Cars! Cars! Cars!

As more and more planes, trains and automobile videos for kids rush on to the market, the standards have--in turn--been ratcheted up. On the kids "edutainment" scale, Cars! Cars! Cars! is merely Ok! Ok! Ok! Returning home from the grocery store with her wide-eyed inquisitive offspring, a mother promises to tell the kids all about cars once they're inside. Apropos of nothing Mom snaps her fingers and makes the family car disappear and reappear, allowing the filmmakers to pull off a visual stunt that a 5th-grader with a camcorder and a VCR could accomplish. At the family computer, Mom calls up (surprise!) stock footage in ways that could--with a little imagination--roughly be called CD-ROMish, but seems more like a TV highlights reel. On the plus side, the clips are pretty darn good, showing the evolution of the car from its days as a horseless carriage to current solar and electric-powered models (which are not quite as unconditionally environmentally-friendly as the program suggests). Due to the wide range of cars and variety of info-nuggets presented, this is a strong optional purchase. Aud: K, E, P. (R. Pitman)