In Go Diego Go: Green Iguana Helps Abuelito Plant a New Strawberry Farm, Diego's friends, Alicia and Abuelito, have a windy weather mishap at their strawberry farm and all of the strawberries are blown away. This wouldn't be nearly so bad if it weren't for the Strawberry Festival! Diego's solution is to have his green iguana friend eat the strawberries and then poop out the seeds at the farm to grow new ones. Umm, huh? Diego's job is to get the green iguana safely to the farm, which is quite a ways away, before she can't hold her business anymore. Ewww. Naturally, the team makes it in time for green iguana to poop at the farm and for new strawberries to grow in time for the festival. This episode disturbed me a little bit, but I guess kids would enjoy it, especially since it was so poop-centric.
In Wonder Pets: Save the Bee and Save the Squirrel, Linny, Tuck and Ming-Ming help a little bee learn to fly so she can join all of the other bees in gathering nectar, they the pals save a baby squirrel who gets stuck on a ferris wheel, then in some cotton candy on a roller coaster track, while at Coney Island. Although the animation is a bit odd in Wonder Pets, what with the static picture of an actual animal, I really enjoyed this show and it was super cute and sweet. I also thought the little jig they did when Brooklyn was mentioned was pretty amusing.
In Blue's Clues: The Grow Show, Steve investigates what Blue is trying to show him, which is all about what makes fruits and vegetables grow. He seems to notice that Blue and maybe even the kids watching the show are growing a good bit too. It's more of a roundabout episode on food, since the food is still in the growing stages.
Yo Gabba Gabba: Eat conveyed that you need to eat healthy foods because they also want to join in the party in your tummy, although the foods were never chewed up, which was a little disturbing. Hopefully, kids won't assume they can swallow their carrots and cheese whole. There was also a nice tune about animals and the fact that they are our friends, then a song about healthy snack time which was kind of annoying, but got stuck in my head. This show was very random and A.D.D., with a lot of focus on dancing and having fun, and although I am clearly not in the very young demographic, I couldn't help enjoying it. DJ Lance reminded me of someone from the old Sega game Space Channel 5, and no DJ Lance, that's not necessarily a complement. There were other songs about brushing your teeth, which I suppose is a good follow-up to snacking, plus a few short and weird 8-bit cartoons, interspersed with lots of dancing and a recap of the songs at the end. Even Elijah Wood stops by to dance a little. Overall, this was a fun little show, if a bit odd, and it had a clear message to kids about healthy eating, probably the strongest one in the set.
Ni Hao, Kai-lan: Happy Chinese New Year was mostly about the Chinese New Year holiday and the group of friends working together as a team to carry the great dragon during the celebration. One of the kids was angry at being selected to carry the middle of the dragon as it didn't seem nearly as important, but he soon found out his role was pivotal to the team's success. While there was a little bit about the feast for Chinese New Year, this one really didn't have too much to do with food.
Finally, there are two Team Umizoomi music videos, one on Milk and one about Supermarkets. Both are catchy, cute and something kids will surely enjoy.
While both Dora and Diego seem to focus on things like counting and learning Spanish words, the other shows are more about working together, dancing, or eating healthy foods, but overall it was a decent collection. If you have kids who enjoy all of these shows, this wouldn't be a bad collection to pick up since there are six episodes contained here.
