Once Upon A Rhyme is the latest DVD compilation release from Nick Jr. – containing over 2 hours of pre-school oriented entertainment (and light education). This time around the theme centers around storytelling and fairy tales. Here’s the episode listing:
Bubble Guppies – Who’s Gonna Play The Big Bad Wolf?
Team Umizoomi – The Umi City Treasure Hunt
The Fresh Beat Band – Royal Wedding
Dora The Explorer – Dora Saves The Three Little Piggies
Wonder Pets – Help The Cow Jump Over The Moon/Save The Unicorn
Blue’s Room – Little Red Riding Blue
For those that aren’t familiar, Blue’s Room was an evolution of Blue’s Clues. First Steve left and Joe took over, then after a while Joe either left or was put in a supporting role and the format changed to give more attention to Blue – only this time she’s a puppet. Talk to many Blue’s Clues fans and you get plenty of opinions about Steve leaving the show, but you won’t get a lot of knowledge about Blue’s Room.
The rest of the episodes on this DVD are fairly standard Nick Jr. fare. My 5 year old really like Team Umizoomi, and pirates, and this offered him an episode to really sink his teeth into (metaphorically). Kids might be interested in the Bubble Guppies episode that looks at (a little bit) what it takes to put on a play. The Fresh Beats get embroiled in a royal wedding but of course it works out in the end.
While it could be easy to simply turn on the television to Nick Jr. there are no commercials on the DVD. I hate the fact Nick Jr. now has commercials. I stopped letting my kids watch the channel typically because of this.
Educational, to a certain extent, at least these television programs are positive for children. At over 2 hours of content and an asking price of $15, Nickelodeon’s Once Upon A Rhyme is certainly a decent entertainment value. It may not be a “must own” but it’s a very solid offering.