail, I can't say if the series has any sort of continuity or focus but I can tell you from the thirteen episodes included here that it's pretty much doubtful they do. This is a show so loosely plotted that in any episode's eleven minute running time things can jump back and forth so much that it feels like you're looking after an eight-year-old who hasn't taken his Ritalin for a few days.

This third release of the series picks-up around halfway through the third season and takes us to the end of the fourth (which also happened to be the end of the series and was capped with the two-part episode, "The Death Of Harvey"). Apart from Harvey (voiced by busy character actor Gary Cole) the cast is rounded out by the perverted hippo Potmas, oddball sidekick Peanut, magic-using judge Mentok, firm boss Phil, and a stable of other characters. It has to say something when Cole's character seems to be the straight man to all the insanity happening around him as a typical episode has Harvey having to defend some sort of washed-up Hanna-Barbara creation while various other scatterbrained things are going on around him. It's a formula that's stuck to quite closely and the show's irreverence does offer up some occasional chuckles, but there's just not enough consistency or cleverness for it to work.

The best episodes here are the sets' opening show, "Turner Classic Birdman" which has footage of the original show (Birdman & The Galaxy Trio) chopped up, re-edited and overdubbed with new dialogue and "Free Magilla" where Magilla Gorilla is kidnapped by some activists while Potamus and Phil go on a fishing trip. Also worth nothing is the "Sebben And Sebben Employee Orientation" episode, which plays out like a training video for Harvey's law firm. However, the other ten episodes in this set just can't reach the humour level of the aforementioned three episodes and if, like me, you watch too many of them in a row the entire show starts to get a bit tiring.

Animation wise the show is low-budget looking on purpose and it generally fits the tone of the show quite well, the voice acting on hand is also pretty solid all-around, and there's enough off-beat humour here to please those who've been a Harvey Birdman fan from the very beginning. However, for those of us who haven't had much of a chance to check out the show, seeing the last thirteen episodes of the series run isn't likely to convince you to run out and purchase the other two sets as the show seems to be lacking the sharp writing of The Venture Bros. and the rapid fire hilarity of Robot Chicken, both of which also reside on the Cartoon Network's [adult swim] block of shows.

By all means, if you're a fan go and pick-up this third volume of Harvey Birdman: Attorney At Law as you'll get to finish your collection. Non-fans are better off renting it and deciding if the show's short attention span humour is for them. (Chris Hartley, 9/4/07)

Created By: Michael Ouweleen, Erik Richter.

Picture Ratio: Full Frame.

Picture Quality: There's a little bit of jagginess at the edges occasionally but the transfer here is completely solid with bright colours and a clean picture. It's not perfect but considering the show is supposed to look somewhat cheap it looks about as good as it should on DVD.

Extras: Firstly, I love the packaging on this volume. Set-up to look like a hardcover book once you pull the sleeve out inside it's supposed to look like some twisted Maxim-like magazine. It's pretty creative and proves that most [adult swim] discs do better on packaging than special features.

Speaking of special features there's nothing much here, even for fans. There's a "character role call" which is exactly how it sounds, a comic about Harvey's arch-villian "X The Eliminator", ten deleted scenes that offer nothing new to the shows, a joke recycle timeline that shows proof how often certain jokes were used in the series, and a "final record" section that collect three short featurettes about sound effects, a name calling prank and a prank on Gary Cole.