Being the father of a five-year-old and a three-year-old, I have become an expert on children’s television shows. Playhouse Disney offers a nice selection of educational and preschool programming, and leading that pack is “Little Einsteins.”

Brought to you by the same people who produce the Baby Einstein series, the “Little Einstein” is a flash-animated show featuring a team of young adventurers – Leo the conductor, Annie the singer, June the dancer and Quincy the musician – who travel the world in their big, red rocket to learn about music, art and culture.

“Little Einsteins” is broadcast on Playhouse Disney and syndicated through local stations as well. If you’re lucky enough to have a DVR, or at least a dedicated VCR, you might be able to catch all the shows. If you’re not, that’s okay because Disney releases DVDs of this series periodically.

The latest “Little Einsteins” release is “Mission Celebration,” which continues to put a heavy emphasis on geography as well as art and music. The disc contains three episodes from the series.

The first is “The Birthday Machine,” which was a premiere episode on DVD upon release. (Since the release, it’s been aired several dozen times, I’m sure.) This first episode celebrates birthdays and follows the kids as they jet-set off to Italy to find a magical birthday machine.

In the “Go West, Young Train” episode, the adventurers head out west for a wild time. In “The Birthday Balloons,” Annie’s special balloons are kidnapped to Antarctica, and her friends have to track them down from a group of penguins.

“Little Einsteins” strikes a fine balance among the different subjects. There’s art, music, literature and culture. However, there’s also some life science to get kids interested in the subject. This might be a response to other kids’ programs like “Go Diego Go!” and “The Wonder Pets,” but it’s still a nice thought.

The DVD comes with a “You’ve Got a Mission” game, which allows kids to send Rocket on an interactive quest.

What I like about the show is that it is pretty strongly an educational program, but it doesn’t feel that way. The kids have fun learning and exploring new worlds and concepts. It’s a nice way to introduce them to learning before the daily grind of school crushes it out of them completely.



Specifications: Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound. Fullscreen aspect ration (1.33:1). French language track. English subtitles for the hearing impaired.