Tot TV Watch

Here is this week’s edition of new releases of DVDs that feature kids shows. Some are previously seen episodes from television while others are straight to DVD episodes or movies based on kids TV shows.

Sesame Street: Elmo’s World - Summer Vacation: This is a great summertime release for preschoolers. In this DVD Elmo and is pet fish, Dorothy, explore the topics of the beach, skin, and cameras. It also includes all new songs. Run time is about 50 minutes for the main feature on this DVD. I am not sure if or what special features are on this DVD or if the new songs are part of the main feature or special features.

Tak and the Power of Juju: Trouble with Magic: Tak and the Power of Juju makes its DVD debut with this DVD release today. This animated Nickelodeon show is based on the video game of the same name. It is an interesting show, especially for those that have played the game. The plots may not be the best, but the CGI animation is awesome. This DVD contains 8 half-episodes (each regular episode that shows on Nickelodeon is made up of 2 plots, which I am referring to as half-episodes). Again I do not know about what special features this DVD has, but considering this is Nickelodeon I would not expect anything good, as from my experience they have not mastered making good special features, yet. At least they cannot be off theme with the title they chose for this release because basically Tak is always facing problems with magic.

Mickey Mouse Clubhouse is a fun Playhouse Disney show with improved animation featuring classic Disney characters including Mickey, Minnie, Pluto, Goofy, Donald, and Daisy. This is an interactive show that encourages preschool viewers to help accomplish the tasks necessary to complete the episodes goal. Along the way different preschool aged concepts are taught including shapes and numbers. It is one of those more subtle educational shows and more entertaining for kids because of the surrounding plot, which often also includes funny moments, especially when Goofy is involved.

In the episode Mickey starts by inviting the viewers to his clubhouse, which you help him summon with the magic words “Meeska Mooska Mickey Mouse.” Shortly thereafter the episodes activity and/or problem is introduced and Mickey Mouse gets four Mousekatools, which are held by an robot backpack called Toodles. These Mousekatools include 3 known items and a mystery Mousekatool that will prove to be just what is needed in one circumstance later in the episode. Whenever a Mousekatool is needed Mickey encourages viewers to use logic and help choose which tool will help in the given situation.

Overall this is a fun preschool show because of the entertaining plots. Plus, it has the benefit of being at least slightly educational. Oh, and it is such an eye appealing animated show, especially in comparison to the old Mickey Mouse cartoons, which have an old charm that unfortunately most kids these days do not appreciate.

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Tomorrow, June 21, 2008, the new animated short called Can You Teach My Alligator Manners? premieres as part of the Playhouse Disney line up. This new show is about a kid named Mikey and his pet alligator named Al. In this short viewers are encouraged to help Mikey in teaching his alligator how to properly behave, i.e. teach him manners. This first episode is about teaching Al how to play nicely at the playground, which includes the concepts of taking turns and asking nicely to use toys.

Also, starting tomorrow is Playhouse Disney’s Super Duper Summer Saturdays. This is what they are calling the summer Saturday line ups, which will be including new episodes of the Playhouse Disney shows Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Little Einsteins, Bunnytown, and Charlie and Lola. Tomorrow’s line up includes new outdoor themed episodes of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Bunnytown, and Little Einsteins.

Continue reading for more detailed line up for tomorrow morning on Playhouse Disney.

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I have heard the newest Disney Channel Original Movie, Camp Rock, referred to as the next High School Musical and it really does sound like a similar kind of movie. Camp Rock premieres on the Disney Channel at 8pm Eastern time/7pm Central time.

The movie is about aspiring singer at a music themed summer camp. The cast includes the Jonas Brothers and Demi Lovato. The movie is mostly about Mitchie Torres (played by Demi Lovato) wanting to make it as a singer. This includes going to a prestigious rock camp, where she has to be cook in order to attend. Her singing is overheard by a teen pop star, who is teaching at the camp. The one that discovers her is Shane Gray played by Joe Jonas. He is at the camp with the other two members of his band (played by Nick and Kevin Jonas) called Connect Three.

It is a Disney movie, so I think it will be at least worth catching once, however, I must say it is getting a little boring with all this music themed movies. It sounds a lot like High School Musical with a new cast and they are even already in pre-production for a sequal. Not to mention another Cheetah Girls Disney Channel Movie is coming in August and High School Musical 3 will hit theaters in October. At least it looks like 2009 it looks like there will be mostly non-music themed Disney Channel Original Movies for the less musically inclined like myself.

