The "Sights & Sounds" DVD packaging looks professional enough, and could pass for an official Disney offering if it weren't for the disclaimer. It even has the "gothic" Disneyland logo, and Sleeping Beauty Castle, complete with swans.

The back cover promises:

The main menu loops "When You Wish Upon a Star" and offers these choices:

• Welcome to Disneyland
• Main Street USA
• Adventureland
• New Orleans Square
• Tomorrowland
• Frontierland
• Fantasyland
• Mickey's Toontown
• Critter Country
• Grand Canyon Diorama
• Photo Gallery

The main presentation of the DVD will automatically flow through all of the chapters except the final two. Each chapter starts off with some signature audio from the land.

Most of the video appears to be from early 2002.

Our Disneyland visit begins with a shot of personalized bricks at the Main Entrance, and the camera rises to show the turnstile area. And so begins our whirlwind tour of the original Magic Kingdom.

The shots are handheld, the sound is the ambient sound recorded along with the video. Consider that the whole DVD running time is approximately 62 minutes, and that includes the Photo Gallery at the end. That's not a lot of time to cover the park, and it shows.

With almost rapid-fire pacing, we are taken through the entire theme park, often with little rhyme or reason to the length of the shots, and that is made all the more apparent by the sound. We're inside the Main Street Train Station. We're in Town Square. We're on the narrow part of Main Street. There's a duck in the grass. We're inside Disneyana. We're watching confectioners making candy… Each shot lasting for only a few seconds. It made me appreciate all the more Jeff Lange's choice to film Main Street while riding the horse-drawn streetcar. With this one, it is cut/cut/cut with not enough context.

While an ambitious concept, the time just doesn't allow for it to be done right, at least not with the ambient sound. It may have worked better with deliberately mixed-in sound, as evidenced by the effective slideshow presentations. We're being given a survey of the entire park, with a peek inside select attractions. Those include:

• Aladdin's Storytales
• The Indiana Jones Adventure Queue (although it is a bit dark).
• Pirates of the Caribbean
• Riding the Mark Twain
• Golden Horseshoe Saloon (both Billy Hill and the Hillbillies and the Golden Horseshow Variety Show)
• Star Tours
• Space Mountain queue/loading area (pre-rebuild!)
• Innoventions
• Autopia
• Storybookland Canal Boats
• Alice in Wonderland
• It's a Small World

For brief moments, we're presented with some of the New Orleans Square entertainment, such as the mime Lagniappe, the Bayou Brass, and the Royal Street Bachelors, and the Frontierland atmosphere of Laughing Stock. We also get some of the Sword in the Stone ceremony in Fantasyland.

The DVD captures some of American Space Experience exhibit for posterity; the exhibit was replaced by the Buzz Lightyear attraction, and we also get to see the infamous Cosmic Waves, only without the waves.

The biggest surprise in the DVD was a shot of the Submarine Voyage operating, complete with the Peoplemover running overhead. This shot had to have been taken in the mid-1990s or earlier. For some people, that would be reason enough to get the DVD.

Critter County, for some reason, is presented through a slideshow with music, until we get a glimpse of the Country Bear Vacation Hoedown.

A pyrotechnic display that I think is "Believe…There's Magic in the Stars" is shown in still shots, and the "park closing" spiel with Jack Wagner and the Fab Five lets us know that our visit to the park has concluded.

Only, it hasn't. There are still two more chapters on the DVD.

The Grand Canyon Diorama is presented as a separate selection, as is the very extensive and effective Photo Gallery, complete with music. The Gallery has some shots from the 45th Anniversary parade, and from different times of the day and year, including the holidays.

As I wrote above the Photo Gallery is a great slideshow. As for the main presentation, my suggestion would be to use it as background when you are doing some chores around your home.

The DVD played fine in my DVD player, and the main menu loaded in my desktop computer, but when I went to play a chapter on my desktop, it crashed my system. The first time, it simply froze everything and I was able to eventually pull my system out of it. The second time, I had to reboot. It may just be me, so Your Mileage May Vary.