Kid Friendly DVDs
For our recent family car trip, my husband G. Grod and I rationalized the purchase of some new DVDs, since we were borrowing a DVD player from friends, and wanted some new things to distract 6yo Drake and 4yo Guppy. We also got a few from the library. For a few, I was surprised to see what worked and what didn’t for the kids and grownups.
Both kids and grownups:
Fantastic Mr. Fox
Kung-Fu Panda
Toy Story 2
Pinocchio
Wall E
Schoolhouse Rock
Grownups, not so much the kids:
Up
Kids, not so much the grownups:
Cars
Tom & Jerry
Scooby Doo
Yo Gabba Gabba
DVDs the kids refused to watch:
Free to Be You and Me
Mary Poppins (6yo Drake is afraid of the cannon)
Ralph’s World
Fraggle Rock
DVDs the kids watched that G. Grod and I want to, but haven’t watched yet:
Wallace and Gromit: A Matter of Loaf and Death (even if it’s only full screen)
Shaun the Sheep: A Wooly Good Time
April 7th, 2010 at 7:07 pm
I am chuckling at the list of DVDs your children refused to watch. When I was a kid, it felt like absolute torture having to watch the Free to Be You and Me shorts the teachers would make us sit through.
A few extra suggestions for ones grownups and kids might like from personal experience:
Monsters Inc
Finding Nemo
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
Coraline (my almost 4 year old gets scared in a few parts but otherwise loves it)
Chicken Run
Monsters Vs. Aliens
Electric Company (the old show, not the revised one)
Ben 10
Ben 10 Alien Force
April 8th, 2010 at 3:12 am
H_ (now 4!) loves Mary Poppins. G_ (5) isn’t so much into it - I think he was scared by the (minor) tension in the movie.
The boys loved Wall-E and Cars too. I think they finally decided that Ratatouille was okay - the shotgun scene at the start scared G_ out of the (free) theater the first time.
Have you tried Surf’s Up - that one’s fun (and Dude is in it). And the boys enjoyed March of the Penguins, even with it’s somehwat bleak outlook. We didn’t like Happy Feet (too cloying).
April 10th, 2010 at 8:01 am
PR, I remember liking Free to Be You and Me, which is why I put it on my kids wishlist, and why they received it, so feel abashed that they refuse to watch it, and find it hilarious and guilt inducing that you have bad memories of it and I’ve tried to inflict it on the kids. Maybe I should just watch it myself and see if they join me, and see how it is.
Your suggestion list is good; we have a lot of those dvds. I wouldn’t have thought Coraline would work for the kids, but I’ll give it a try, as it’s very good.
And Ben 10 seems to be a force to be reckoned with; it’s everywhere these days. Might as well check it out and see what we think.
JV, I think I’m going to have to try Mary Poppins with them. Drake got scared out of Ratatouille when we saw it in theater, too.
Haven’t tried Surf’s Up, but will not do March of the Penguins; I couldn’t stand it. Apparently I’m a hard hearted grinch.
April 10th, 2010 at 11:58 pm
My two kids like monsters so Coraline was right up their alley. My kids prefer Ben 10 (the original series) to Alien Force. The kids are 10 in the cartoon and they’re having their adventures with their grandfather. Alien Force has a lot of teen angst in it which is completely over their heads.
Some more films that my two liked: Happy Feet, Babe (although the DVD set up is obnoxious), Madagascar, the old Pink Panther cartoons and Lilo and Stitch.
If you like Free to Be You and Me then by all means watch the DVD.
April 11th, 2010 at 7:19 pm
We just showed them the special short “Jack Jack Attacks” on the Incredibles DVD and they nearly had to run out of the room, though they laughed when it was over. I am not sure we’ll make it through the full movie. Too much tension!
April 14th, 2010 at 4:19 pm
I actually took my kids to see Fantastic Mr. Fox at our local $3 theater not too long ago, though not because it was on the top of my list. Because my kids range from 11-16, it’s not always easy to find something that holds the same interest for the baby as it is for the oldest, who would much rather watch chick-flicks with Mom than watch anything that could be conceived as a ‘kids’ movie.’ I was, however, very pleasantly surprised. We thought the movie was clever and quirky enough to appeal to an older crowd, but straightforward enough to appeal to (and not lose) the younger audience. As a matter of fact, the eleven-year-old had to shush the rest of us a few times, because we could not contain our laughter. Well worth viewing by everyone.