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.

That being said, we’ve been all about the DSFB lately, because my daughter loves the DVD/CD combo they’ve just released, titled Sock-A-Delic. No, wait: She looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooves it. Like all semi-functional dads, I am powerless against this.

Essentially, Sock-A-Delic acts as a primer for the upcoming Dirty Sock Funtime Band Show, which is, I’m guessing, being developed for Nick Jr., and presents a sort of Monkees for the pre-K set. In other words, each episode revolves loosely around a silly plot, usually some sort of simple problem solved by music — like “The Surprise Party,” in which the band plans a birthday bash for lead singer/scarf-wearer Mike, and distracts him by leaving a pogo stick out for him to find. There’s music, there’s hammy acting, there’s that dude in the pink wig. All the things kids love and parents tolerate.

As far as this sort of thing goes, Sock-A-Delic is pretty painless. The songs are incredibly catchy, and the production values, while plainly low-budget, are thoroughly professional. (They do a lot with a little, using tricks like the old “hey, half of my body is in black & white” shot.) And really, as much as people love to use the old “__________ the whole FAMILY can enjoy!” line, I’m not the target audience for this stuff, so whether or not I love it is immaterial. It’s entertaining for its target audience, offering colorful visuals and bouncy, positive music you can sing along with after the first listen. It’s silly, and that’s the point. Your little ones will love it.

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.

There isn’t much flash in these movies, but that’s part of their charm; these are gentle, low-key shorts, devoid of the usual production gloss and quick-cut edits. In some cases, this is because of their vintage — Runaway Ralph, for instance, stars a young, pre-Wonder Years Fred Savage — but even the newer films have a pleasant, down-to-earth vibe. They’re fun to watch with kids — the kind of entertainment that’s calming without reducing little ones to drooling mouth-breathers. And they’re well made.

Giggle, Giggle, Quack is the funniest of the bunch, collecting three of Doreen Cronin’s Farmer Brown stories (“Giggle, Giggle, Quack,” “Duck for President,” and “Dooby Dooby Moo“) and adding the Harry Bliss-illustrated “Diary of a Worm” and “Diary of a Fly.” The Cronin stories boast suitably folksy narration from Randy Newman, who’s basically perfect for tales of a comedic farmer-duck war; “Diary of a Worm” features Alexander Gould (Finding Nemo, Weeds), and “Diary of a Fly” features Abigail Breslin.

Runaway Ralph is the slimmest title, offering the Savage-led live-action version of the Beverly Cleary classic along with a stop-motion animated adaptation of Jane Yolen’s sci-fi story “Commander Toad in Space,” featuring the voices of Mark Hamill and Nichelle Nichols. At an hour in length, it’s significantly shorter than Giggle, Giggle, Quack, but it’s also got the benefit of having a really well-known title on the cover, so Scholastic can probably get away with going a little light on the extras.

Finally, He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands is the timeliest of the three, collecting seven eco-minded stories — including the classic title song, performed here by Billy Joel bandmate Crystal Taliefero, and an adaptation of Karen Hesse and Jon J. Muth’s beautiful “Come On, Rain,” narrated by Laila Ali — and bundling them into an hour of stories about, well, the world. In terms of length, it might be considered a little light, but Hands includes a lot of great, award-winning stories, and segments like “Come On, Rain” and “Owl Moon” are some of the best in the Storybook Treasures series.

All things being equal, it’s obviously still better to read to your kids, but who says you can only do one? If your kids are already familiar with these books, they’ll get a kick out of seeing them on TV; if they aren’t, these DVDs still contain plenty of excellent entertainment, and at $15 or less, they’re all value priced. What else do you need?

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.

As you might expect, given the film’s inspiration and the era in which it was made, The Great Mouse Detective could be a little intense for young kids — the storyline revolves around the kidnapping of a toymaker (voiced by Mr. Ed‘s Alan Young) and a plot to depose the Queen. There’s also some (gasp!) smoking, as well as various other forms of rather innocuous non-cartoonish behavior that parents may not want to explain. (Or you can just roll the dice and hope for the best — neither my two-year-old nor my four-year-old were bothered by any of it.)

