DVD/CD Review: The Dirty Sock Funtime Band, “Sock-A-Delic”

If you’ve spent any time at all watching the Noggin network (apologies, corporate rebranders, I mean Nick Jr.), you’re familiar with the Dirty Sock Funtime Band, even if you don’t realize it. Like Laurie Berkner, the DSFB pops up in the interstitial music videos that the station runs in lieu of commercials, particularly during episodes of Jack’s Big Music Show — and like Berkner, they’re squarely on the sugary, high-energy end of the kids’ music spectrum.

Now, those of you who have been reading this site for awhile may remember that Laurie Berkner is one of my main musical nemeses — there’s just something about the way she’s always bouncing around with that smile on her face that bugs me — so I’m naturally predisposed to dislike any band that includes a pink-wigged man and a lead singer who looks like a tiny, hyperactive, Jew-froed Steven Tyler. And to be perfectly honest right up front, I sincerely doubt I’d ever watch or listen to the Dirty Sock Funtime Band on my own; for me, listening to this type of music is like eating frosting. A little goes a long, long way. Read the rest of this entry

DVD Reviews: Scholastic Storybook Treasures

The ever-expanding Scholastic Storybook Treasures library just got even bigger, with the three latest DVDs — Giggle, Giggle, Quack, Runaway Ralph, and He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands — adding 14 stories and roughly three and a half hours to the already formidable stack of books that have been given the “read-along DVD” treatment.

If that sentence made you feel a little funny, you’re not alone. Given that some kids already need quite a bit of encouragement to read instead of watch TV, and given that many of the DVD segments in the series don’t do much besides add voiceovers and karaoke-style text overlays to still art from the books, it can be hard not to wonder just what purpose they really serve, other than helping exceptionally lazy parents avoid reading to their children.

Maybe that’s just cynicism, though. As parents, we’re so used to being inundated with pitches for more crap, and so accustomed to being disappointed by people who are supposed to have our children’s best interests at heart, that something like the Scholastic Storybook Treasures series can seem like a dirty trick even when it isn’t. There’s definitely something a little off-putting about a book publisher porting children’s titles to DVD, but that doesn’t really take away from the fact that these are wonderful books, and if you’re the type of parent who doesn’t see anything wrong with television in moderation, then having the option of letting your kids watch literature instead of Cartoon Network is fairly appealing. Read the rest of this entry

DVD Review: “The Great Mouse Detective: Mystery in the Mist Edition”

The resurgence of Walt Disney Animation is usually traced (get it?) back to The Little Mermaid, but as with most pop history, that’s not 100 percent accurate — though its efforts weren’t necessarily rewarded at the box office, the studio started its uphill climb years before Ariel longed to be part of our world. Case in point: 1986′s The Great Mouse Detective, which used a nifty voice cast and some early CGI/hand-drawn hybrid work to bring the Sherlock Holmes classics to kids.

Adapted from Eve Titus and Paul Galdone’s Basil of Baker Street books, The Great Mouse Detective uses a neat conceit — a sleuthing mouse named Basil who happens to share an address with Sherlock Holmes — to take advantage of the Holmes mythos without turning human characters into talking animals, a la Disney’s Robin Hood. (In a neat touch, cinema’s most famous Sherlock, Basil Rathbone, voices Holmes here, via some cobbled-together audio from an earlier film.) Detective isn’t a mystery in the traditional sense, given that the audience knows pretty much right away who the bad guy is — but that’s a forgivable sin, since the villain in question is voiced by a perfectly ominous Vincent Price. Nothing against Broadway vet Barrie Ingham, who plays Basil, but this is really Price’s show; it’s a shame there weren’t any sequels, because he could have turned the dastardly Ratigan into one of Disney’s top-tier villains. Read the rest of this entry

DVD Review: “Bert & Ernie’s Great Adventures”

I was born in 1974, and my youngest sibling was born in 1985, which means my Sesame Street viewing was at its peak during what I’ll refer to (totally subjectively and sort of crankily) as the golden age of PBS kids’ programming, and fell off sharply around 1983 or so, when Telly Monster was completing his transition from the googly-eyed Television Monster into the annoying worrywart he is today. I didn’t watch another episode until a few years ago, when I decided to introduce my daughter to the joys of playing where everything’s A-OK and the air is clean, only to discover that the sleepy urban burg I remembered from my youth had been taken over by characters I didn’t recognize. Who cares about Baby Bear? Who’s that little fuzzball speaking Spanish all the time? Why so much Elmo? What happened to Bob, Linda, Gordon, Susan, and David? (Okay, probably best not to ask that last question.)

