A variety of young heroes go on a wide array of adventures, meeting up with dozens of crazy creatures while learning tons of valuable life lessons along the way.

Actually, yeah. All three of these ones are pretty damn good. Let's start out with the most recent:

MIRRORMASK is a collaboration between mad artist Dave McKean and mad writer Neil Gaiman -- and it's all sorts of eye-jazzingly neat-o. The standard "dark quest" semi-plot is in full effect, and if MIRRORMASK isn't excatly your average A to B to C adventure quest, well, it sure does offer a lot of eye candy that you've never seen before. Plus it has a strange sweetness and a playful darkness to it.

THE DARK CRYSTAL is a title that many of my generational brethren have a huge soft spot for, and while I think it's a quaint little adventure tale (that's especially impressive for being done entirely with puppets), it's not a flick I get all nostalgic for. Still, it's got all the standard points of a quality quest flick, plus the added bizarreness of being cast, y'know, entirely with puppets. Points to the Henson team for trying to broaden the scope of their creatures -- and there's little denying that this particular flick still seems to hold up pretty darn well.

Now, LABYRINTH on the other hand, this flick was a big influence on yours truly when I was just a young little movie freak. This is the film in which I first fell in love with Ms. Jennifer Connelly -- plus it's a long and colorful quest filled with crazy critters and creative set design. Toss in a tights-wearing David Bowie and a bunch of enjoyably terrible pop tunes, and you've got a movie that's half-good, half-bad, but the Gods of Nostalgia say this is a pretty fun time.

All in all, a fine trio of "older kid" adventure movies, with LABYRINTH the kiddiest, CRYSTAL a bit more mature, and MIRROR the one for the pre-teens. It's just a box set full of three previously-released platters, but if you don't already own the flicks, I say it's a solid investment.

Video: All three of the movies are presented in their original widescreen formats. Obviously the newest flick (MIRRORMASK) looks the best, but there's no complaints on any of the transfers.

Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1s all around!

On MIRRORMASK you'll get a very solid audio commentary with McKean & Gaiman and a really thorough 52-minute Making of MIRRORMASK piece that's broken up into the following chapters: Neil Talks, Dave Talks About Film, Beginnings, Cast & Crew, Day 16, Flight of the Monkeybirds, Giants Development, Questions & Answers. Solid stuff here. Rounding out the disc are some poster & cover art and some previews.

On THE DARK CRYSTAL you'll get a great old "making of" piece that runs just under an hour. This isn't a new-fangled piece of fluff, but an early-80's "nuts & bolts" featurette that offers a lot of behind-the-scenes goodies. Also included are some deleted "funeral" scenes, a few old-school workprint scenes, several pieces of character artwork, and a few theatrical trailers.

On LABYRINTH the goodies are ... kinda slim. There's a pretty solid 58-minute behind-the-scenes documentary just like the one for CRYSTAL: Old-school promotional stuff that actually shows you the interesting backstage stuff. There's also a theatrical trailer, and that's pretty much it.

And you thought Muppets were just frogs and pigs and whatever the hell Gonzo is.