"¡Feliz Navidad!"
As a special holiday treat this year, the folks at Nick Jr., with help from Paramount, have taken special holiday episodes of some of their most popular shows, and put them together onto one holiday-themed DVD. Join Blue & Steve, Dora & Boots, Little Bill and his family, and even the entire Rugrats gang for a snow-filled romp through the season of good cheer!
The DVD: "Nick Jr. Holiday" There are four holiday-themed episodes collected onto this DVD, all featuring some of the strongest cartoons from the Nick Jr. lineup of shows:
Blue's Clues: "Blue's Big Holiday" (0:24) – Blue & Steve explore the holidays of the season (Christmas, Chanukah, & Kwanzaa) as they look for memories to add to their memory quilt. Look for a familiar face or two as guests.
Dora the Explorer: "A Present For Santa" (0:24) – Dora & Boots journey to the North Pole to give Santa his present!
Little Bill: "Merry Christmas, Little Bill" (0:24) – Bill's Great Grandma Alice is stuck in Cincinnati due to the weather...will she get home in time for Christmas?
Rugrats: "Babies In Toyland" (0:44) – When the adults take the kids to Mega-Corp's special Christmas Park, Angelica tries to hog all the presents for herself. Meanwhile, the adults get trapped in an old-fashioned log cabin, without any modern conveniences. And all Tommy wants is for Dil to have the best first Christmas ever. Can each of them find the true spirit of the season? NOTE: The Rugrats episode is marketed as a "Bonus Episode" to this set, and is accessed from a separate "Extras" menu area...even though it's length is included in the DVD's listed running time!
Video
The video quality jumps around from show to show on this disc. The initial quality on the Blue's Clues episode is outstanding, possibly worthy of a "10" score in and of itself. Colors are vibrant, there is no detectable grain, and even on a larger screen the resolution remains high. Pretty close to perfect, if not there. Unfortunately, the remaining shows don't retain that level.
On Dora the Explorer, the resolution stays high, but we see a bit of grain here and there. It's easier to detect on a larger format screen; those of you watching this on a screen 32" or less probably won't see what I'm talking about. More noticeable, though, is that the colors lose their luster in some scenes. It's uneven: in many scenes the picture is rich and clear, in others it is dull and lifeless. Little Bill has much the same problem, but the resolution is a bit lower, and the graininess I mentioned in Dora is even more present here. Not very different from the VHS era.
For the "bonus" episode of Rugrats, the color vibrancy is back and doesn't fade at all. However, there is not only graininess present, but at times you can see compression artifacts glitch up the screen. It can be distracting.
Overall, this DVD averages out to a rather run-of-the-mill video transfer. I must say that the quality of the Blue's Clues show pulls the rating up to there.
Audio
The soundtrack on this DVD also qualifies as "average", by and large. It does a workmanship job of relaying the audio to you, in a manner that you could not discern as being different from the broadcast versions of these shows. Short and sweet: you get the same soundtrack that you hear on the Nick Jr. channel, or on CBS's Saturday "Nick On CBS" block.
The episodes are also Closed Captioned for the hearing impaired.
There are two listed "Special Features" on this release. One of them is actually an episode of Rugrats: "Babies In Toyland", as mentioned above. As a parent looking at this release overall and deciding whether or not to buy it, I certainly wouldn't think of the Nick Jr. Holiday DVD as being "3 shows plus a bonus show". No, I'll consider it as a 4-show disc. Separating the Rugrats entry in the menu structure really doesn't make the Rugrats show an "extra", no matter how you slice (or market) it. And, I'm not sure what this strategy gains the studio.
In any case, I've already evaluated the Rugrats episode above. Now, let's examine the disc's REAL extra: the "Nick Jr. Parents Guide".
This is a series of text screens broken into 4 major subjects:
Nick Jr.'s "Play To Learn Philosophy" (6 screens): discusses how each of the three main shows in the set develops important skills that are Cognitive, Social, Problem Solving, Physical, and Creative in nature.
Blue's Clues (4 screens): reveals the mission of the show, and how this particular episode participates in that mission. It suggests ways for parents to build on the episode's theme to have fun and learn about differences.
Dora the Explorer (5 screens): emphasizes the highly interactive nature of the show (which my son's reactions bear witness to!). Discusses Spanish words used, and suggests a project for a homemade musical instrument.
Little Bill (4 screens): stresses holiday traditions and the importance of family during the holiday season.
This section is the sort that is usually dismissed and passed over. But, upon closer examination, I think parents will realize that it takes a small amount of time to read these screens, and can suggest useful discussions and fun projects that can get your child more involved in and educated about the holidays. Give it a look!
Summary
This disc will not win any prizes for the video and audio quality, that's for sure. But kids aren't as picky as we adults are, are they? Definitely not. Although average-quality, these are four fun episodes that the children will enjoy. The parents and caregivers will appreciate the educational nature of these shows, and the projects involved may be perfect in a daycare setting.
My only misgivings is that so MUCH of the shows on this disc concentrates on the Christmas holiday, and were it not for Blue's Clues (and a malfunctioning giant neon dreidel in Rugrats), the other holidays of this season would get no recognition at all. I wish I could find a great kids' DVD that actually spent time with ALL of the winter holidays, with some depth. Rugrats provided a great opportunity to be more varied, as they could have put either the "A Rugrats Chanukah" or "Rugrats - Kwanzaa" episodes on here instead as the bonus. A missed opportunity?
But don't miss your opportunity to share these fun episodes with the little ones. Until full-fledged collections of each of these shows hit home (well, Rugrats should have "A Decade in Diapers" by the time you read this, but the other three are lacking), getting episodes in collections like this will just have to do!
