Courtesy: Sesame Workshop/Shout! factory/Shout! Kids
The countdown is officially on to one of the most important anniversaries in the modern history of television. On November 10, Sesame Workshop will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the premiere of Sesame Street (take that Simpsons). As the beloved, long-running series’ anniversary nears, Shout! Factory and Sesame Workshop are continuing their celebration of the series and its historic run with yet another new DVD. Sesame Street: Dance Party was released Tuesday. The DVD is a presentation that Sesame Street’s fans both young and old alike will appreciate. That is due in part to the DVD’s primary content, which features lots and lots of dancing mixed in with some important educational content to boot. This will be addressed shortly. The DVD’s bonus content is just as certain as its primary content to keep audiences entertained, and will be addressed a little later. The primary and secondary content taken into consideration together, they make the DVD’s average price point just as appealing to audiences as that content. All things considered, this DVD in whole will have audiences of all ages dancing together for lots of reasons.
Shout! Factory and Sesame Workshop’s latest Sesame Street DVD, Dance Party is a presentation that will have viewers of all ages doing their own happy dances. That is due in part to the DVD’s primary content. Clocking in just under 90 minutes, the DVD’s primary content creates a starting point on discussions about the varied forms of dance that exist throughout America and the world through each of its separate segments. The whole thing starts with an entertaining segment that finds the Sesame Street “gang” doing their own ballet performance. The catch is that Big Bird’s best friend Snuffalupagus joins in, leading Allan to have to figure out how to lift everyone’s favorite furry, friendly mammoth. This leads to an important secondary aspect of the DVD’s primary content that will be addressed shortly. Getting back on track, everything ends up working out in the end, but not without plenty of laughs for the whole family. It’s just one of the segments that makes up the DVD’s primary content. Bert and Ernie make their own music video in another segment. This segment teaches its own important lesson that will also be addressed shortly. The varied dance styles (and the fact that it uses an episode from the height of the “Angry Birds” craze adds even more to its appeal. It’s one more way in which the segments serve to create such appeal. They don’t just come from one specific era of Sesame Street’s history. Most of the segments are from the series’ more recent years, given, but it is still nice to see the segments come from more than just one period of the show. Bert and Ernie’s music video is not the only one that gets some screen time in this new DVD. Prairie Dawn and her friends make their own music video that will appeal to country music fans as it presents its own take on “The Farmer in the Dell.” That segment alone creates plenty of smiles among audiences, too. The same can be said of the brief segment featuring Jason Derullo, who puts on a short hip-hop dance exhibition. Between that moment, the others noted here and more, the whole of the DVD’s primary content will keep viewers just as entertained as they are engaged from beginning to end, learning about the various types of dances that exist. Those introductions serve as their own starting point for larger discussions on the cultures from which the dance styles were spawned. That also serves as its own important part of the DVD’s primary content.
As noted, the fact that the brief introductions to the various dance styles that exist serve collectively as a good starting point for discussions about the cultures that spawned the dance styles. They are just some of the extra discussions that will take place among audiences as a result of the DVD’s primary content. The DVD’s opening segment finds Allan and other members of the Sesame Street gang working to figure out how to lift Snuffy as part of their ballet dance number. This plot element is a subtle lesson about problem-solving skills. How the group finally figures out how to lift Snuffy will be left for audiences to discover for themselves, but is still quite intriguing. Of course, Allan’s attempts to lift Snuffy prior to that realization end with plenty of laughs. It is just one of the lessons presented within the primary content of Dance Party. As Ernie is making a video to put online, he has to learn to adapt and change the plan because things don’t always go as planned. This is a vital life skill for not just children, but adults, too. Just as many adults seem to forget this key life skill just as much as children. To that end, it is a reminder that again, viewers of all ages will appreciate. On another level, the lesson about just how much work goes into making a music video in the segment featuring Prairie Dawn and company shows audiences of all ages just how much time and work goes into making videos. It isn’t the invaluable life lesson featured in the other noted segments, but is still interesting in its own right. When it is considered along with the other lessons, the whole of the group does more than enough to show even more, the importance of the primary content to the whole of Dance Party. While the breadth and depth of the primary content featured in this DVD forms a solid foundation for its presentation, it is only one of the DVD’s most important elements. The disc’s secondary content plays its own important role in the whole of the DVD.
The secondary content featured in Dance Party is a full-length episode of Sesame Street. The episode in question comes from the mid 2000s. The whole thing opens with a musical story that finds Elmo causing everyone on Sesame Street to sing everything. How and why this happens will be left for viewers to discover for themselves. It’s hardly the first time that any program has gone this route. It is a plot element that has been used through the years on so many programs, most recently on Nickelodeon’s Henry Danger. Even with that familiarity, there is something endearing about the segment, which takes up somewhere in the range of 15 minutes of the nearly hour-long program. As the episode progresses, viewers are treated to a rather interesting episode of “Flying Fairy School” and even what looks like a vintage “live action” segment that finds a quartett of performers doing an a capella performance about the letter “M.” The whole thing wraps up with a full segment of the now beloved “Elmo’s World.” Each segment offers its own entertainment value. All things considered here, they will keep viewers just as engaged and entertained as will the DVD’s primary content. To that end, the bonus content that is featured with Dance Party proves just as enjoyable as the DVD’s main feature. When the DVD’s main and secondary content are considered together, they make the DVD in whole well worth the money spent.
The money spent on Dance Party averages to approximately $12.33. That price is reached by averaging prices listed at Shout! Factory’s store, those of Walmart, Target, Amazon, Books-A-Million and Barnes & Noble Booksellers. The DVD was not listed at Best Buy’s website at the time of this review’s posting. While Shout! Factory’s listing of $13.98 was not the most inexpensive listing, it also was not the most expensive. That title goes to the listing at Books-A-Million, at $14.98. Shout! Factory’s listing is the second most expensive at $13.98 while the most common listing – at Walmart, Target and Amazon – is $10.99. It is also the most inexpensive listing. Barnes & Noble Booksellers’ listing of $12.04 is the mid-point listing. Regardless of which retailer customers choose, Shout! Factory and Sesame Workshop will benefit from a portion of the sales. Keeping all of this in mind, customers who buy the DVD will get hours of entertainment, education and engagement, and in the process, will also benefit the continued broadcasting of one of the most important programs to ever hit the airwaves.
Sesame Street: Dance Party is a DVD that is certain to have audiences of all ages celebrating. That celebration will come in the form of their own dances as well as dances with the segments featured throughout the DVD. That is due in part to the DVD’s primary content, which features dances from a wide array of cultural backgrounds. The bonus full-length episode of Sesame Street adds its own share of enjoyment to the DVD’s presentation for every viewer. Considering the content that makes up the body of the disc, it makes the DVD’s average price point of less than $20 a wise investment for any family. That is because families will find themselves enjoying the noted content together time and again. Keeping all of this in mind, the DVD in whole will have audiences of all ages dancing for joy as they dance along with the DVD’s content. More information on this and other titles from Shout! Factory is available online now at:
Website: http://www.shoutfactory.com
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More information on this and other titles from Sesame Workshop is available online at:
Website: http://sesameworkshop.org
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/SesameWorkshop
Twitter: http://twitter.com/sesameworkshop
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