So what makes this “Mystery in the Mist” edition so special? Well, for starters, Detective has been out of print for a spell; the last edition was a two-disc remaster released in 2002, which was apparently long enough for the Disney elves to apply a fresh coat of (slight but noticeable) digital restoration and a Dolby surround soundtrack. If you missed the last reissue, and don’t feel like paying collector’s prices for a used copy, this is the Mouse you seek. Just don’t expect much from the bonus materials, which are actually lighter than the ’02 edition; the most interesting thing here is a somewhat perfunctory making-of featurette, and it’s surrounded with features both unnecessary (a bit on how to use Disney’s digital copy technology) and obnoxious (a commercial for a Suite Life Blu-ray).

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.

What you get here is 11 Great Adventures, each five minutes or less, adding up to a 50-minute DVD. Bert and Ernie do stuff they couldn’t do in puppet form, like run a crazy bakery or find themselves shrunk down to miniature, while retaining the warmly antagonistic repartee that we all know and love. (In the theme song, Ernie sings about seeing pictures in his head at bedtime; Bert snaps, “Picture sleep.” You get the idea.) The voices aren’t done by the ORIGINAL guys, which bothered my wife, but I thought they were close enough to the real deal — Steve Whitmire has come a long way as Ernie in the last couple decades, and there were times when I couldn’t tell Eric Jacobson from Frank Oz.

I gather these segments have been used as interstitials on Sesame Street for the last several years, which is a little bothersome — why not just, you know, show more of the Bert and Ernie Muppets? — but again, anything that gives my sweatered old friends more to do can’t be all bad. They’re the perfect length for young children, and at $12.99 list, they’re a solid value. I didn’t enjoy Bert & Ernie’s Great Adventures as much as my Sesame Street Old School DVDs, but my kids did, and that’s what counts, right?

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.

The duo, made up of Chris Wiser (organ, vocals) and Rob “Dr. Rock” Martin (drums), isn’t shy about augmenting its sound in the studio — you’ll hear brass, keys, percussion, and guitar on their albums (Little Feat’s Fred Tackett even pops up on their second grown-up record, Return of Dos Machos) — but the most important components of each song are Wiser’s organ and Martin’s drums, and even though you’ll never mistake the Sugar Free Allstars for, say, Booker T. and the M.G.’s, they still offer quite a welcome respite from the glossy, compressed pop music that rules the airwaves.

That sound, coupled with Wiser’s way with a tongue-in-cheek lyric, make the Allstars perfect for kids, something demonstrated by their two forays into the kindie market, the eight-song CD Dos Niños and the recently released DVD Gettin’ Funky with the Sugar Free Allstars. Though their recordings are certainly professionally recorded, the band is decidedly indie; in other words, you shouldn’t expect dazzling production values from Gettin’ Funky, nor should you look for voluminous liner notes or award-winning artwork from their CDs. But what they lack in eye candy, they more than make up for in fun; like a funkier They Might Be Giants, the Sugar Free Allstars are a band that can please the kids in the audience while making honest-to-goodness fans out of their parents. Start gettin’ funky with them today.

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?”

If they hadn’t already been mostly available for free, these videos would be worth the price of the DVD hands down, but the Jimmies didn’t stop there: Trying Funny Stuff also includes a full concert film, including performances of favorites like “What’s on Your Shirt” and “Soaper the Scaredy-Bot” (complete with cameo from said ‘bot). As with the videos, the concert is impeccably filmed; most kidvid concerts rely on one or two camera angles, but Stuff was shot like a grown-ups’ concert, with slick editing and swooping shots. The band is tight, the crowd is ecstatic, and Ashley is 100 percent adorable. The copy that showed up here was scratched, so a few of the concert numbers won’t play all the way through, but my daughter couldn’t care less — when she isn’t listening to Make Your Own Someday or watching Trying Funny Stuff, she’s walking around the house singing Jimmies songs like “Cool to be Uncool” and the “Blister in the Sun” homage “Bedhead.”

