Baby Einstein - Baby Van Gogh

Our Experiences With the Baby Einstein Family of Videos/DVDs:

My son had 3 Baby Einstein videos before he was even born. Being new to parenting, my husband and I did not know what our child might like someday, and thought that the classical music might help put our son to sleep. We purchased a 3-pack (Einstein, Bach, Mozart) that also included a "Sleepytime" CD of the wonderful music from the videos.

You know what they say about "best laid plans"... My son did not like going to sleep to music when he was an infant. We would play the videos occasionally, just for something new for my son to see, but he was never terribly interested in them. He couldn't go to sleep to the videos either, as there were always noises (car backfiring, puppets popping out to much fanfare, etc) that would startle him.

Fast-forward to a few months ago -- my son had just turned one and was playing with the VCR in my bedroom. My husband pulled out the Baby Mozart video and put it in, figuring that my son wouldn't really be interested. Much to our surprise, my son sat right down and watched it from beginning to end. I must admit that I found it a bit spooky to see my normally-active son sitting and staring at the television screen, as though hypnotized.

After that my boy became a Baby-Einstein monster! Upon entering my bedroom he would run straight for the VCR and would throw a fit if we didn't let him watch an Einstein video (yes, my son's first official tantrum was over Baby Einstein). My husband and I did not want to encourage a lot of TV watching, so after a few weeks of worry and dealing with my Einstein-addicted son, we finally reached a happy-place with my son's TV watching. My boy learned that he could watch one video at night, just before book-reading and bed-time (it does appear to be a good way to get him calmed down for bed).

Now that we had come to terms with him television watching, we decided that our 3 videos were too baby-ish. For a boy learning to talk, we wanted some of the other Einstein videos that included more speaking or actually taught words. Down through the months our Einstein video/DVD collection has grown -- we now have Baby Einstein, Bach, Mozart, Shakespeare, Van Gogh, Dolittle (Neighborhood Animals), and Newton. My boy likes them all, but his very favorite is Van Gogh (which we have in DVD format).

Product Description:
Baby Van Gogh uses the paintings of artist Vincent Van Gogh to teach the six primary colors. A hand-puppet, named Vincent Van Goat (who does have both of his ears, although in some graphics for the video he has a bandage on one of them) paints the pieces. The show begins with a colorful introduction followed by 6 color-themed segments. The show then ends with another colorful finale.

A typical color-theme segment is as follows:
A puppet frolics while the color is identified and a short poem (by Baby Einstein founder Julie Aigner-Clark) about that color is read. Then Vincent Van Goat steps up to his canvas and begins to paint, accompanied by classical music. The painting selected always heavily features the theme-color. The scene then shifts between the goat-puppet at work, children at play, nature scenery, common objects, and toys -- all of which have the theme-color in common. At the end of the song Vincent's masterpiece is finished, the theme-color is identified again, and then we then move on to the next color.

The colors explored are: Yellow, Green, Orange, Purple, Red, and Blue.

The Van Gogh Paintings used are:
"Lane in the Public Garden at Arles" (Green)
"14 Sunflowers in a Vase" (Orange)
"The Starry Night" (Blue)
"Orchard in Blossom with View of Arles" (Purple)
"Fishing Boats on the Beach at Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer" (Red)
"Wheat Fields with Reaper at Sunrise" (Yellow)

The musical accompaniment includes selections from:
* Carmen Suite, Georges Bizet
* Blue Danube Waltz, Johann Strauss, Jr.
* Pictures at an Exhibition-Promenade, Modest Mussorgsky
* William Tell Overture, "Bucolic," Gioacchino Rossini
* William Tell Overture, "Lone Ranger Theme," Gioacchino Rossini
* Gaite Parisienne-Barcarolle, Jacques Offenbach
* Gaite Parisienne-Vivo, Jacques Offenbach
* Minute Waltz, Frederic Chopin
* Swan Lake-Waltz, Peter Tschaikovsky
* Picture at an Exhibition-Promenade, Modest Muggorsky
* Peer Gynt Suite-Morning, Edward Grieg
* Peer Gynt Suite-Hall of the Mountain King, Edward Grieg
* Bolero, Maurice Ravel
* Flight of the Bumblebee, Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov
* Hungarian Rhapsody, Franz Liszt
* Picture at an Exhibition-Promenade, Modest Muggorsky
* Claire de lune, Clauade Debussy
* Great Gate at Kiev, Muggorsky/1812 Overture, Tschaikovsky
* Lullaby, Johannes Brahms

DVD Features:
Total Running Time: 72 minutes
Running time of Baby Van Gogh feature: approximately 25 minutes

