Tot TV Watch

This month I have been posting reviews of holiday TV on DVDs. I started renting and watching holiday DVDs in October to prepare for doing the posts on this blog. Now I have finally completed the task and below is the links to the 25 reviews in order of when I posted them. Some are not all that great, but a few are quite good. Most of them are at least worth watching, but quite a few are not worthwhile on DVD because you can easily catch them on television during the holidays and the DVD does not have much in terms of special features.

1. Wiggly Wiggle Christmas
2. Elmo Saves Christmas
3. Rugrats Holiday Celebration
4. Frosty the Snowman/Frosty Returns
5. My Friends Tigger & Pooh Super Sleuth Christmas Movie
6. Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas
7. Dora Saves the Snow Princess
8. Tom and Jerry Paws for a Holiday
9. Power Puff Girls - Twas the Fight Before Christmas
10. Cartoon Network Christmas - Yuletide Follies
11. Pikachu’s Winter Vacation
12. Scooby-Doo! Winter Wonder Dog
13. Samantha An American Girl Holiday
14. Winter Wonderland
15. Curious George Plays in the Snow
16. Thomas’ Snowy Surprise
17. Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer
18. The Backyardigans: The Snow Fort
19. A Charlie Brown Christmas
20. Winnie the Pooh Season of Giving
21. Dora’s Christmas
22. Magic School Bus Holiday Special
23. Miss Spider’s Hum Bug
24. Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town
25. The Year Without a Santa Claus

The Year Without a Santa Claus is one of the animated television classics. The particular DVD release of it that I rented has three animated classics on it with The Year Without a Santa Claus being the featured one. The other two are Rudolph’s Shiny New Year and Nestor The Long-Eared Christmas Donkey.

The Year Without a Santa Claus is about Santa Claus being sick with a cold and burnt out from all the delivering of presents every year. He also does not feel as loved as he used to be and it seems that a lot of kids do not even care that he canceled Christmas. Mrs. Claus sends two elves to a town in the South. The story unfolds eventually to involving the Heat and Frost Misers working out an agreement to allow it to snow one day in Southtown, so that the mayor will give Santa a holiday or something like that. Overall this is one of the best of the classics mostly because of the fun Miser brother songs.

Rudolph’s Shiny New Year is a New Year’s themed animated television special. In this one Rudolph goes in search of the next year’s New Year’s baby so that the new year can be rung in. It involves him visiting a lot of islands where old New Year’s babies live and the islands represent different years, such as the 1776 one celebrates the 4th of July every day.

Nestor The Long-Eared Christmas Donkey is one I have never seen before and had barely heard of. I never thought it was very interesting looking, but I actually watched it this time and I must say it is actually pretty good. It is kind of a Rudolph type story with Nestor being a misfit because of his long ears. It is much more about the true Christian meaning of Christmas, though, as it tells a lot of the nativity story, although it does twist it a little to make it seem like it was the donkey’s idea to have Mary stay in the stable.

Overall this is a good collection for one DVD. It does not have any special features, but I still think it is a worthwhile DVD for the holiday season.

Check out the other TV on DVD reviews I have blogged about here.

Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town is one of the classic holiday television specials. It is certainly worth watching during the Christmas season, although as a DVD it is not much different then just catching it on television. This special is basically the story of Santa Claus from a baby to giving toys to children in a toyless town and how that evolves into the modern idea of Santa Claus.

This particular DVD release is actually kind of odd. For one the Main Menu is the only menu and it even has chapter selections on it and it is not all that clear that the selections are refering to chapters, as a first glance I thought they were special features. The only actual special feature is a Mariah Carey Music Video of the Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town song. This animated music video is not too bad, which is really saying something because the ones on the Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer DVD are really bad in my opinion.

Overall this classic is like a must see for me every year, but I will stick to catching it on television. It is not really even renting.

Check out the other TV on DVD reviews I have blogged about here.

Miss Spider’s Sunny Patch: Hum Bug has six episodes of Miss Spider’s Sunny Patch. I must admit that before watching this DVD I had never seen the show, thus I cannot really say if this is a good selection of the show’s episodes or not, but I will say that the show was much better than I expected. I guess I was kind of biased towards it because not that long ago the Nintendo DS game based on the show disappointed me.

The DVD did disappoint me in that the holiday/winter theme is not very well kept, but the show overall impressed me. The episodes are “Hum Bug,” “Dashing Through the Snow,” “Top O’Big Tree,” “Seeing Straight,” “Spider Mom,” and “Best Bug Buddies.” Only “Hum Bug” and “Dashing Through the Snow” can be considered on theme. They are pretty interesting unique holiday themed episodes, though. I especially found it interesting to watch Hum Bug as it has an interesting aspect about the Dream Bug visiting on the Winter Solstice if you have done good deeds.

