Reviewer's Bias*
Loves:
Likes: Smart kids television, "Yo Gabba Gabba," Noggin, "Jack's Big Music Show," "Wonder Pets"
Dislikes: Dora, Joe
Hates: "Blue's Room"

The Show
As the father of an infant, I am awash in the crap that is children's television, and will be for some time to come. So whenever I come across anything that doesn't make me ill, let still entertains my little girl, I consider it to be like manna from heaven. That Nickelodeon has blessed us with a good deal of acceptable kids TV puts them high on my list, and made me look forward to this DVD, thinking it would be a good wind-down disc to get ready for bed with.

Unfortunately "Sleepytime Stories" is not going to calm down any tot. Worse yet, of the six episodes on this DVD, only two are actually about bedtime, with another three just tangentially related to sleep in any way. Like too many kids collections, it doesn't seem a whole lot of thought went into the episode selection here.

Up first is everyone's favorite bilingual ragamuffin, Dora the Explorer, in "Little Star." In this adventure, like in pretty much any other Dora episode, Dora and her monkey pal Boots have to reach three locations and overcome a minor challenge to help a friend. In this case, it's Little Star, who has to get back into the night sky so people can wish on her. It's the usual Dora story, which means the little taskmaster is her overbearing self in bossing the viewers around, and there's nothing all that interesting going on, though getting to see her drug-dealing pal Tico jump around in a tree as Dora screams at him is a twisted treat.

"Tickety's Favorite Nursery Rhyme," an episode of "Blue's Clues," is up next, and thankfully it's an episode with Steve as Blue's owner, which instantly makes it a better pick. As Steve tries to figure out the clock's favorite nursey rhyme, led by clues left by Blue, kids get to yell out their ideas. It's much less aggressive than Demanding Dora and purely innocent fun. There's nothing much for adults to enjoy, but at least it's not tedious.

The "sleepytime" connection is stretched even thinner in "Saves the Three Little Pigs/Saves the Owl," a pair of shorts starring the Wonder Pets, three classroom pets who save other animals in photorealistic musical cartoons. Though the story and night elements of the two adventures may tie into bedtime, it's a loose connection. Fortunately, the shows, which see the three pals save the day while singing all the ways, are entertaining to kids and adults, as there's a mildly dark side to the Pets, especially when it comes to egotistical duckling Ming Ming.

If the Wonder Pets stretched the DVD's theme, "Jack's Big Music Show" stomps all over it and leaves it a broken mess. "The Music Monster" has absolutely nothing to do with sleep, bedtime or anything remotely similar. Henry, a timid little monster, needs help to learn how to be scary, so he can fit in with his family. The attempts by Jack, his pal Mary and his dog Mel, to assist Henry in being frightening are amusing, but as always with this series, it's the music that carries the day, with kids-friendly special guests Laurie Berkner and Milkshake along to provide monster-appropriate songs. Berkner is the perfect alternative to the Raffis of the world, blending fun, simple lyrics with catchy pop music, while Milkshake is a good-enough family-focused duo, though there's something about the lead singer that bugs me. Either way, everyone can enjoy this episode, even if it doesn't fit the disc's concept.

Much more focused on sleep is "Yo Gabba Gabba!" and the appropriately-titled "Sleep." A throwback to the days of "The New Zoo Revue," the show features DJ Lance Rock and his toys come to life, who sing and play, while learning important life lessons, in this case the value of getting enough sleep. Mixed in with the costumed characters are short animated pieces, clips of kids dancing and musical guests. There's a definite hipster vibe to the whole thing, with an importance placed on entertaining both adults and kids. Thus, you get special appearances by Mark "Devo" Mothersbaugh and Red House Painters' Mark Kozelek, references to '80s video games and a performance by pop group Smoosh. Anyone who grew up with the kids TV of the '70s and '80s will appreciate what makes this show fun, and their kids will too.

Wrapping things up is another appearance by Blue, but this time it's an episode of his live-action puppet show, "Blue's Room." I can't even go into everything that makes this a week spin-off of "Blue's Clues," but numbers one and two have to be the fact that Blue speaks now, and that his owner is Joe, the guy who got the thankless job of following Steve Burns in the role of Blue's human friend. The show simply tries to hard and comes off too cloying for the parents watching to enjoy it, but at least it plays by the theme, as "Sprinkles' Sleepover" is actually about sleep. Blue's little brother can't fall sleep, so you have to help him find his trick to getting sleepy. It's easy to see why kids would enjoy all the fuzzy fun, but it doesn't entertain the adults in the room as well, which is a cardinal sin in my book, since it's the adults paying the bills.

The DVD
Packed in a standard keepcase, this is a one-disc release that has a static full-frame menu with options to play all the episodes or select individual shows. If you wait a short while without selecting an option, the episodes will start automatically. There are no audio options and no subtitles, though the disc does have closed captioning.

The Quality
The full-frame episodes look great, even better than they look on digital cable, with some moments looking outstanding, including the level of fine detail in "Blue's Room," and the vivid colors of "Jack's Big Music Show" and "Yo Gabba Gabba!" While there's no noticeable dirt or damage to be found in the image, some spots of compression artifacts can be seen, especially during "Dora the Explorer," which suffers from some pixelation in areas. Truthfully though, the clarity and color in these episodes can actually be surprising it's so good.

The episodes are presented in Dolby Digital 2.0, and sound as good as they do on TV, with a straight ahead sound that keeps a proper separation between the dialogue and music, though there's nothing dynamic about the mix.

The Extras
There are no extras included.

The Bottom Line
If you (or more precisely your kids) enjoy the Nick Jr. line-up's more popular shows, this is a fine little sampler, but it doesn't work very well as a themed release and fails miserably as any kind of pre-bed wind-down. It's just a handful of shows that will kill a few hours for your little tykes. While the quality of the presentation is excellent, there's no extra material included, which makes it hard to justify a purchase if you have a DVR, a DVD recorder or even just a plain-old VCR, and can make your own collections. Of course, if you're just looking for an easy way to pacify a few kids for a while, it's an OK way to go.

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*The Reviewer's Bias section is an attempt to help readers use the review to its best effect. By knowing where the reviewer's biases lie on the film's subject matter, one can read the review with the right mindset.