Thursday, January 26, 2006

What's the deal with The Little Einsteins?

Okay, this is one of those "I'm a daddy" posts, so you people without kids can yawn and stop reading right now. Heh.

My wife and I were talking, and we're trying to figure out something about the children's television show called The Little Einsteins. The premise of the show is that there's a group of four kids who go on these adventures in music and art. One kid is a good dancer, one sings, one plays musical instruments, and the last one is a music conductor. They fly around in a little rocket ship in environments that are After Effects-like compositions using scans of famous paintings and other works of art. Each adventure revolves around a famous piece of classical music which is woven into the plot somehow.

Now, what we're trying to figure out is why they're called The Little Einsteins. I mean, I don't recall Einstein being particularly noted for his dancing or painting. So why Einsteins? I could see The Petite Picassos or The Bitty Bachs, but Einsteins? That just makes no sense.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Isn't the video that speaks french or teaches the drums? My wife was a baby sitter a year ago, and she had these parents that wanted their kids to watch the little Einsteins. If that is the same, I know it is suppose to teach kids different Languages or teach more than just motor skills. I kind of believe that kids should just have fun.

CC said...

Yeah, there's a children's book and video and toy series called Little Einsteins as well, which has a very different visual style to its characters. This is different from the Playhouse Disney show.

I imagine they're linked somehow, with the new Disney series trying to capitalize on the name, but for the life of me, I can't figure out why they'd go there. It's like if "Burger King" started up a children's show about a little girl who plays with frogs and called the show "Burger King." Yeah, you get name recognition, but the name just doesn't make sense. These kids are going to grow up thinking Einstein was a music composer or something.

This bugs me almost as much as intentionally misspelling stuff aimed at kids, like "Toys'R'Us" and "Kids Klub". What the hell? Poor kids, trying to learn how to spell, and you hit them with that? Savages!

Anonymous said...

Its made by the same creator as the Baby Einstein" DVD series for young babies which shows images to the tune of classical music. I think they went with "Baby Einstein" to play on the belief that exposing young children to classical music maked them smarter.

Little Einsteins is geared toward toddlers, hence the word "little" as opposed to "baby," while still playing on the popularity of the "Baby Einstein" series.