A place for parents to learn about their preschool children’s favorite television shows with news from Playhouse Disney, Noggin, Nick Jr., and PBS Kids.
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Nick Jr. will be filling Friday afternoons with new episodes and holiday themed episodes. The schedule is below:
December 14 (12:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.)
12:00 p.m. The Wonder Pets! “Save the Reindeer”
12:30 p.m. Blue’s Clues “Blue’s First Holiday”
1:00 p.m. Go, Diego, Diego! “Diego Saves Christmas” 1:30 p.m. Wow Wow Wubbzy! “O Figgity-Fig Tree/Snow Day” (PREMIERE)
The winter holidays are here, and the kids are building a winter festival, Madame Zabinga is rehearsing the Nutty-Nutcracker, and Walden is waiting for the arrival of blue snow. Best of all is the lighting of the Figgity-Fig Tree, and this year Wubbzy wants to make it the best tree ever! But as usual, he overdoes it by adding too many lights and blows out the generator. Without any lights, the Wuzzleburg townspeople must come up with novel ways of decorating the tree. In “Snow Day,” Wubbzy goes sledding and Widget brings out his snow-shoveling machine. Walden begins building a snow sculpture of a Woly-Polar Bear, but soon Wubbzy sleds right into it, knocks it down and buries Widget’s machine in the snow. Now Wubbzy and Widget scramble frantically to fix the sculpture before Walden finds out.
December 21 (12:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.)
12:00 p.m. Dora the Explorer “A Present for Santa”
12:30 p.m. Blue’s Room “Holiday Wishes”
1:00 p.m. The Wonder Pets! “Save the Reindeer” 1:30 p.m. Yo Gabba Gabba “Christmas” (PREMIERE)
So much of Christmas is about receiving, but in this episode the Gabba gang learns about giving through the songs “Making Presents” and “For Me For You.” They celebrate winter and the holiday season in the songs “I Love Winter” and “Decorate the Tree.” Featured Guest Star: Mark Mothersbaugh in a “Mark’s Magic Pictures” segment
December 28 (12:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.)
12:00 p.m. Miss Spider’s SunnyPatch Friends “Hum-Bug/Dashing Through the Snow”
12:30 p.m. The Backyardigans “Secret of Snow”
1:00 p.m. Dora the Explorer “South Pole” 1:30 p.m. Max & Ruby “Max’s Mix-Up/Max’s Snow Bunny” (PREMIERE)
On the sledding hill, Ruby is getting cold and wants to go inside. Louise and Morris arrive and Morris’ winter snowsuit is identical to Max’s, but their hats, mitts and scarves are different colors. Max manages to switch his accessories with Morris so that he can stay out and continue sledding with Louise. It’s not until Ruby gets home that she realizes there’s been a mix-up. In the second story, Max and Ruby are entranced by “The Abominable Snow Bunny” radio show and when they go outside Max is determined to find the creature. Ruby reminds him that there’s no such thing, but she soon starts to wonder if there really is a Snow Bunny! In the final story, Max wants to play outside even though it’s snowing and blowing. Ruby tries to engage him in all kinds of inside activities. Max gets finger paints and macramé all over the house and creates chaos with Ruby’s dolly tea party. When the snow stops and Ruby says they can play outside, Max is pleased with the havoc he’s created and decides to stay inside.
Looking for a way to settle down the kids and keep them in bed on Christmas Eve? Check out PBS Kids Sprout where they’ll be serving up a Snooze-A-Thon. Starting at 7:00 p.m. and running straight through until 6:00 a.m. on Christmas morning, everything will be quite at Sprout. If you tune in you’ll see Good Night Show host Nina and her sidekick Star sleeping on the set.
Sprout will also air Bob the Builder: A Christmas to Remember featuring Elton John and Crocodile Rock on December 18th at 4:30 p.m.
Noggin will be rolling out a week of Yo Gabba Gabba premiers with 4 new episodes coming the week of November 26th. The episodes and guest stars are as follow:
Monday, November 26
It’s time for the Gabba gang to go for a ride in a car. In the song “Keep Trying” they learn the importance of using seat belts. The song “Car Ride” explores the thrill of traveling and during the song “Danger,” the characters learn to stay away from the road when playing.
Guest Stars: Sugarland in a “Dancey Dance” segment; Biz Markie in a “Biz’s Beat of the Day” segment
Tuesday, November 27 — “Share”
The Gabba gang learns about sharing by singing “Mine and Yours,” “Don’t Take it Away,” “Share,” and “Catch and Throw.”
