All Rise...

Judge David Johnson implores you to pat the bunny. For God's sake, pat the bunny!!!

The Charge

"Bunny likes to explore the way different things feel."

The Case

Inspired by the popular children's book series that focuses on tactile development for babies and toddlers, Pat the Bunny blends songs and puppetry and hot dogs to generate a visually stimulating, interactive feature for the smallest among us.

The 60-minute runtime is broken up into four 15-minute "playdates," each stressing different concepts to get across to your children. When each playdate opens, the exact activities that will be tackled are explicitly laid out for the convenience of the parent. Here's what to expect:

• Meet Bunny
Feeling blanket textures!
Playing peek-a-boo!
Playing tickle games!
Tasting foods!
Looking in the mirror!

• Bunny and Friends
Playing with balls!
Blowing and popping bubbles!
Discovering what's inside packages!
Pouring sand and water!

• Make Sounds with Bunny
Encouraging baby babbles!
Imitating sounds!
Singing songs!
Making music!

• Move with Bunny
Looking in the mirror!
Playing with a balloon!
Learning how to eat!
Dancing!

As you can tell, these are all easy-to-digest, entry-level concepts. The show transmits these principles and lessons through bright, colorful imagery involving simple puppets and cartoonish sets. Plus, there are tons and tons of babies shows interacting with everything, touching the bunny, playing the games, pouring the sand and water, rocking out in the bathtub, making faces in the mirror, shoving food into their mouths and singing songs and dancing. My limited experience with small children watching videos with other small children playing with puppets has proven to me that it's fun for them and Pat the Bunny sports an impressive per capita number of little kids smiling and clapping.

The only criticism I have is the attempt at tactile interactivity. Every once in a while, the narrator will ask the viewing audience to "pet the bunny," but that's just touching a TV screen. Kind of difficult to learn about the intricacies of feeling when you're just pawing a screen. Oh, and you might want to relegate this video to your tube television.

The disc looks and sounds fine, utilizing a full frame/2.0 stereo set-up. Extras are parent-centered, featuring an introduction by child development expert Jean Kunhardt and a parents' guide.

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