Happy Birthday, Hampton Bear!

To my mind, a children's video can commit no greater sin than to talk down to its audience. I can endure and even see merit in almost any title which educates and/or entertains kids fairly. Happy Birthday, Hampton Bear! plays dirty with my rule for respecting children as real people, and therefore I've treated it harshly. For those who find the Teletubbies too frenetic, this video fills a void. For others, it is one. After sitting through the opening segment, in which Hampton and Teddy Bearsevelt get dressed and ride in a donkey cart to Hampton's birthday party at the home of the Bearoness, I could bearly wait to get to the video's promised explanation of "what makes a teddy bear?" Imagine my disappointment when this turned out to be along the lines of "a teddy has two roundish ears, often misused as handles, ha, ha! I say, delightful!" Absence of content, hokey treatment, and poor production quality combine to make this one truly unbearable. Not recommended. A better choice here would be The Teddy Bear Factory (VL-11/98). Aud: K, E, P. (J. Cichewicz)