Well, here's my review of the Sesame Street Home Video release "Guess That Shape and Color"- a 2006 release (well, it's copyrighted 2005 but wasn't released until June 6, 2006)- with approximate running time of 40 minutes.
I should point out that the DVD has a few special features, like previews of other videos (Sesame Street: Elmo's World- Pets and Sesame Street: Elmo's Potty Time- wow, this one has a really rocking song about using the potty- I'll probably review this one soon
) and a bonus game. I would highly recommend you play the bonus game because with each correct answer you get a nice treat- a song to accompany the question category.
After identifying a circle, you get to see a song from Ernie about circles. (Definitely a newer production with Steve Whitmire as Ernie- but not sure what year)
Then when you decide that a stop sign is indeed the shape of an octagon, you get to see a live action film of stop signs.
And then when you pick out an orange food that grows underground (sweet potato)- you get to see a really classic Sesame Street song- "Farmer" Ernie in his garden singing about how "plants grow high and grow low- some grow above the ground and some grow below." I remember seeing this one in the 80s- but haven't seen it in forever. Nice to hear Jim Henson as Ernie singing a classic song again!
And then you pick out a food that's good for breakfast, like a strawberry (sorry- pistachio ice cream and jelly beans are "sometimes" foods, apparently!
)-you get to see an animated song about a kid who eats the colors of the rainbow- showing off real life footage of the foods he's singing about.
Okay- now to the actual video.
Zoe and Elmo are sitting on the 123 stoop trying to decide what game to play when game show host Mr. Square pops up out of nowhere and challenges them to find squares on "Sesame Street Squares" (before the mouse runs up the clock and rings the bell! I like the mouse and his trainer!
) They go to Hooper's Store to look for 7 squares (wow- I jut noticed that Hooper's Store has a sign up saying "Free Coffee"!
) And Alan has to leave to deliver porridge to Mama Bear- but then Zoe and Elmo notice the closed sign and that's their first square. They then rush off to Bob and Baby Natasha to look for more squares. Bob's reading a book of tongue twisters and E and Z notice that Bob's button and the book cover are squares. (Every time Z and E make such a discovery, Mr. Square pops up with his game show music and gives us the countdown on where they are.)
Z and E leave Bob wondering what just happened and then go with Big Bird to look for squares and find Cookie Monster, who's on a cookie eating break from eating cookies. (The cookie box declares cookies to be the perfet energy snack!) Cookie Monster's right next to Oscar's trash can too, who then pops up with his "Un-Welcome" sign- another square!
Telly then shows up with 2 triangles to help Big Bird, Zoe and Elmo and show them that 2 triangles can sometimes make a square!
Grover then shows up in his delivery job outfit and has to deliver a postcard to Mr. Square (by the way- it has a subway train on it that says "Greetings From Astoria!" Reference to Waldorf's wife, maybe?
)
And so they win a cow (Gladys) doing a square dance. And the postcard is from Mr. Square's mom telling him to come home for a square meal.
And then Mr. Can You Guess (looking remarking similar to Mr. Square) suddenly shows up and starts the "Can You Guess?" game. (He pretty much hosts this part of the video, enlisting unseen kids as contestants whose voices we hear throughout it). It seems that the kids do indeed want to play the game (as we hear them screaming affirmation) and then he offers us shape questions.
After identifying a triangle in the first question, we get to have a nice triangle song with Telly and Benny and other Anything Muppets in an Egyptian number. (Perhaps it's called "Telly Tut"?) They sing about King Tut- but there's a possible reference to the 1956 movie "The Ten Commandments" as Telly echoes Pharaoh's words- "So let it be written, so let it be done."
- Back to the game- It turns out that we learn from the next question that a square has 4 angles and so we get treated to classic 1980s song "Hip to Be A Square" (which is a parody of classic 1980s song "Hip to Be Square" by Huey Lewis and the News)
Next- we identify two rectangles in a picture of a boat and then watch Papa Bear and Baby Bear checking out Mondrian's painting of rectangles and squares. (And naming examples of each)
And then they find another painting with more rectangles and squares and discuss more examples.
Back to the game- Mr. Can You Guess changes his outfit to a fruits and vegetables outfit (and gets a new hairdo and loses his glasses) and asks us to find a fruit that shaped like an oval (which is a watermelon).
Then we get to see a short song about watermelons with a live action kid eating an animated watermelon.
Next- which food is a fruit? It's an orange!
And then we get to see a quick live action parody of Dragnet with a girl dressed as a detective (Jane Tuesday) telling us about oranges, along with a boy as Captain Vitamin C.
Next in the game- pick the right food to finish the pattern.
After answering this question- we've finished all the questions- and so the prize is to play another game!!!
But first we see a quick animated musical number where live action vegetables spin around in patterns.
And then it's finally back to the Street where a bunch of girls are skipping rope- along with Zoey and Elmo. And all they have to do is mention that they're hungry and Mr. Healthy Food (the game show host we saw in the last game in his food outfit) shows up to play the Healthy Food Game.
Elmo and Zoe have to find 4 healthy foods with different colors before the mouse climbs the refridgerator and plays a grand piano!
(Who's the mouse? Who's the mouse? LOL)
Elmo and Zoe go off to the fruit stand by Hooper's Store- and Luis shows up looking for red peppers for his fajitas that he's cooking. Elmo and Zoe were looking for red apples, but instead find red peppers.
Zoe and Elmo see what Gina's having for lunch and find out that she's having a pumpernickel baloney sandwich- but they need something white. Luckily, a farmer and cow show up and he milks the cow- to produce a glass of milk. Did then the cow (I think it's Gladys though the voice is a bit different) says, "Did I mention that I'm 'proud to be a cow' Not everyone can make food that's chock full of vitamin D."
(Nice reference to Gladys' "Proud to Be a Cow" song)
The cow and farmer suggest Elmo and Zoe hit the garden to find a green food (and the host tells Gina to enjoy her baloney for some reason)- and at the garden they find Susan and a girl named Bianca planting vegetables. They show them the lettuce that they've grown.
Now the cow, Zoe and Elmo are looking for a purple food and Big Bird asks them to watch out because Snuffy's coming through with a giant purple eggplant to get to his cave for his mom to make eggplant parmalapagos- an Italian/Hawaiian dish!
And with that- Elmo and Zoey have won the game. And everyone celebrates (Big Bird even comments that he doesn't even know what's going on)
And the prize is that Zoe and Elmo get to eat the food that they found. Snuffy says hey should take all the food to his mom to have a picnic lunch! And off they go!
Concluding thoughts-
The video was better than I thought it might have been. We seemed to kind of jump from game to game- but it was pretty fun. Probably the thing I appreciated the most was a few in-jokes here and there that I pointed out throughout the review. And it was really nice to see a lot of the human characters in here- Alan, Bob, Gina, Luis and Susan! And a lot of other characters were in there besides just Elmo and Zoe- Big Bird, Oscar, Telly, (Baby Bear and Papa Bear in a segment), Gladys, Grover, Cookie Monster, (Ernie in segments) and always nice to see Snuffy in here too- and hear his mom and cave get mentioned. As I said, be sure to play the bonus game as there's a few other songs in there too- standout classic material seems to be "Hip to Be a Square" and Ernie's gardening song in the bonus game.
Though the new host was fun- it's a shame they didn't use a classic game show host like Guy Smiley- or even Sonny Friendly!
Nonetheless, as always- it's good fun from Sesame Street and recommended.
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