Welcome to this week’s edition of Beyond Watching the Show, where I give some ideas of activities for kids that enjoy a particular show that go beyond just watching the show. If you have more ideas of activities for this show please comment and share your ideas. Also, please comment here if you have a request of a show to feature in an upcoming edition of Beyond Watching the Show.

This week’s show is 3, 2, 1 Penguins!

3, 2, 1 Penguins! Printables: Big Idea’s fun website contains a few great printables. This includes coloring pages of Fidgel, Zidgel, Midgel, Kevin, the rocket, and Michelle and Jason. They also have printable connect-the-dot pages of the penguins (Fidgel, Midgel, Zidgel, and Kevin). They even have a sheet that you can print out that contains finger puppets of the main characters (the penguins and the two human kids) to cut out and use. I can just imagine how fun it could be for the kids to use them to act out their favorite 3, 2, 1 Penguins! scenes or episodes or even make up their own plots using the characters.

3, 2, 1 Penguins! Online Games: The Big Idea website also has some games based on the show. The arcade section contains about 5 different games including Jelly Jammers in which you help Michelle make sandwiches which in turn is to help Grandmum out.

General Penguin Coloring Pages and Crafts: This is one of my old blogs with lists to links of different coloring and crafts that are penguin themed. Includes links to general penguin coloring pages and crafts. With some creativity the kids could easily turn some of the regular penguin coloring pages and crafts into 3, 2, 1 Penguins! characters just be adding the spacesuits.

The Berenstain Bears - Fun Lessons to Learn contains 6 episodes of the show based on the famous book series that has entertained generations of kids and helped many learn to read. The show is fun if for kid that like the books, however, they are not quite as good as reading the books.

The first episode is called “Trouble at School,” which is about Brother learning about effectively managing time and making up his schoolwork after missing important math lessons while sick.

The second episode is called “Go To School.” In this episode Sister confronts her fear of starting the third grade.

The third episode is called “The Homework Haste.” This episode involves a similar issue of falling behind in schoolwork as is shown in the first episode on this DVD, however, this time Brother falls behind because he does not manage his time properly and get around to doing his school work.

The fourth episode is called “Lend a Helping Hand.” Brother and Sister learn to help others and discover that it can be an enjoyable thing to help others.

The fifth episode is called “Too Much Pressure.” I think this is an episode many families these days can relate to with getting their schedules overwhelmingly booked. The Bear family tries to minimize their activities in order to reduce their stress and be able to truly enjoy the things they do keep doing.

The sixth episode is called “The Trouble with Pets.” In this episode Brother and Sister learn about caring for a pet when they get a puppy.

Here is this week’s edition of new releases of DVDs that feature kids shows. Some are previously seen episodes from television while others are straight to DVD episodes or movies based on kids TV shows.

The Naked Brothers Band: Polar Bears: This DVD contains the TV almost movie length episode “Polar Bears” in the Naked Brothers Band series of TV shows. Overall I think this is a pretty poor TV show, but this is one of the better episodes because it portrays Alex taking a stand to fight global warming, although not sure it is that great of a way to teach kids about protecting the earth we live on, however, it does get fans of this show’s to at least minimally think about the issue of global warming.

Sonic Underground, Vol. 2: Now this is an exciting DVD release this week, at least in my opinion. For one, Sonic is a fun animated show for kids that are into the Sonic the Hedgehog video game series. Also, this DVD release contains 4 discs and over 400 minutes of play, so it offers a good amount of entertainment time, which could come in handy during the summer, especially on a rainy summer day. Nice thing about this series is that many kids have not seen the episodes before since it no longer airs on television.

The Suite Life of Zack and Cody: Lip Synchin’ in the Rain: This is another DVD release of a show I think is good. It contains four episodes of The Suite Life of Zach & Cody, including the “Lip Synchin’ in the Rain” episode about their school putting on its own High School Musical production. It also sounds like it will have some great special features including trivia and a gag reel of never before seen outtakes.

Dora the Explorer is one of the best preschool shows on television right now, although, I personally do favor the spin-off Go, Diego, Go! slightly more than this show. The thing Dora the Explorer does great is that it is an engaging show that gets kids to interact with it and often even get up and move while also teaching preschool concepts, such as counting and basic Spanish phrases.