Guest Stars: Cornelius performs; Biz Markie in a “Biz’s Beat of the Day” segment
Wednesday, November 28 — “Find”
Imagination leads to discovery as the Gabba gang uncover many things that may be different or frightening. The songs “I Like Fish” and “Woodpecker” encourage the characters to learn about different animals. The “Keep Trying” song helps Muno find his toy snake that was lost and the song “Peek-a-Boo” allows the gang to play with the viewers at home.
Guest Stars: Sean Kingston in a “Dancey Dance” segment; Mark Mothersbaugh in a “Mark’s Magic Pictures” segment
Thursday, November 29 – “Train”
The song “Don’t Be Afraid” shows the Gabba gang how to overcome fears, while “Train Ride” and “Too Loud” teach them all about the joys of trains. In the “Share” song, the Gabba characters learn about the multiple parts of a train and how if they work together, they can make the train longer.
Guest Stars: Laila Ali in a “Dancey Dance” segment, Biz Markie in a “Biz’s Beat of the Day” segment
Hey look, FREE STUFF! The folks at Tot By Me have offered up a free DVD for me to give away.
I wrote about Tot By Me recently, but the main idea is that they create DVDs for toddlers and preschoolers where the parents are the stars. Familiarity in the faces is comforting to the children. It’s also a way to enhance familiarity with grandparents or other relatives that kids might not see very often.
But on to the giveaway. The rules are pretty simple. Just use the contact form to send me a message and include the following information:
Name
Your children’s names and ages
Include the word TOTBYME anywhere in the message
The 30th person to contact me wins a gift card good for one DVD. Please make sure to provide a valid email address, otherwise I won’t be able to notify you if you’ve won.
Playhouse Disney is in production on a new series called Special Agent Oso. The series features Sean Astin as the voice of Oso, a James Bond type teddy bear.
Oso is part of an international organization of stuffed animals who help kids with everyday tasks.
Play With Me Sesame, a long time mid day staple on Noggin, recently disappeared from their offerings. The half hour show features the most popular Sesame Street characters like Bert & Ernie and Grover. It turns out that the show is now airing on PBS Kids Sprout during The Sunny Side Up Show. The Sunny Side Up Show is a block of programming airing from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m.
The second season of Handy Manny will premiere on October 27th at 10:30 am.
The premiere episode of season two finds the tools helping to concoct a new smoothie flavor while repairing the counter at Oscar’s House of Smoothies. Mark Steines of “Entertainment Tonight” guest stars as the voice of Oscar. In the episode’s second story, when Mayor Rosa hears ghost-like noises coming from the clock tower, Manny and the tools investigate whether there really is a “fantasma” (Spanish for “ghost”) haunting the tower.
Typically on this site I’m referencing shows that others have made. However, a new service called Tot By Me allows you to be the star. Your photos are uploaded and you - and brothers and sisters and grandma’s and grandpa’s can be the main characters in a customized DVD for your children. Right now DVDs are on sale for $24.95 but you can make a 1 minute free sample to see what you think.
The product is the brain child of some self proclaimed geeky dads who thought:
we knew that all children could be watching better, more meaningful video content with little or no extra effort from parents. Thus, we set out to create our patent-pending technology and family-friendly content so that parents could use the web to easily create videos that integrate family members as characters.
For more about the product, you can check out their blog. There’s also a video describing the product and the process.
Nick Jr. is planning a marathon of Halloween themed programming. The marathon will air from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on both Monday, October 29th and Wednesday, October 31st. It will also feature the premiere of new episodes Max and Ruby and Yo Gabba Gabba. The lineup is as follows:
NICK JR: “Haunted Halloween” Marathon
9:00 a.m. The Backyardigans “Monster Detective”
9:30 a.m. Dora the Explorer “Boo”
10:00 a.m. Dora the Explorer “Dora Saves the Prince”
10:30 a.m. The Wonder Pets! “Save the Black Kitten/Yak, Pig, Dancing Bear
11:00 a.m. Blue’s Clues “Blue’s Big Costume Party”
11:30 a.m. Yo Gabba Gabba! “Halloween”
12:00 p.m. Dora the Explorer “BOO!”
12:30 p.m. The Wonder Pets! “Save the Black Kitten/Yak, Pig, Dancing Bear”
1:00 p.m. The Backyardigans “Scared of You”
1:30 p.m. Max & Ruby ”Max’s Jack-o-Lantern/Max & Ruby’s Perfect Pumpkin/Max’s Big Boo”
On October 8th Nick Jr. will debut an hour long Go Diego Go movie titled Safari Rescue. It is a lead up to Go Diego Go premiere week where the network will air 4 new episodes from October 15th-18th.
In the movie Diego, Alicia, and Jaguar travel to Africa’s Serengeti where they have to break an ancient spell which turned elephants to stones. Along the way they help impalas, baboons, and gazelles who are in trouble.
The movie and the new episodes the following week will all air at 9:30am.
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