Bear in the Big Blue House: Dance Party (1997)
Review by HTQ4
Film:
DVD:

Written by Pippen Parker, P. Kevin Strader, Claudia Silver, and Mitchell Kriegman
Directed by Hugh Martin and Mitchell Kreigman
Starring Noel MacNeal, Peter Linz, Vicki Kenderes-Eibner, Jim Kroupa, and Tyler Bunch

Features:

• Four sing-alongs
  

My Advice: If you've got kids, it's a must own

There are three episodes on this DVD and all of them deal with music or dancing. "Music to My Ears" takes us into the house on a day where Ojo, the bear cub, has put an orchestra together with everybody else in the house. Bear takes up his kazoo and joins the fun. In "Dance Fever," Treelo contracts this ailment and we wind up dancing through the house all day long. Finally, in "I For-Got Rhythm?," Bear has forgotten how to do the Bear Cha-Cha-Cha and we have to help him remember it.

This has to be one of the best children's shows to come along since Sesame Street. Granted it's geared toward a slightly younger audience than Sesame Street, but that doesn't detract from its power. As an adult, I watch these episodes and I wonder how they get Bear to move around his house so effortlessly. I know that it takes months and months of rehearsals, but the muppeteers are simply second to none. Bear is not one of the typical "hands below the frame of the camera" type muppets, he is a full-sized muppet (kinda like Big Bird). Anyway, the stories and the writing are all very clever. My daughter has watched these several hundred times already and, honestly, I hever get tired of watching them with her. I think that's the true beauty of what Henson created. His target was always to educate the children, but he never lost sight of the fact that adults have to watch these shows with them--and even as the Henson Company has changed hands, this show, at least, has been able to retain that.

If you have an older child, the sing-alongs are great. They are entertaining and the songs are well written enough to make you want to join in the fun with your little one as well. However, I have to say that the absolutely best part of this DVD is the "Play All Continuously" feature. What this does is simply repeat all three episodes over and over and over until you stop it. This means that you never have to stop what you are doing to restart or rewind (thank you, ye gods of the DVD) it for your kids. The only reason that I'm giving the DVD a cup less than perfection is the lack of more special features. At the very least, they could have put more sing-alongs or some more games on there to really juice it up.

This one simply must be on your shelf if you have little kids or, at the very least, are a kid at heart.