Courtesy: Shout! Factory/Sesame Workshop
Shout! Factory and Sesame Workshop will release the latest entry in their Sesame Street DVD series Tuesday in the form of Sesame Street: Awesome Alphabet Collection. This latest addition to the series is a fittingly titled offering, too. That is proven in part through the DVD’s primary content. It will be addressed shortly. The DVD’s bonus content adds even more appeal to its overall presentation, and will be addressed a little later. The DVD’s average price point rounds out its most important elements. Each item noted here is important in its own way to the whole of Sesame Street: Awesome Alphabet Collection. All things considered, they make this latest offering from Shout! Factory and Sesame Workshop a truly awesome DVD.
Shout! Factory and Sesame Workshop’s latest Sesame Street DVD Awesome Alphabet Challenge is truly an awesome new offering from the companies. That is proven in part through the DVD’s primary content. The DVD’s primary content takes audiences through the alphabet from A to Z, giving ample time to each letter along the way. There are at least three different segments as each letter is introduced. On the surface, that might not seem like much, but on a deeper level, the repetition is standard teaching fare. Early Childhood educators will appreciate that approach here, as it drives home the different sounds that each letter makes. This is especially smart.
While the presentation of each letter in its various sounds forms a solid foundation for the primary content, the fact that this is done by taking viewers through the now 50-year history of Sesame Street adds even more appeal to the presentation. From the series’ most recent years all the way back to the series’ golden era, which featured the likes of Guy Smiley, to the 90s, when Big Bird, Snuffy and company were still key parts of the show and when Grover was a lovable hapless restaurant waiter, to points in-between, the time span of the content will certainly appeal to plenty of grown-ups just as much as children, if not more so. Simply put, this is nostalgia done right. In an age when a company, such as Disney tries to reboot everything and play on the viewers’ sense of nostalgia to sell said reboots in place of any real content, Shout! Factory and Sesame Workshop have done the exact opposite. They have reintroduced the original content while also teaching key lessons, in turn bringing audiences of all ages successfully together. Keeping all of this in mind, the primary content featured in Sesame Street: Awesome Alphabet Collection creates a solid, stable foundation for the DVD. Resting on that well-grounded foundation is the disc’s bonus content.
The bonus content featured in Sesame Street: Awesome Alphabet Collection is so notable because it does just as much to appeal to children and grown-ups alike as the DVD’s primary content. One of the DVD’s bonus features is a spoof of CBS’ former hit series The Great Race in the 13-minute-plus episode “Elmo’s Amazing Alphabet Race.” Even the font used for the title is meant to mirror the font used for the font in the noted award-winning CBS competition series. The story finds Elmo having to make his way around Sesame Street in search of every one of the 26 letters that make up the alphabet. It continues that process of repetition that is used in the DVD’s primary content, serving even more, to drive home the letters and their different sounds. He finds letters on the awning for Hooper’s Store, on a book that Abby Cadabby is reading, a bus stop sign and a sign on a door among many other locations. Along the way, the “host” of the “show” keeps track of things. In the end, Elmo and Telly get to the alphabet’s end before the chicken strikes the gong, and get a special surprise, which won’t be given away here. From start to finish, the “episode” does everything right in continuing what was started in the DVD’s primary content.
The repetition continues even more in the bonus printables that are also featured as extras in this DVD. Seven pages of printables are available for download. Six of the printables feature more repetition of the letters, including one page that features the original Sesame Street gang, complete with Snuffy, The Count and even Bert and Ernie, holding all 26 letters of the alphabet. As an added plus, the very first printable is a connect-the-dots activity that lets young audiences connect the dots to make Elmo’s face and color it. That, along with the repetition in the other printables and that in the bonus episode “Elmo’s Amazing Alphabet Race” makes the bonus content featured in this disc live up to its title of being bonus material. When it is considered along with the repetition in the primary content and the content itself, the whole of the primary and secondary content makes the DVD overall more than worth the addition to any classroom and living room setting. To that end, the DVD’s average price point is money well spent.
The average price point of Sesame Street: Awesome Alphabet Collection, using prices listed at Shout! Factory’s store, Walmart, Target, Barnes & Noble Booksellers and Amazon, is $11.47. At the time of this posting, it was not listed at Best Buy and Books-A-Million’s websites. The least expensive listing is at Amazon and Walmart — $9.96. That is also the most commonly occurring price for the DVD. The most expensive listing is at Shout! Factory’s store, at $13.98. Target’s pricing of $9.99 is the middle ground for this title, comparing prices. Regardless of which retailer consumers use, buyers will know that the money paid is well-spent because of the education that it will certainly provide young viewers and entertainment that it will provide children and grown-ups alike. Keeping this in mind, the education, entertainment and cost collectively go a long way toward making Sesame Street: Awesome Alphabet Collection enjoyable for audiences of all ages, and a truly awesome presentation.
Sesame Street: Awesome Alphabet Collection is a presentation that certainly lives up to its title. It is an awesome collection that audiences of all ages will enjoy. This is proven in part through the DVD’s collective primary and secondary content, which drives home each letter of the alphabet to young viewers and repeats each letter’s various sounds in each section. The throwback to Sesame Street’s various eras that is used throughout the primary content adds even more interest to the DVD for grown-ups. The bonus episode “Elmo’s Amazing Alphabet Race” continues the repetition of the primary content while also certainly bringing laughs to grown-up audiences with its spoof of the former CBS hit competition series. The bonus printables continue that repetition even more. Considering all of that content and nonstop education and entertainment, the DVD’s average price point of less than $20 proves quite affordable to say the very least. Keeping all of this in mind, the whole of this DVD becomes a presentation that is…well…awesome. Sesame Street: Awesome Alphabet Collection is scheduled for release Tuesday. More information on this and other titles from Shout! Factory is available online now at:
Website: http://www.shoutfactory.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/shoutfactoryofficial
Twitter: http://twitter.com/ShoutFactory
More information on this and other titles from Sesame Workshop is available online now at:
Website: http://www.sesameworkshop.org
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/SesameWorkshop
Twitter: http://twitter.com/sesameworkshop
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