Courtesy: Sesame Workshop/Shout! Factory
PBS’ hit educational series Sesame Street has for decades, been a source of great educational and entertainment for audiences of all ages. From teaching numbers and words to teaching equally invaluable lessons about cultural diversity and more, Sesame Street has proven time and again to be one of the most important series on television. Even as the decades have passed and times changed, the series has changed along the way to stay up with the world, but has not changed to the point of losing any of what it has done. The show’s latest DVD, Sesame Street: The Magic Wand Chase is proof of that, both in its primary and bonus content. Each item will be discussed here, as each is equally important to the DVD’s overall presentation. Those items make the DVD’s average price point, the last of its most important elements, money well-spent. Each item is important in its own right to the DVD. All things considered, they make Sesame Street: The Magic Wand Chase more proof of why Sesame Street remains today one of television’s most important programs.
Sesame Street: The Magic Wand Chase is an enjoyable new offering from Sesame Workshop and Shout! Factory that clearly proves the series remains today, one of the most important series on television. That is even considering programs in other genres. This statement is supported in part through the DVD’s primary content, the feature presentation that gives the DVD its name. The primary content finds Abby Cadabby, Elmo, Big Bird, Cookie Monster, Grover and Rosita chasing down a bird in order to recover Abby’s magic wand after Abby accidentally drops the wand during a balloon ride. Abby and the others were taking a balloon ride in a trip of balloons, and when she tried to get herself and her friends back to Sesame Street, she dropped the wand, leading to the chase. Looking at the “movie” from an analytical standpoint, this is actually a good way to set up the chase that follows. As Abby and company chase down the bird, who uses Abby’s wand to hide her identity at points, the group encounters children with various ethnic backgrounds – Chinese, Mexican and African – leading to lessons about their people’s cultures and the value of those differences. Of course there is plenty of hilarity along the way thanks to plenty of family friendly jokes (including a laugh riot tribute to Benny Hill), and Abby eventually gets her wand back. Those lessons of cultural diversity, though, is the most important item to note. As noted previously, this is nothing new for Sesame Street. What is important here is the way in which the show’s writers executed the lessons. They used a new, enjoyable way to present the lesson on cultural diversity. To that end, the story and its familiar and welcome lessons promoting cultural diversity form a solid foundation for the DVD. The bonus content included with the DVD strengthens that foundation even more.
The bonus content included with Sesame Street: The Magic Wand Chase strengthens the DVD’s foundation even more because it picks up right where the DVD’s primary content leaves off. The full-length featurette “Elmo’s Alphabet Challenge” continues Sesame Street’s long-running focus on teaching the alphabet and words to young viewers. As with the DVD’s primary content, it does that here once again, but in a fashion that is in line with the current age. Telly, Elmo and Abby are pulled into the video game world while deciding on a game to play on Abby’s tablet. Over the course of roughly an hour, Abby and her friends go through a variety of different video games, which are takeoffs of video games, such as Super Mario Brothers, Angry Birds and World of Warcraft in order to find letters that align with each letter of the alphabet. The ultimate goal is to defeat a character named ABC-More in the process so that they can get back to their world. Obviously it has a happy ending. The video game spoofs will entertain grown-ups while the additional (yet possibly latent) lesson about pride – ABC-More constantly calls himself the greatest, leading to a starting point on that noted lesson about pride – and the primary lesson teaching about the alphabet and words join in to make this bonus feature in whole just as entertaining for the whole family as the DVD’s primary story.
“The Golden Triangle of Destiny,” the second of the DVD’s bonus features, is just as certain to entertain the whole family. It is also the shortest of the DVD’s features, both primary and secondary. It is a full-on spoof of the Indiana Jones movie franchise that finds Telly going on a search for the titular triangle around Sesame Street. Along the way, he has to avoid a giant boulder (yes, a boulder), a bunch of “exploding” washing machines and determining the shape of each figure that he finds. So what audiences get here is the basic geometry lesson as its educational content alongside a fun movie spoof that will entertain audiences of all ages and likely be a favorite watch for those audiences. When it is coupled with the lead video game-based bonus, the two bonuses together succeed solidly in offering plenty of entertainment and education at the same time. When the bonus content is considered alongside the DVD’s primary content, the whole of the content offers plenty for audiences of all ages to appreciate throughout the DVD’s two-hour-plus total run time. Keeping all of this in mind, the DVD’s average price point proves to be another positive for the DVD.
The average price point for Sesame Street: The Magic Wand Chase is $11.75. That price is attained by averaging prices from Shout! Factory’s online store, Walmart, Best Buy and Barnes & Noble. The DVD is not listed – at the time of this post – at Amazon, Target and Books-A-Million. Considering the breadth and depth of the content presented over a total run time of more than two hours (specifically, two hours, two minutes), that price is not overly expensive. When one takes into consideration that the DVD also includes a downloadable .pdf file of The Magic Wand Chase for families to enjoy any time they want, that price becomes that much more affordable and welcome for every family. Keeping this in consideration along with the primary and secondary content featured in the DVD, it is just one more positive for the DVD. Keeping this in mind, all three elements come together to make the DVD overall another successful offering from Sesame Workshop, and an equally welcome new offering from the new partnership between Sesame Workshop and Shout! Factory.
Sesame Workshop and Shout! Factory’s recently launched partnership is proving to be a positive match for the organizations. This was already recently proven with the new Elmo’s World DVD released through that partnership. The new full-length feature The Magic Wand Chase supports that statement even more. As has been discussed here, that is proven through the primary and secondary content collectively featured on the disc. The affordable average price point supports that statement even more. Each item is important in its own way to the whole of the DVD. All things considered, Sesame Street: The Magic Wand Chase is another successful offering from Sesame Workshop, and more proof of why Sesame Street remains today, one of the most important series on television, genres aside. 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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