Overall this is an okay DVD release. The show is a pretty decent one. The actual worthiness of purchase of this DVD is pretty low, though. For one, it does not have that much content. Secondly it is not as winter/holiday themed as it appears. Thirdly, you can still pretty easily catch this on television. Lastly, there is no special features to add to the entertainment time value of this DVD.

Check out the other TV on DVD reviews I have blogged about here.

The Magic School Bus - Holiday Special has three episodes that are kind of loosely holiday themed. The first episode is called “In the Rainforest,” which is about the class adopting a cacao tree and visiting to check on it on Earth Day. The second episode is called “All Dried Up” about the class going to the desert and learning about how desert animals survive. The third episode is called “Holiday Special” and is about learning about the importance of recycling. This episode is mostly focused on the recycling aspect, but it does have some winter holiday aspects about The Nutcracker show and Arnold missing it to celebrate Hanukah. The episode also has some fun songs about recycling set to traditional holiday beats.

This DVD only has one special feature called Interactive Field Trip. It is not all that interactive with just two parts having you actually select something and the rest just being class reports and songs replaying from the episode. It is okay, but it just is not interactive. It is supposed to have some DVD-ROM extras, but using my Mac I could not notice any.

Overall this is an okay DVD. It is not all that much winter holiday themed, but you can easily argue two episodes are holiday themed with one being about Earth Day. The other episode, though, does not really fit the theme at all. The special feature is also kind of disappointing.

Check out the other TV on DVD reviews I have blogged about here.

Dora’s Christmas DVD has four episodes, however, only the first one is Christmas themed. Only two of the episodes are called bonus ones, but they might as well call all three of the non-Christmas ones bonus because they are off theme.

The Christmas themed episode is called “A Present for Santa.” In this episode Santa forgot to pick up the present Dora had for him and Dora set out to deliver it to him at the North Pole. This is a pretty good episode and an unique idea that Santa should get a Christmas present beyond just cookies.

The other episodes are “Rapido Tico” about Boots fire truck falling off teh mail truck and Dora and Boots trying to get it back before Swiper gets it, “Quack! Quack!” about Dora and Boots going into a coloring book story to help a newly hatched duck get back to his mommy, and “School Pet” about Dora and Boots rescuing, Nemo, the class pet.

This DVD has one special feature called Santa’s Super Scavenger Hunt. This is not that great of a special feature, though, because you just look for items in an image and point them out. It is not even interactive like some DVD games that have you use the remote to select and it give you confirmation that you got it right or wrong.

Overall this is a pretty disappointing Christmas/winter themed DVD. For one it only has one episode that relates to that theme. Secondly the special feature is not even that good.

Check out the other TV on DVD reviews I have blogged about here.

Winnie the Pooh - Seasons of Giving contains three classic Winnie the Pooh episodes. The episodes are enjoyable ones related to the holiday season from Thanksgiving to Christmas. They are connected with some new animation stuff, but these segments are not that good and kind of take away from the episodes being good on their own.

The first episode is about Rabbit thinking that it is groundhog day because the calendar says so. Piglet ends up serving as a groundhog and predicts that spring is coming, but the next day it snows. Everyone becomes upset with Piglet until Rabbit realizes it is still November. They then go to look for Piglet to forgive him.

The second episode is about them celebrating Thanksgiving in the Hundred Acre Woods. They are about to start their Thanksgiving feast when Rabbit arrives and says that it is all wrong because the traditional stuff like a turkey is missing. Things keep going wrong and they almost spend Thanksgiving apart forgetting the real meaning of the holiday.

The third part is about it being Christmas and getting a letter from Kessie. This leads to the episode about Rabbit saving Kessie, raising her, and Kessie flying South. The episode ends with the friends decorating a Christmas tree and Kessie coming for a visit.

Overall these are good holiday episodes of Winnie the Pooh. It is kind of choppy and it does mesh the episodes together that well, but it is an interesting attempt. It would have been better if they just released it as a compilation of three episodes, then try to make it one movie. Also, according to the DVD jacket their are special features, but there is no menu selection and even when I put it in a DVD-ROM nothing shows up as openable at least on a Mac.

Check out the other TV on DVD reviews I have blogged about here.

A Charlie Brown Christmas is among the classic Christmas specials. It seems to be an often overlooked one. By this I mean it seems that a lot of people who do not remember the early showings of this show do not know about it. The other Christmas classics seem to have continued to be reintroduced to new generations while this one seems to only be remembered by the first generation to see it even though it is still shown as a yearly special.

