After winning a Grammy for “Boss of Me,” the irresistible theme to “Malcolm in the Middle,” They Might Be Giants just say “No!” with their first album of songs for families.
In stores Tuesday, this rollicking enhanced CD, distributed by Rounder, is the most musical fun you can have with accordions, electronically distorted voices, unconventional rhythms and offbeat lyrics. If Frank Zappa had made a children’s album, this is what it might have sounded like.
Among the most memorable of the 17 tracks are “Fibber Island” (“We swim on the ground/Wheels are square, not round/We eat chocolate by the pound”), the ’60s-esque ditty “Where Do They Make Balloons” and a catchy cover of a mid-’60s PSA that warns children of the dangers of crossing the street “In the Middle, in the Middle, in the Middle of the Block.”
Load the PC and MAC-compatible CD into a computer to interact and sing along with illustrated and animated versions of the songs. For the song “The Edison Museum,” for example, click on the museum windows to read facts about the inventor Thomas Edison.
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Olsen twins get their licenses on home video
Wasn’t it yesterday that they were small? Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen get their drivers licenses in “Getting There,” a produced-for-video feature to be released Tuesday on VHS and DVD.
Lurking Scrappy hints at `Scooby-Doo’
The real mystery of “Scooby-Doo” is the enduring popularity of this one-trick dog. Those meddling teens and their cowardly canine companion have been exposing rubber-masked, sheet-shrouded villains since 1969, when the original animated Hanna-Barbera series debuted. If you’ve seen one episode, you’ve seen them all, as witness “The Original Mysteries,” a collection of the series’ first five episodes just released on VHS and DVD to coincide with the Friday theatrical release of “Scooby-Doo.” Zoinks!
In the PG-rated movie, a computer-generated Scooby interacts with a blond Freddie Prinze Jr. as Fred, Sarah Michelle Gellar as Daphne, Linda Cardellini (from the late, lamented “Freaks and Geeks”) as Velma, and a dead-on Matthew Lillard as Shaggy.
Estranged when the film begins, they reunite to investigate dark doings at Spooky Island amusement park.
But the real horror looks to be a cameo by the “jump-the-shark” (i.e., a ploy that leads to doom for a series) spin-off character Scrappy-Doo.