Disney Imagination Movers Warehouse Mouse DVD: My Daughter's First Crush
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Disney’s Imagination Movers is an example of what can happen when a powerhouse pulls out the stops to create a live-action show for the 3 year-old demographic.
The result is superbly well-crafted TV, with consistent art direction, tastefully executed special effects, and two music videos in every episode.
Recently released, the Imagination Movers: Warehouse Mouse Edition ($14) is their first DVD since coming to Disney, featuring four episodes plus a bonus episode of the animated Playhouse Disney series Special Agent Oso.
The show is built around a real band with real talent. The Imagination Movers offer a large repertoire of catchy tunes a la Devo and the Red Hot Chili Peppers that you’ll find yourself singing even if your kids aren’t around. I defy anyone to keep their feet from tapping when “Where Are You, Puppy Dog?” is playing.
The reliability of the plots is kind of equivalent to Law and Order. They unfold according to a formula, although in this case the formula serves as a scaffold for the pedagogy, which is mildly executed and seldom leaves you feeling like they are beating your kid over the head with a ‘lesson.’ The Imagination Movers are a team of problem solvers, who cooperatively use their individual strengths to brain-storm solutions for problems that arise for their customers or, more often, amongst themselves.
This show has resulted in my daughter’s first crush — Mover Scott, whose long hair and goatee beard instinctively provoked a fatherly ‘what are your intentions?’ response from me. A quick check of interviews on YouTube revealed that these guys aren’t just a band who happened to be hired for a TV show, they’re also smart guys, thoughtfully developing their show with the assistance of a team of educational professionals. Possibly every kids’ show these days has to have M.Eds and PhDs in the credits, but their presence at least signals that sugar isn’t the first ingredient in this recipe.
Now where can I begin to explain my continual amusement with the character of Uncle Knit-knots, the world’s most stalwart advocate of being boring? Perpetually clad in his boring beige suit featuring an oversize beige bowtie, he appears with his effervescently cute niece and assistant, Nina, usually with the hope of convincing the Movers to turn down their music. He’s their neighbor in the warehouse building and doesn’t like it when his boring beige office brightens with the upbeat sounds of the Mover’s performances.
Often, the character who saves the day is another inhabitant of the building, Warehouse Mouse. The DVD’s four episodes involve Warehouse Mouse in the plot machinations. His appearance is somewhat less crucial in ‘Bucket Trouble,’ but this episode is one of the earlier ones, and so serves to introduce the basics of the show. And while all of the episodes were familiar to us from TV, it didn’t stop my daughter from watching them another hundred times so far, and, to our great relief, continuously on a 3-hour plane trip.
– Clyde