The main characters of the show are a Latino girl named Dora and her monkey friend named Boots. Other major characters are the anthropomorphic Map and Backpack. In each episode Dora and Boots go on some sort of adventure that usually involves three Map directions to get to a specific place to accomplish the episodes mission. Along the way Dora encourages viewers to help them problem solve to get to have a successful adventure. At the end of the episode Dora always asks and appears to listen to viewers answer about what their favorite thing about the episode’s adventure was.

Overall this is an enjoyable show for preschoolers, although, it may be slightly more liked by girls with the main character being a girl, but with the adventure aspect it kind of becomes a show both genders can equally enjoy. It is not quite as educational as Go, Diego, Go!, however, in regards to the Spanish phrases taught it does more frequently introduce Spanish words and phrases. It also tends to teach a larger variety of concepts instead of being mostly limited to animal knowledge like Go, Diego, Go! is.

Welcome to this week’s edition’s list of kid’s television shows that have new episodes airing this week. I try to make this as complete as possible, but I may sometimes miss something. Please comment and let me know if I forgot to include something that has a new episode airing this week. All times are listed as Eastern time as given by TV Guide, but may vary depending on your location, especially when the shows are on local stations like PBS.

Monday, June 16

9:30am on Cartoon Network - Skunk Fu!: This new episode is called “The Art of the Nose Blow/The Art of the Crush.”

Tuesday, June 17

9:30am on Cartoon Network - Skunk Fu!: This new episode is called “The Art of Small Victories/The Art of Influence.”

8pm on Noggin - Instant Star: This new episode is called “We Belong.”

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I really thought I had a review of Go, Diego, Go! on the blog already, but I just realized I actually do not. I just cannot believe it took me this long to realize considering this is one of the best kids shows currently on the air in my opinion.

Go, Diego, Go! is one part of the regular Nick Jr. line up and is a spin-off from Dora the Explorer, which I now notice also is in need of a review on the blog and that will be remedied soon. The main character of Go, Diego, Go! is of course Diego, who was introduced as Dora’s cousin in the Dora the Explorer series. Diego is an animal rescuer. He usually goes on adventures with Baby Jaguar as his companion/helper. His older sister, Alicia, also helps with the animal rescues, although, she tends to play a minor role.

Early in each episode Diego finds out that there is an animal in trouble and uses Click the camera to find where the animal in trouble is located. As he helps animals in trouble he teaches some Spanish phrases, although not as much as in the Dora the Explorer series. Also, he teaches viewers about the main animal being rescued. At the end of the show Diego and Alicia add a photo of the animal to their scrapbook and as they do that they ask questions about things learned in the episode.

Overall this is a fun adventurous show for preschool aged kids. It is great how it teaches them about animals and is also an interesting interactive show.

The Suite Life of Zack & Cody is one of my favorite Disney Channel shows, so I tried this video game soon after it came out. It turned out to be a big disappointment to the point that I did not even try the next DS game they released called Circle of Spies, although, perhaps they improved the game and fixed the cons at least to some extent.

The game has a few good aspects. For one, it decently recreates the characters and scenes from the show in that it has pretty good realistic graphics as far as a Nintendo DS game goes. Also, it has some good sounds, especially with the realistic character voices.

The cons, however, outweigh the good a lot. The major thing is that the controls are confusing and hard to learn. Also, there tends to be a lack of instruction on how to get through the levels leaving you confused and sometimes meaning you have to start the level over because you get a twin stuck behind. It is a nice challenging game for more experienced gamers, however, I am sure most interested in this game are kids that are not all that experienced with platform DS games. Some kids may be able to figure out the controls and then end up enjoying it, however, it is not worthwhile for most. If your kid is a diehard fan of the show, then rent it first before buying it because I think even most of the diehard fans will not want to put up with the frustrating controls.

Welcome to this week’s edition of Beyond Watching the Show, where I give some ideas of activities for kids that enjoy a particular show that go beyond just watching the show. If you have more ideas of activities for this show please comment and share your ideas. Also, please comment here if you have a request of a show to feature in an upcoming edition of Beyond Watching the Show.

This week’s show is Dragon Tales.

Dragon Tales Character Toilet Paper Crafts: The toilet paper roll characters are usually a fun craft and they can be used to put on a puppet show afterwards. The DLTK site has printable templates for Cassie, Emmy, Ord, and Zak & Wheezie. On the party idea part of the site they even suggest lining some of these Dragon Tales toilet paper roll characters up and playing a game of toilet paper roll bowling.

