The Chap With Caps & More – Between The Lions set
Picture: C+
Sound: C+ Extras: C Episodes: B-
Though it is meant for a younger audience, Between The
Lions (1999 onward) is a series that (following Reading Rainbow)
finally fills the gap The Electric Company left behind decades ago when
it was sadly and disturbingly cancelled.
WGBH Home Video has issued a triple DVD set of the series under the name
The Chap With Caps & More that offers a generous helping of some of
their best shows.
Instead of people, lion puppets are the stars, and these
are not from the Muppet people. That is
a breakaway for PBS, whose puppet programming was responsible for putting them
and creator Jim Henson on the map.
Here, the lions and occasional humans do a fine job of constructing
ideas about grammar, spelling and pronunciation throughout the show. The result is one of the key children’s TV
series. The episodes on the following
DVDs are Pecos Bill Cleans Up The West (also including Lionel’s Great
Escape Trick and Touching The Moon), Shooting Stars (also
including There’s A Fly In My Soup and Pandora’s Box) and Fuzzy,
Wuzzy, Wuzzy? (also including The Boy Who Cried Wolf and The Chap
With Caps).
Each show is about a half-hour and is just non-stop
entertainment, intelligent and fun stimulation to encourage reading
throughout. It does take a while to get
used to non-Muppets educating you, but maybe it is not as hard for the new
generation of pre-schoolers, et al. The
production is good, with money put into the show and this includes some
animation. The shows are also very
colorful and child-friendly, so it is definitely worth having on DVD, as young
children can access the educational aspects any time they want, over and over in
a way broadcasts cannot. That is why there
were records and books in the pre-video days for shows like Electric Company,
Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood and Sesame Street. Now, they can have both.
The 1.33 X 1 full frame image is good for a current analog
video production, employing digital where needed. The puppeteering is good, as well as the taping, though the
animation is made under different circumstances. There are detail limits, but they are not too bad. The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo has no surround
information, but this sounds nice and clear just the same. The music is not bad either. Extras include songs from the show, three
“Play Story” sections from the episodes accessible separately on each DVD, a
“Leading The Way To Literacy” segment and two DVD-ROM PDF activity pieces for
parents and children separately.
- Nicholas Sheffo
