Laugh And Learn
By Cliff Annicelli -- Playthings, 8/1/2008
This month's notable children's audio and video releases run the gamut from cry in your Kool-Aid country songs and traditional Dixieland jazz with a kid-centric twist to new home videos designed to deliver on all sorts of promises, from learning new languages and playing the piano to greater self-confidence and realizing the power of cooperation. For good measure, there's also a title that serves up simple summer fun, with help from several of preschool television's favorite faces.
Grammy nominee Zak Morgan returns to store shelves with his first foray into video, Zakland: The Shiny Surprise ($14.98). The DVD, distributed by Los Angeles-based PorchLight Home Entertainment, introduces viewers to a world filled with music and imagination—helped by both live-action and animated sequences—“where anything is possible if you try and hard and believe in yourself.” Its story amplifies that message as Zakland's stars cooperate to save the day after someone eats King Shiny's birthday surprise.
New Orleans singer-songwriter and children's musician Johnette Downing recently debuted a four-years-in-the-making project created to introduce kids to authentic Dixieland jazz. Dixieland Jazz for Children ($15) from Wiggle Worm Records, New Orleans, features 19 original songs—with names like “I've Got Happy Feet,” “Alligator Snap,” and “It's Time For Mardi Gras”—created in partnership with Jimmy LaRocca, long-time leader of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, for what may be the first traditional Dixieland jazz CD created specifically for the children's ears.
Having hit a chord with its previous releases, eMedia Music, Seattle, expands its My Music series of children's learn-to-play instructional CD-ROMs with My Piano ($29.95), for ages 6 and up. It features large-screen video demonstrations that guide kids through the material, interactive games and quizzes to help teach notation and other basic musical concepts, and song looping to allow repeated song sections, among other tools. An animated character, Pam the Piano, acts as a guide to the release's lessons, which were developed by a former Julliard School of Music instructor.
One of several new releases from Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment featuring HIT Entertainment's preschool television stars, HIT Favorites Summertime Fun! ($14.98) contains five light-hearted adventures starring Barney, Bob the Builder, Angelina Ballerina, Thomas the Tank Engine and Fireman Sam.
The world of child-themed country music recently expanded with the sophomore release from The BummKinn Band, Rockin' the YeeHaw ($13.99), from Bumms the World Productions, Los Angeles. The CD gives traditional country music conerns a child-centric twist on songs like “You Broke My Heart on the Swingset” and “Woke Up on the Wrong Side of the Bed.”
New York's Little Pim Co. now offers its language immersion DVDs for babies, toddlers and preschoolers in a three-disc set, The Little Pim Three Pak ($57.90). Each 35-minute title imparts lessons in a new language by focusing on themes young children can most relate to: eating and drinking, waking up, and playtime.
Genius Products, Santa Monica, Calif., invites pint-sized paleontologists to learn about dinosaurs in a direct-to-DVD title, Sesame Street: Dinosaurs ($14.93), with help from several of the most popular Sesame Street characters.
