Toon Zone Talkback - The Secret of Relativity: "Baby Einstein" Is Only for the Very Young

[Maxie Zeus]

This is the talkback thread for The Secret of Relativity: "Baby Einstein" Is Only for the Very Young (http://news.toonzone.net/article.php?ID=20015).

It's two reviews for the price of one!

http://news.toonzone.net/images/2007-09/einstein/splash-babyeinstein-lg.jpg

James swore vengeance on me after I made him watch and review "Discovering Shapes" for us.

[DrTooth]

A) When are you guys going to review something good? Seems like the only positive review I've seen all week was for Backyardigans (which I personally detest), and the rest seem like slamming bad shows for the sake of slamming them. While I will say that is a service, I'd love to see a take on something like the new Cureous George series, or something similar.

B) I wish the review would have gotten more into the disputed benifits of these videos, and how they've been widely denounced by Pediatricians. I side on them. This can no way replace parent/ child contact, which is a basic need for child developement. Even watching these with your child isn't half as good as tossing a few soft toys at your kid.

C) I do like, however, the fact that someone else finds the puppets they use uninspired socks. I would have gone with oven mit, but that's just me. As a fan of the Muppets and other more complex forms of puppetry, I find stuff like this appauling. Even amature puppeteers have better stuff than these guys. I mean... really.

[Maxie Zeus]

A) When are you guys going to review something good? Seems like the only positive review I've seen all week was for Backyardigans (which I personally detest), and the rest seem like slamming bad shows for the sake of slamming them. While I will say that is a service, I'd love to see a take on something like the new Cureous George series, or something similar.

Over the last few months distributors have sent us a clutch of DVDs for various preschool shows. This week we've been shoving those reviews out the door. Tomorrow will bring the last in the series.

Our reviewers call the series as they see them. If the week's reviews have been unrelentingly negative, well, that says something about the product the distributors gave us to look at. Tomorrow's review, for what it's worth, will be a mildly but not enthusiastically positive review of Little Einsteins: Rocket's Firebird Rescue, so the final score on this week's reviews will be 2-5 positive rather than 0-7.

After that it will be back to normal. The lineup starting Saturday will include reviews of "Avatar: Day of the Black Sun," "The Jungle Book," "Shrek the Third," and "Ghost in the Shell SAC: The Laughing Man."

[DrTooth]

Our reviewers call the series as they see them. If the week's reviews have been unrelentingly negative, well, that says something about the product the distributors gave us to look at. Tomorrow's review, for what it's worth, will be a mildly but not enthusiastically positive review of Little Einsteins: Rocket's Firebird Rescue, so the final score on this week's reviews will be 2-5 positive rather than 0-7.

Ah... gotcha. Well, considering that some of these were pretty negative also speaks for the state of Preschool Television. Too bad the distributors didn't send you a Curious George or something. That's pretty much the best new preschool show I've seen in some time. I'd love to see a review of that sometime.

[limel]

Ahh, Baby Einsteins. My cousin, a couple years ago[He was about two], LOVED these. Whenever we needed him to just calm down, we would just pop this in and he would just be mesmerized by the soothing images and the seemingly-mindless dialogue.

As for my take on it: It was... interesting. Not something I would sit down and watch myself, but interesting enough to keep me from falling asleep when watching with him.

And am I the only one who feels like this is just some home videos of a lonely kindergarten teacher's summer or something? Most-- scratch that, all-- of the items can be found around the average baby owner's house. Interesting how these videos became famous.

[James]

A) When are you guys going to review something good? Seems like the only positive review I've seen all week was for Backyardigans (which I personally detest), and the rest seem like slamming bad shows for the sake of slamming them. While I will say that is a service, I'd love to see a take on something like the new Cureous George series, or something similar.

To be fair, we can only judge what we get to review, and personally, I try to find the good as well as the bad, and I think there is some potential good in there - I just think there are many issues with the DVD blueprint itself which lets them down..

Certainly the Lullabies relaxing nature feature was something I could happily chill to. Not sure if babies would love it, but I enjoyed the visuals and sounds for that part. Goo Goo.


B) I wish the review would have gotten more into the disputed benifits of these videos, and how they've been widely denounced by Pediatricians. I side on them. This can no way replace parent/ child contact, which is a basic need for child developement. Even watching these with your child isn't half as good as tossing a few soft toys at your kid.

Really, given I'm not a pediatrician, nor am I anyone who works on the DVDs, I think it would be grossly unethical to really use this as a platform for any of the dispute that looms over Baby Einstein's benefits. The point was raised that there is dispute as to their educational strengths, and I think its up to the consumer to make up their minds on that - I don't think we should be commenting on the specifics there.


C) I do like, however, the fact that someone else finds the puppets they use uninspired socks. I would have gone with oven mit, but that's just me. As a fan of the Muppets and other more complex forms of puppetry, I find stuff like this appauling. Even amature puppeteers have better stuff than these guys. I mean... really.

I must admit, I was surprised at how basic these puppets were. Maybe this was part of their study; that simple, easy emulated puppets somehow worked better for this very young age group. They aren't scary, they aren't dominating in their presence. Again, I have no idea myself. But certainly to my adult brain they weren't visually mind-blowing, but then nothing in these DVDs is, which makes me suspect that's intentional rather than a budgetary cut.