The point is, I’m one of those people that miss the old Sesame Street, when it felt like a real TV neighborhood, with more of a balance between adorable Muppets and kindly humans — and when it all didn’t feel so…I don’t know, clean. So I’m sort of ambivalent about Bert & Ernie’s Great Adventures — I feel like I should be distrustful of a DVD that sends Claymation versions of Sesame Street’s most famous roommates on fantastical escapades, but on the other hand, I miss those guys, and anything that raises their profile over at the Elmo-obsessed Children’s Television Workshop is all right in my book. Read the rest of this entry

DVD Review: “Gettin’ Funky with the Sugar Free Allstars”

Aside from Martin & Medeski or the Benevento-Russo Duo, there aren’t many acts a person can turn to if they’re hungry for some stripped down, funky Hammond organ-and-drums action — and in the kids’ music universe? Forget it. With the quasi-exception of Taj Mahal’s songs for children, funk and/or soul is in short supply in the kiddieverse, and if there are two things our children need more than fresh air, exercise, and to leave me alone while I’m trying to write, those two things are funk and soul. After all, like Whitney Houston said, the children are our future. Try imagining a future even less funky than the world we’re living in. Gives you the heebie-jeebies, doesn’t it? I mean, if Karl Rove had been fed a diet of Wilson Pickett and Aretha when he was a little boy, things might have turned out a little differently, don’t you think?

I digress. Here’s what I’m trying to say: There might be bands making music for kids that’s funkier, more soulful, and more fun than the Sugar Free Allstars, but if there are, I’m not aware of them — and what’s more, the band makes music for adults, too. Read the rest of this entry

DVD Review: The Jimmies, “Trying Funny Stuff”

Watch enough kids’ videos, and you’ll figure out pretty quickly that even though kindie rock is a booming genre, even its most popular artists tend to have more enthusiasm than money — and as a result, music videos for children are mostly pretty low-budget affairs, which is unfortunate, because their target demographic is accustomed to plenty of eye candy.

Enter the Jimmies, the NYC-based group led by singer Ashley Albert (a.k.a. “Plucky Pea”). They’ve only released one album, 2007′s Make Your Own Someday, so you wouldn’t expect their debut DVD to be much to write home about, both because the band doesn’t have a huge backlog of material and because they haven’t been around long enough to build an audience the size of, say, They Might Be Giants. But the DVD, Trying Funny Stuff, is a wonderful surprise — emphasis on the “wonderful.”

The disc kicks off with six music videos, all of which I now know front to back, thanks to the daily viewing regimen my daughter has imposed since Stuff showed up in our mailbox a couple of weeks ago. Familiarity hasn’t bred contempt, though; these are the Lord of the Rings of kindie music video, with stellar production values to match the band’s smart, catchy songs. Hardcore Jimmies fans will already know five of the videos (“Do The Elephant,” “Spanimals,” “Cool To Be Uncool,” “Bedhead,” and “Taddy”) from YouTube, but I hate watching stuff on the computer, and besides, the band has been good enough to toss in a brand new video for “What’s That Sound?” Read the rest of this entry

DVD Review: Walt Disney Treasures “Zorro: The Complete First Season” and “Zorro: The Complete Second Season”

Nostalgia is a tough sell when it comes to today’s children. With 21^st century kids used to quick, Michael Bay-paced edits and brilliant, flashing colors to keep their attention, sitting them down to watch a black and white television series from 50 years ago may seem like a lost cause. With the release of Zorro the Complete First Season and the Complete Second Season in deluxe DVD format, Disney is showing the utmost confidence that this adventure series will delight not only the diehard Disney fanatics, but future generations of TV watchers. Trust me when I tell you that if you sit down with your son or daughter to watch Zorro, they’ll love it, and you’ll find your inner kid bursting with enthusiasm.