Dragon Tales Coloring Pages: DLTK also has a variety of Dragon Tales coloring pages including characters and Dragon badges. The PBS Kids site also has some Dragon Tales coloring pages here and here.

Dragon Tales Online Activities: The PBS Kids site for Dragon Tales has some entertaining things for kids to do. This includes Connect the Dots, a Sentence Magic game that teaches about making sentances in English and Spanish, Seek and Find with Ord, and Zak and Wheezie’s Music Machine. Also, on the site in the Singing Springs you can listen to some of the different Dragon Tunes that play in the middle of episodes.

Inspector Gadget – Gadget Files is a nice collection of Inspector Gadget episodes. It contains a total of five episodes. This is a fun way for a new generation of kids to enjoy this wacky inspector’s adventures. It is a kind of funny show with him rarely being the real hero, although, circumstances make him appear to be the hero, but it really is by accident and often it is his niece and dog that are the silent heroes.

The first episode is called “Winter Olympics.� In this episode Inspector Gadget is on vacation at the Winter Olympics and ends up having to stop Dr. Claw from ruining the Olympic Games.

The second episode is called “Monster Lake.� In this episode Inspector Gadget sets out to prove that the Loch Ness monster does note exist as he is on a mission to protect and them save a famous professor.

The third episode is called “Down on the Farm.� In this episode Inspector Gadget ends up in the countryside and on a farm to stop Dr. Claw from using a missile he stole.

The fourth episode is called “Gadget at the Circus.� Inspector Gadget takes on a variety of circus jobs as Dr. Claw tries to bring his demise, however, the Inspector finds a way to avoid danger mostly by accident.

The fifth episode is called “The Amazon.� In this episode Inspector Gadget’s must save the professor that invented his gadgets and stop Dr. Claw’s plan of having a gadget army, but first he has to save himself from an Amazon ritual that is actually Dr. Claw’s plan to ruin Gadget.

Overall this is a fun series of action filled episodes, although the DVD extras are kind of limited. The extras, though, do include a short interview with the creator and the Public Service Announcements about safety related issues in each episode shown.

3, 2, 1 Penguins! is made by Big Idea, who also makes the VeggieTales series. It originally began in 2001 with DVD releases of the episodes like the VeggieTales series. Unlike the VeggieTales series, which is basically the DVD stories on TV, this series has developed into a TV series in its own right with new episodes airing on TV before DVD releases. 3, 2, 1 Penguins! currently airs on Fridays on ION and Saturdays on NBC as part of qubo. The episodes are always the same on Fridays on ION and Saturdays on NBC.

The main characters of the show are Jason and Michelle, two human kids that are twins. The show usually begins with them at home and their Grandmum trying to teach them a Christian value related to the situation going on through the use of a Biblical quote. Usually Jason does not take the quote to heart and as they are zapped into a spaceship toy and go on an adventure to help the penguins that run the space ship the lesson the quote is teaching is learned the hard way. The penguin space crew is made up of Captain Zidgel, Engineer Midgel, Doctor Fidgel, and Kevin.

The show definitely has a Christian values aspect to it just like VeggieTales, although it is slightly less obvious. Each episode does teach about a certain value and has a Biblical quote related to it, which is usually told by Grandmum. It is obvious enough that if you are not raising your kids Christian you may not want them watching it, however, it is mostly about values that kids of all beliefs should learn and are not specifically about Christian beliefs.

Welcome to this week’s edition’s list of kid’s television shows that have new episodes airing this week. I try to make this as complete as possible, but I may sometimes miss something. Please comment and let me know if I forgot to include something that has a new episode airing this week. All times are listed as Eastern time as given by TV Guide, but may vary depending on your location, especially when the shows are on local stations like PBS.

Monday, June 9

9am on Nickelodeon - The Backyardigans: This new episode is called “Pirate Camp.”

10am on Discovery Kids - Hip Hop Harry: This new episode is called “Hip Hop Big Top.”

11:30am on Discovery Kids - Toddworld: This new episode is called “Moving/Triple Treat Treasure Race.”

5pm on Disney Channel - The Replacements: This new episode is called “Phone-less in Pleasant Hills.”

Tuesday, June 10

10am on Discovery Kids - Hip Hop Harry: This new episode is called “You Can Dance.”

11:30am on Discovery Kids - Toddworld: This new episode is called “Super Sophie/Hair We Go.”

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