The DVD also includes a handful of karaoke tracks and a behind-the-scenes featurette that’s actually pretty interesting, but if your kids are anything like mine, you’ll never get to either section of the disc — you’ll be too busy making a gleeful cycle from videos to concert and back again. Kudos to the Jimmies for putting together such a burst of pure entertainment, and here’s hoping it sells well enough to fund two or three more albums.

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.

Every episode of Zorro is full of action, adventure and plenty of lighthearted humor. The combination of these three elements made it an instant success when the first season began airing in October of 1957.  Each of the half hour episodes were self contained, but continued an overall story arc that usually lasted about thirteen episodes, a commonly practiced method. While the first season saw Zorro acting as a lone avenger aided by his trusty servant, Bernardo (Gene Sheldon), the second season saw Zorro falling in love and considering giving up the mask to get married.

Only two seasons of Zorro were produced. However, the TV seasons were longer then (39 episodes), so there are 78 episodes included in the two DVD sets combined. Both of these collections have been lovingly remastered to look as fresh and new as possible. In addition to the remastered picture and sound, the collections also include rare Zorro episodes from Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color, as well as insightful introductions by Disney expert, Leonard Maltin, who delivers plenty of history. The Walt Disney Treasure editions also come in a collectible black tin with a Zorro pin, an authenticity certificate and exclusive lithograph.

Pricewise, the Zorro collections compare favorably with any other TV series box sets being released. Considering the amount of material being given in the 6 DVD collections, and the quality of not only the remastering jobs, but the entertainment, these two latest installments in the Walt Disney Treasures series are worth the investment.

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.

Readeez creator Michael Rachap is a talented songwriter, one whose sharp command of different genres makes him uniquely well-suited to kids’ music — and whose way with a wonderfully understated, beautifully goofy turn of phrase (see above) really helps set these songs and videos apart. For a number of reasons, even the best children’s music often sounds like it’s trying too hard; sometimes the arrangements are crammed with too-obvious whimsical touches, sometimes the vocals are delivered with too much self-conscious clowning, and sometimes the lyrics can only provide an adult’s approximation of a child’s feelings. A song or album that fits any (or all) of these descriptions can still be entertaining, but something about it still rings hollow.

Rachap’s work, on the other hand, is childlike without being childish. His songs are simple in the best sense of the word. Probably due in part to the inherent limitations of a series that’s supposed to help kids learn to read as lyrics flash on the screen, Rachap keeps his meters punchy and his words short — but it works brilliantly, setting up rhymes like “I’ve got a hunch/You’re going to love your lunch” or “Red and juicy in the middle/Every mom and dad and kid’ll/Want a lot and not a little/Watermelon.” But the songs aren’t just clever — they can be really touching, too. Witness “Love’s Enough”:

The videos are cute and refreshingly simple, but my favorite part of Readeez is the music — partly because of Rachap’s songwriting, and partly because “Julian and Isabel” have just about the most adorable interplay you’ve ever heard. So while I’m excited about Readeez Volume Two, I’m even happier about Songeez, a CD collection of 28 songs from the two DVDs, including “Love’s Enough,” “April Fool,” “Watermelon,” “Love Your Lunch,” “How About That Cow,” and “Boomba Boom”:

The entire Readeez catalog is for sale at Readeez.com. At $15 a pop, they aren’t necessarily the cheapest forms of entertainment you’re going to find — but trust me, you and your kids are both going to get a lot more enjoyment out of Readeez than you will from anything on sale in the kids’ video endcap at Target. Rachap is doing marvelous work here, and his reward — more Readeez in more homes — will be your reward too.

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.