When Walt Disney decided to produce his first primetime series, he went all out to ensure that what he was airing met the high standards he set for his studio, both in motion pictures and television. He smartly chose to adapt the pulp novels of Johnston McCulley and partly based his vision of the masked avenger on the wildly successful silent film starring Douglas Fairbanks.  The Fairbanks version of the hero was a lighthearted take, adding humor and charm mixed with swordplay and spectacular stunts. Disney hired top writers to produce the show, he built an elaborate, permanent set on the Disney lot, and he brought together a cast of talented character actors to bring to life the colorful characters he envisioned. In the role of Don Diego/Zorro, an unknown actor named Guy Williams was cast. While this may have seemed like a risk, the actor exuded charisma as the masked avenger out to defend the oppressed. Moreover, Williams had an everyman, relatable quality that draws you in and keeps you entertained. And entertained you will be. Read the rest of this entry

DVD/CD Review: “Readeez Volume Two” and “Songeez”

The following exchange has taken place in my home roughly four dozen times over the last 24 hours:

Me: I am a frying pan.

My daughter Sophie: (giggling) No, daddy, you’re a man.

Me: April fool, April fool, April fool.

Why, you ask? Only because the animated duo of Julian and Isabel Waters is back with another collection of the delightful (and educational!) animated musical shorts known as Readeez. Readeez Volume Two: Make It Up the Mountain includes 30 additions to the series that started with last year’s Readeez Volume One, and if you enjoyed the first batch, you’ll be pleased to know Volume Two is even better. The videos have a little more going on, there’s a slight theme tying them all together, and most importantly, the songs are even catchier and more varied. Read the rest of this entry

DVD Review: “Monsters vs. Aliens: Ginormous Double Pack”

DreamWorks Animation has long been pegged as Pixar’s dumber, more obnoxious cousin — and quite often, the studio’s shabby rep is deserved: if you’re looking for a brightly colored CGI spectacle stuffed full of pop culture gags and fart noises, chances are, whatever DreamWorks has on the menu will scratch your itch. If, on the other hand, you want to show your kids a piece of animation with a ton of lasting value, then you’re probably going to come away frustrated (and left cleaning up all the toys, books, and videogame tie-ins your offspring will end up owning).

In recent years, however, DreamWorks has shown signs of becoming something more than just the house that Shrek built, most notably through the success of Kung Fu Panda, which some critics liked even more than WALL-E. The tie-in friendly 3-D spectacle Monsters vs. Aliens didn’t settle on quite as lofty a critical perch, but it still enjoyed some of the studio’s best reviews, and it’s easy to see why: with thrilling state-of-the-art animation, a voice cast that included Reese Witherspoon, Seth Rogen, Rainn Wilson, Will Arnett, Stephen Colbert, and Paul Rudd, and a very funny script that just so happens to be 99% free of doody humor, it’s one of those rare “fun for the whole family” movies that actually ends up living up to its billing. Read the rest of this entry

DVD Review: “The Wizard of Oz 70th Anniversary Ultimate Collector’s Edition”

It’s the most-watched film in history, and unless you’re an extremely unusual person, you’ve seen it more times than you can count — but The Wizard of Oz still somehow never loses its ability to enthrall audiences of all ages. I’m old enough to remember the days when Oz was an annual television tradition for the whole family; I can’t think of it without imagining Thanksgiving celebrations, and thanks to having three younger siblings and a mother who fell under the movie’s spell as a girl, I knew the movie inside and out by the time I was in high school. After my daughter was born, The Wizard of Oz — both the movie and the original L. Frank Baum book — was one of the first gifts she received from my mom, and although we worried that the Wicked Witch and the flying monkeys would freak Sophie out, we eventually caved in and let her watch the movie around her third birthday. Surprise, surprise — she loved it, and it’s become her own most-watched movie and favorite film.

Through her repeat viewings over the last year, I’ve rediscovered The Wizard of Oz myself (we’ve also read her the first 14 books in the series, but that’s another story). There aren’t many things that can hold up to seven decades of the kind of hype Oz has earned, but if there’s any such thing as a perfect movie, this is it — and if there’s a movie worth an incredibly lavish 70th anniversary box featuring books, a watch, and more than 16 hours of bonus material, it’s this one. Read the rest of this entry