“A Charlie Brown Christmas” is a great Christmas special. For one it shows how the commercialism of Christmas has ruined the Christmas spirit and sadly that is still something that is seen today. It is also nice in that it does teach the real Christian meaning of Christmas.

This DVD release also has “It’s Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown.” This special is not quite as good as the other special. The scenes include Lucy preparing for the Christmas play and Charlie Brown trying to selling Christmas wreaths before Thanksgiving. I noticed there is a new DVD edition that came out this year. I am not sure if this edition also has this special.

Overall these are enjoyable Christmas specials, however, they can still usually be found on television during the holiday season and the DVD has no special features to make it worth recommending as one to purchase.

Check out the other TV on DVD reviews I have blogged about here.

The Backyardigans - The Snow Fort has two snow/winter themed episodes and two other episodes. It is a good winter time Backyardigans DVD for fans of the show, although it is not exactly holiday themed.

The two snow themed episodes are “The Snow Fort” and “The Yeti.” In “The Snow Fort” Pablo and Tyrone pretend to be Mounties protecting a giant snowball while Tasha and Uniqua pretend to be ski patrol rescuers. In “The Yeti” Pablo pretends to be a Yeti and Uniqua, Tyrone, and Tasha follow the Yeti sound to find the Yeti/Pablo.

The other two episodes are “Knights are Brave and Strong” and “Secret Mission.” In “Knights are Brave and Strong” Uniqua tries to become a knight by delivering a message from Queen Tasha to King Austin. This is one episode that annoys me because there is a song about the queen never being wrong. I just do not like how it implies that someone can be perfect. In “Secret Mission” Pablo, Tyrone, and Uniqua pretend to be secret agents.

Overall this is an okay DVD release, although it has one of the worst Backyardigans episoes. It does have two good winter themed episode, though. The special features include only two music videos of songs from the two winter episodes.

Check out the other TV on DVD reviews I have blogged about here.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is a Christmas television classic. It first aired in 1964 and can still be found on television at least once during the holiday season (ABC Family will probably show it several times this year as part of their 25 Days of Christmas). Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer is basically about Rudolph and an elf that wants to be a dentist leaving the North Pole because they do not fit in. In the end, of course, they go back and Rudolph ends up saving Christmas by leading the sleigh with his bright nose.

This DVD has some decent Special Features. This includes a Destiny’s Child Video of “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer,” which is kind of an annoying version as it is slow and almost rappish. There is also a Regis Philbin version. This version is kind of better. It at least starts out more like the classic, but the end is really bad bringing in Donald Trump as Santa and repeating the phrase “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer” like a bazillion times. Another special feature is Rudolph Trivia Game, which is actually somewhat challenging. There is also the “Fame and Fortune” Song, which appears in the 1965 version as replacing the Couple of Misfits song. Lastly there is the Original TV Promo, which is pretty interesting. In particular interesting is that it is part of the era that it still is appropriate to mention that it is in color.

Overall this DVD is a good release. Sure you can catch it on television every year, but the added special features make it worthwhile.

Check out the other TV on DVD reviews I have blogged about here.

Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends - Snowy Surprise contains winter/snow themed episodes of Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends. It includes six episodes. It also has some special features.

In the “It’s Only Snow” episode Thomas tries to deliver a Christmas tree, but his snow plow breaks and the snow keeps getting deeper. In the “Jack Frost” episode James and Percy make extra coal runs and learn about what scary Jack Frost means. In the “Toby Had a Little Lamb” episode snow causes lambs to be trapped and Toby is the only one that can help. In the “Snow” episode Thomas and Rusty being trapped in a tunnel and Thomas tells a story about Skarloey and an avalanche. In the “Thomas’ Christmas Party” episode Thomas having a Christmas party for Mrs Kyndley. In the “Thomas and the Missing Christmas Tree” episode Thomas gets stuck under a snow drift on his way back from getting a Christmas tree.

This DVDs special features include a Winter Wonderland Sing Along and some DVD games. One game is Percy’s Order Fun in which you put holiday scenes in order, for example the order of steps in decorating the shed. Another is Match the Snowflake in which you choose the snowflake that matches the one falling in front of Thomas. There is also Decorate a Christmas Tree in which you choose the correct answer to questions about Christmas tree decor, such as what item will help light up the Christmas tree. The last special feature is Sodor Special Deliveries in which you read holiday letters from the Thomas & Friends characters.

Overall this is a pretty good winter/holiday themed DVD. It has a good amount of episodes and special features to make the DVD worthwhile.

Check out the other TV on DVD reviews I have blogged about here.

Curious George: Plays in the Snow and Other Awesome Activities contains some winter/snow themed episodes of Curious George. In total this collection has 8 episodes of the show.