The story follows the travails of poor Susan Murphy (Witherspoon), a bride-to-be who is transformed into a giantess after being hit by a meteor on her wedding day. Spurned by her horrified fiance (Rudd) and captured by the government, Susan is locked in a high-security prison where the government has been secretly stashing other “monsters” like the man/roach hybrid Dr. Cockroach (Hugh Laurie), a preening fish/ape named the Missing Link (Arnett), a gelatinous blob named, well, B.O.B. (Rogen), and an enormous larva dubbed Insectosaurus. She’s told she’ll never be able to leave, and her family will never know where she’s been taken — but when a diabolical alien named Gallaxhar (Wilson) sends a huge robotic probe to Earth in search of Susan (long story), the government springs its prisoners in exchange for their help fighting the intergalactic invaders.

It’s the kind of movie that’s made for 10-year-old boys, in other words — and the one I watched Monsters vs. Aliens with seemed to appreciate the consideration, chuckling at all the right parts and remaining in the film’s jelly-coated grasp until the closing credits rolled. He didn’t quote any lines from the movie later, nor did he bring it up in conversation later on, both of which are seriously atypical for this particular 10-year-old boy, but it makes sense: Monsters vs. Aliens is equal parts pleasant and inconsequential, the perfect movie to use as an excuse to switch off your brain and giggle for 90 minutes, then forget about. As such, it’s probably not the kind of movie you’ll rush to add to your library, which might be why DreamWorks has gone out of its way to pack the home version with extras — for the price of an ordinary DVD, you get the movie and all its bonus content, four pairs of 3-D glasses, and a bonus disc containing the short feature B.O.B.’s Big Break (also in 3-D). Not a bad bargain for a movie whose budget was so enormous that not even a $380 million worldwide gross was enough to guarantee a sequel.

Don’t look to it for any kind of real message beyond your standard “accept yourself even if you’re blown up to enormous size by space radiation,” but for a little harmless (and visually spectacular) fun, Monsters vs. Aliens does the trick — and it’s hard to beat this price. With gift-giving season right around the corner, this is a title well worth keeping an eye on.

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.

Boasting a brand new, utterly stunning remaster, the 70th anniversary edition of The Wizard of Oz comes in a number of configurations, including a two-disc DVD set, single-disc Blu-ray, and a number of deluxe boxes, among them the five-disc DVD box that Warner Bros. sent me, a Blu-ray box, and Amazon exclusive editions that come with character posters (one of which I have on order, but seems to have disappeared somewhere between Amazon’s warehouses and my house, thus delaying my review). In other words, you don’t have to spend a ton of money on the latest Wizard, which is smart on the studio’s part — this is a title that most film collectors already own, and one that’s been remastered before (in fact, as recently as 2005). If you do have the cash to spend, however — or if you’re trying to give the Oz fan in your life a thrill — this is one case where the folks who control the vaults have really done right by a film and the people who love it. Short of bringing Baum and the movie’s stars back to life so they can provide a new commentary track, I can’t imagine any way Warners will ever be able to surpass this edition. It’s the Oz to rule them all.

If you have any level of experience with the constant reissues (and reissues of reissues) that have flooded the home market over the last decade or so, it shouldn’t surprise you that quite a lot of the bonus material in this set has been ported over from the 2005 edition — and a lot of that was taken from earlier editions — but even if very little of what you’ll see here is truly new, there’s just so much of it that you can’t help but be impressed. If there’s anything you’ve ever wanted to know about how Oz was made, from the directors who paraded behind the cameras, to the actors who starred (or, in Buddy Ebsen’s case, almost starred), to the music, to the special effects…well, the answers to your questions are all here, along with a truly incredible collection of supplementary features. You get various and sundry pre-1939 Oz films, including The Patchwork Girl of Oz (1914) and the original silent adaptation of Wizard (1910). Heck, you even get the 1990 made-for-TV Baum biopic, The Dreamer of Oz, starring John Ritter as the author — plus a six-hour documentary about MGM itself!

In the end, there really isn’t much I can say about this movie that hasn’t already been said — and if you’re at all interested in The Wizard of Oz, you’ve probably already had your eye on this set (in fact, you probably already own it). If you’re on the fence at all, though, I can tell you that it’s worth every penny, especially if you’ve somehow escaped adding Oz to your collection until now. There’s no movie like it.