U. S. Geography: The Great American Odyssey

Oh, the pain, the pain. Think of the WORST of "my-personal-details-are-what-you-want-to-hear-about-in-a-supposedly-educational-video" genre and you've got the basis for this tape in which a Vermont family drives across the country on vacation. Granted, they do indeed mention a little something about geography or geology at most of their planned stops, though the information seems to be taken verbatim from rangers and Park Service brochures and is usually recited in that bored, mechanical teen-age style that ends every sentence with a question mark (OK?). But those snippets do NOT count as "U.S. Geography" in full or in part, especially when viewers are subjected, in detail, to hearing about each of their many breakdowns and about Dad's appendicitis (geography had something to do with the appendicitis, our young hosts are eager to point out, since a hospital was nearby, but I believe the word is "proximity," rather than "geography"). As a certified social studies teacher, I implore you in the name of Lewis and Clark or Pike or Peary not to waste school funds on this dreadful twenty-four minutes that seems ten times as long. Not recommended. Aud: E, I. (R. Reagan)