In “Ski Monkey” Curious George learns about spreading weight out to keep from sinking too far into the snow by using things like sleds and snowshoes. In “Curious George’s Low High Score” he learns about low scores being good in some games like golf, but high scores being good in other games like basketball. In “Charkie Escapes” Curious George deals with taking care of a dog that likes to escape. In “Curious George vs. Winter” Curious George deals with not being able to do summer time things and learns about some fun winter time things to do including making an ice bowling set. In “Buoy Wonder” Curious George tries to make a boat that floats after discovering that Bill’s sinks. In “All-Animal Recycled Band” Curious George makes a band using recycled items. In “Muddy Monkey” Curious George will not take a bath until he finds his favorite bath toy. In “Animal Magnetism” Curious George learns about magnets as he tries to find a way to put his art on the fridge.

This DVD has a few Bonus Materials. It includes Monkey Snow Job in which you help George pick items that will help him stand on the snow, Monkey Bubbles in which you count how many bubbles George’s bath toy ribbits out, and printable coloring pages as a DVD-ROM feature.

Overall this is an okay DVD release for fans of the show. The winter/snow theme is kind of minimal, but at least the DVD does have a good amount of episodes and a few special features.

Check out the other TV on DVD reviews I have blogged about here.

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 Mountain Standard Time as given by TV Guide for my local DirectTV listings, but may vary depending on your location, especially when the shows are on local stations like PBS.

Thursday, December 18, 2008

7pm on Cartoon Network - Total Drama, Drama, Drama, Drama Island: This new episode is called of Total Drama Island is a reunion of the campers for a new challenge.

Saturday, December 20, 2008

7am on Cartoon Network - Pokemon: Diamond & Pearl Battle Dimensions: This new episode is called “Arriving in Style.”

9am on Cartoon Network - Bakugan Battle Brawlers: This new episode is called “The Race to Vestroia.”

10:30am on ABC - Power Rangers Jungle Fury: This new episode is called “The Spirit of Kindness.”

11am on Nicktoons - Mr. Meaty: This new episode is called “Nightmare on Josh Street/Lord of the Geeks.”

11:30am on Nicktoons - Random! Cartoons: This new episode is called “Call Me Bessie!/Teapot/Hornswiggle.”

Sunday, December 21, 2008

7pm on Nickelodeon - Nick News with Linda Ellerbee: This new episode is called “America’s Forgotten Children: Rural Poor.”

Winter Wonderland is a collection of PBS shows with winter/snowy themes. It includes episodes of Barney, Bob the Builder, Thomas & Friends, Fireman Sam, Kipper, and Pingu.

The Barney episode is called “Winter.” In this episode Baby Bop waits for the first snowfall. As she waits she learns about fun things to do in the winter time.

The Bob the Builder episode is called “Bob of the North.” In this episode Bob the Builder tries to avoid learning to ski, but by the end he discovers the fun of skiing.

The Thomas & Friends episode is called “Keeping Up with James.” In this episode James and Edward want to pull the train of presents. The one who finishes the days work first gets to pull the train of presents.

The Fireman Sam episode is called “Let it Snow.” In this episode Fireman Sam ends up having to rescue the one man brave enough to try and get a tree for the city.

The Kipper episode is called “Snowy Dog.” In this episode Kipper and Tiger play in the snow.

The Pingu episode is called “Pinga’s Balloon.”

Overall this is a good collection of episodes. It, however, has no special features and some of the shows are not that liked by kids.

Check out the other TV on DVD reviews I have blogged about here.

Samantha - An American Girl Holiday first aired on the WB (now the CW) several years ago. This movie is based on the character of Samantha, who is one of the American Girls. It is set in Victorian America times. A lot of the movie actually takes place in other times of the year up until near the end where it is about celebrating Christmas. In this movie Samantha is a well off girl living with her grandmother. She becomes friends with three girls who work for the neighbors. She ends up moving to New York and living with her uncle and eventually the three girls end up in an orphanage in New York. By the end they reunite and become a family. Overall this is an interesting historically placed plot.

This DVD has a few special features. One is an “American Girl Place A Tour Experience,” which gives a tour of the American Girl Place store in New York. Another is “Mount Bedford News: A Victorian Wedding” which talks about weddings in the Victorian era. The final special feature is “Imagine Performance, ” which is a musical performance about imagining to be different American Girl characters that is done at the American Girl Place.

Overall this is a great DVD release. For one the movie is a really good one. Secondly, I have not seen it replayed on television for a while, so it is a good one to catch on DVD. Plus, the special features are pretty interesting.

Check out the other TV on DVD reviews I have blogged about here.