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.
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! “Halloweenâ€
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 â€Max’s Jack-o-Lantern/Max & Ruby’s Perfect Pumpkin/Max’s Big Booâ€
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.
If you’re a Yo Gabba Gabba fan (or more specifically if your kids are) get your DVRs ready for next week when Nick Jr. will air four new episodes – all featuring special guests. The lineup is below and all shows will air at noon ET.
Monday, September 24 (“Moveâ€Â) – Tony Hawkskateboards
Tuesday, September 25 (“Greetingsâ€Â) – The Wolfgramms perform
Wednesday, September 26 (“Togetherâ€Â) – Nikki Flores (“Dancey Dance†segment)
Thursday, September 27 (“Scaryâ€Â) – Leslie Hall (“Dancey Dance†segment)
Nickelodeon is set to debut the first primetime The Backyardigans movie: Super Secret Super Spy. It’s a James Bond-ian hour long special where Pablo plays the role of an international spy. Using a host of gadgets and a car that doubles as a boat, snow mobile, and a several other vehicles, he is off to thwart Uniqua aka, the Lady in Pink.
It really is a pretty cute movie as Tasha plays the role of Miss T who directs Pablo to prevent the Lady in Pink from getting 3 containers that would allow her to carry out her diabolical plan. In the process viewers travel to Miami, London, Switzerland, and the Caribbean trying to track down the containers.
As in all Backyardigans shows, a sound track rolls throughout the episode. This one has a jazz line that runs throughout and Cyndi Lauper performs theme song.
The show will air from 7:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. on Monday, September 17th on Nick Jr. The following day on September 18th, the DVD will be available which will also feature 2 other episodes of The Backyardigans and a Cyndi Lauper featurette.
Nickelodeon is set to debut the first primetime The Backyardigans movie: Super Secret Super Spy. It’s a James Bond-ian hour long special where Pablo plays the role of an international spy. Using a host of gadgets and a car that doubles as a boat, snow mobile, and a several other vehicles, he is off to thwart Uniqua aka, the Lady in Pink.