Good Morning Sunshine

Based on the Parent's Choice award-winning audiocassette "Good Morning, Sunshine," a collection of children's songs by musicians Patti Dallas and Laura Bacon, the video portion of this multimedia presentation simply doesn't measure up to the superb audio. Dallas and Baron perform fifteen children's songs, mostly traditional, including "ABC," "Pop Goes the Weasel," "This Old Man," "The Eensey-Weensey Spider," "London Bridge," and the title track, with a Renaissance flavor, using hammer, dulcimer, and recorder, as well as modern instruments. (What other children's music recording would feature an instrumental by Praetorius?) The visual story accompanying these lovely tunes has Doogan the Elf, a "special friend," gathering up the neighborhood children, and dancing down the sidewalk. While some tunes have somewhat more imaginable settings ("This Old Man" features a nice tap dance sequence from a youngster with a long beard, and puppets are used in another song), there are simply too many dance around the suburban back yard pieces. If you don't have Dallas and Baron's audio recording (on Golden Glow Recordings), we highly recommend it; the video, however, is not a necessary purchase. (Available from: IVC, 520 Bloomingdale Rd., Itasca, IL 60143.)