Menu Selections:
* "Home Theatre" - where you can play the Baby Van Gogh video once, or set it to play in a continuous loop (which we used recently when my son was sick and didn't have the energy to get up and play -- that continuous feature was a real life-saver).
* "Concert Hall" - A picture of Vincent Van Goat is displayed while the all the music featured in Baby Van Gogh is played. The song's title and author are also displayed on the screen. We use this feature occasionally, and it would be very nice for children who like to go to sleep to music.
* "Exhibition Center" - Displays each of the paintings featured in Baby Van Gogh (this also plays at the end of the video itself)
* "Resources" - includes that parent's guide that is the same on every video in the Baby Einstein family, the "Toy Chest" (displays each toy used in Baby Van Gogh and tells the manufacturer of that toy), and a guide to other products sold by the Baby Einstein Company.

A 20-page digital coloring book is also included on the disc (as a PDF file), and can be accessed via a DVD Rom drive. Adobe Acrobat Reader is needed to view the coloring book file on either a PC or a Mac (Acrobat Reader can be downloaded for free from www.adobe.com).

A printed "Parent's Guide" is also included with the DVD. It identifies the DVD contents and explains how the parent can use the DVD to help teach their child. It also includes some blurbs that are the same on every Baby Einstein DVD (about the technology, DVD navigation, etc).

The Baby Einstein Company recommends Baby Van Gogh for children ages 1 to 4.

How We Like It:

My boy adores it. We can tell that this is his favorite -- he will sit down and watch it from beginning to end, pointing to items that catch his interest (for Mom and Dad to identify for him), and clapping at his favorite parts. He gets so excited when he sees the intro that he can't stand still!

From the parent's viewpoint -- I think it is my favorite too! The colors are so vivid and appealing that I enjoy watching it with my son (for the thousandth time). I am officially sick of Baby Mozart and Baby Bach, but Baby Van Gogh has not yet worn out its welcome with me.

The music is still my favorite aspect of all Baby Einstein videos. Founder Julie Aigner-Clark describes it as music specially orchestrated "for little ears". Played on the piano, xylophone, and bells, it takes complex musical compositions and plays them in a delightfully fun yet beautiful manner. Although the compositions are usually simplified a bit, they still are complex enough to be interesting to older ears as well. My husband and I are both musicians, and introducing our child to musical expression has been very important to both of us. We prefer the music on Baby Einstein tapes to all other children's-music fare.

The music on Baby Van Gogh is from a variety of composers, unlike Baby Bach, Mozart, and Newton (which features Vivaldi). Unlike other Baby Einstein videos that feature various composers, Baby Van Gogh has a high-quotient of familiar tunes, including the William Tell Overture (otherwise known as the "Lone Ranger" Theme), Bolero (which I will always associate with Bo Derek -- does that date me?), Brahms Lullaby, and the Blue Danube waltz.

My husband and I do have issues with the DVD image quality. It was recorded at a low-quality speed, so you can see "digital artifacts" (blocky, pixel-ized images) whenever the scene abruptly changes or an object moves across the screen very quickly. It is the nature of these Baby Einstein DVDs that the scenes shift quickly all the time, so the artifacts are frequent and very obvious -- and they really get on my nerves. The people at Baby Einstein Company could have recorded the video at a better speed (in other words, spent a bit more money) and produced a much nicer product.

It might have been nice if the colors Black and White had also been explored, however I understand that finding a Van Gogh painting to use for those colors might be difficult.

I know that other parents have complained that founder Julie Aigner-Clark uses her own children in the videos, however this doesn't bother my husband and I (or my son) at all. In fact, my son is a real fan of the smallest Clark girl (he waves to her and plays peek-a-boo with her on Baby Bach). My husband and I also like seeing how the Clark girls grow from one video to the next (I was upset that none of them make appearances in Baby Newton -- I missed them!) I do like the fact that many other children also make appearances on Baby Van Gogh, including lots of little boys (Baby Shakespeare, Mozart, and Bach only have little girls, I think Baby Dolittle has just 1 little boy).

As I mentioned above, none of the Baby Einstein videos are really good for putting kids to sleep, and Baby Van Gogh is no exception. The sound-effects that accompany the puppets can be loud and quite disturbing. Baby Van Gogh includes balloons popping and an annoyingly screechy puppet that shouts "yeah!" and bonks a ball accompanied with extremely loud sound-effects. If it weren't for the balloons (on Green) and the screechy-puppet (on Purple) my boy would probably be able to nod off to Baby Van Gogh.

Final Thoughts:
Baby Van Gogh is my boy's favorite out of all of his Baby Einstein collection, and I can't blame him. Vivid colors, fun music, cute kids -- what's not to love?

Manufacturer's Website:
http://www.babyeinstein.com