Reviewer's Bias*
Loves: Animation
Likes: Leap Frog's educational toys
Dislikes: Simplistic kids DVDs
Hates: Getting little content

The Story So Far...
Leap Frog has built an impressive empire of educational toy offerings, adding fun to learning via various handheld and laptop units, and have expanded to include non-interactive material, using the characters from its traditional products in DVDs. A series of titles were released starting in 2003, and new titles and reissues began in 2009. DVDTalk has reviews of several titles.

The Set
Gathering together a somewhat random assortment of three Leap Frog DVDs, two from the line's original releases in 2003, "Letter Factory" and "Talking Words Factory," and one newer title, "Let's Go to School," this set is an intro into the Leap Frog learning system, which uses Tad and his family's adventures to teach pre-school skills like letters and numbers, assisted by simple, catchy songs. The set also includes a bonus pack-in as a further draw. Oddly, there are different recommended ages for the three discs, making them unlikely to be of full value to one buyer (unless they have kids close together in age.)

(Note: Material has been carried over from our reviews of previous discs, as they have not changed from the previous release.)

Letter Factory
As a parent and a child at heart, I fight a constant battle whenever my little girl and I visit a toy store. I am a sucker for a cool or fun toy and can't help but spoil her, but I want to encourage her to learn as well, so I gravitate to toys with educational value. Of those she's played with, the ones she's responded to most have been those from Leap Frog, who seem to have a good handle on balancing fun and learning. Now, with DVDs from Leap Frog, the company tries its hand at non-interactive material, using the characters from its traditional products.

Here, froggy siblings Leap, Lilly and Tad join their dad at his letter factory, where he produces talking letters, in order to help him with a presentation for a potential new customer. While they get ready, Tad wanders off and meets Professor Quigley, who introduces him to the various letters in the alphabet, moving from room to room. Each letter has a particular personality and shows what sound it makes, while Professor Quigley explains in repeated songs set to the tune of "The Farmer in the Dell."

The presentation is straightforward, with four letters done in a row, followed by a reinforcement of those four letters with Leap and Lilly, continuing the plot as Tad (and the viewer) learns. The format repeats itself over and over again, but it sets up a rhythm that makes it easy for little kids to follow. After just a few letters, my daughter was singing along with Professor Quigley as if she's known his song forever. The simple, but attractive animation, including silly letters with various props and costumers and the cute frog characters, is bright and cheery, helping to make sure it's appealing to young ones.

The only thing that's not good about this DVD is how short it is, clocking in at just over a half-hour in length. Admittedly, with all the repetition, any more of the same would certainly be overkill, but there's still a distinct lack of content.

Talking Word Factory
In Letter Factory Little Tad's dad, who runs a factory that creates talking letters, sold a major new client on his product, with help from Tad's brother Leap and sister Lilly, while Tad learned about letter sounds, with the help of eccentric Professor Quigley. This disc brings back that demanding customer, Mr. Websley, who brings in a massive order he needs the same day. Thus, it's back to the factory, for more face time with Professor Quigley, who has to help produce the massive amount of words needed to fill the Websley order. Along the way, there's some learning to do, as Tad is trying to complete an entry for a Best Dad contest, and needs words to fill in the blanks.

Professor Quigley shows the kids his Word Whammer 3000, which lets him call up letters from the factory's supplies to create words. The good Professor utilizes songs and rhymes to teach the froggy fellows, like a song that indicates the vowels are the glue of English, while the factory coats them in sticky substances like honey, peanut butter and bubble gum. It's certainly cute, and very easy to follow, as they build words that sound similar, like "pop" and "stop," and talk about blending sounds, like "st" in "best" or "step." The only thing hard to follow is the oddness of the blending song, where Prof. Quigley dresses like a mid-'70s Elton John to teach the kids about mixing sounds.

Like last time, the only thing that doesn't impress about this DVD is how short it is, clocking in at just over a half-hour in length. But also like last time, with all the repetition, any more of the same would just be too much. As they go over the construction of words like "pin," "cat" and "set" and so forth and so on, you start to say "I get the point." "P-O-I-N-T." But it wasn't just the person in the room with a functioning grasp of the English language. My little girl quickly lost interest in the words being discussed, despite the introduction of the "Sound Slide." She's demanding when it comes to edutainment.

Let's Go to School
Unlike the previous titles, this disc doesn't focus on one element, like letters or words, as Tad and Lily prepare to to school for the first time. Facing a lot of fears about what's waiting for them at school, they get a pep talk from Edison, the Jiminy Cricket of lightning bugs, who takes them on the magical Learning Path (which coincidentally is the name of a new online product from Leap Frog.) The path shows them what awaits them at school, which is populated by anthropomorphic books, chalk and more, who happen to be be nervous like Tad and Lily. I think I'd be nervous too if there was a crazy globe spinning around like a meth-head.

Instead of spending a lot of time on any one piece of knowledge, they get the length of a song to get their point across, like the alphabet song that introduces the sounds each letter makes (the subject of the entire "Letter Factory" DVD.) They also cover counting (up to 20), the concepts of more than and less than, the names of animal babies and families, time, taking turns, the calendar, and, for some reason, recess. The animal names seem a touch out of place, as knowing that a group of penguins is called a rookery seems more like trivia than a basic element of education like the other topics. (Also, they oddly ignore the fact that Tad and Lily are frogs, instead considering them a human family.)

Like the other releases, the content is on the short side, checking in at around 30 minutes, so if your child's not a serial watcher of shows, they won't get many views of this disc. That may negate the value of the material, as the limited amount of time spent with each concept isn't likely to hammer home the ideas. In fact, there's more time spent on playing outside than taking turns or more and less than. Despite that, the songs used to teach things like counting and seasons are very catchy, and my daughter quickly picked them up, especially the calendar song, which introduces the days of the week, the months and seasons.

The DVDs
A simple repackaging job, this three-disc collection gathers together three Leap Frog releases, all in their original bright-green keepcases ("Let's Go to School" also has a slipcover), and puts them in a thin cardboard box with the add-in. The discs feature animated, full-frame menus with options to watch the shows, select scenes and check out the special features. There are no audio options, no subtitles and no closed captions.

The Quality
The full-frame animation consistently looks good, with bright, vibrant colors and a crisp, clean image that's free of any dirt, damage or digital artifacts. The only obvious negative is the usual DVD issue with pixilation along thin black lines.

The Dolby Digital 2.0 tracks are the kind of straightforward, center-focused presentation you'd expect from a kids show, with clean, distortion-free dialogue and solid music.

The Extras
The main extra here is a set of 26 alphabet flash cards, which show the letters the same way they look in the two letter-focused DVDs. On the back are a pair of questions to ask your kid while they look at the letters, like "What animal's name begins with D?" The quality is what you'd expect from a good set you'd buy at a store, so it's a nice addition that ties in well with the set's subject matter.

Letter Factory
The only real extra included is a rather extensive alphabet game (not games, as listed on the back of the box.) All of the letters are displayed, and the user chooses a letter based on a verbal clue given. It's a cute little game and is lengthier than most DVD games out there.

Also included on this disc are a handful of promos for other Leap Frog and Lionsgate products.

Talking Word Factory
The only real extra included is an alphabet game similar to the one on the previous release. All of the letters are displayed, and the user chooses a letter to fill out a word, based on a verbal clue given. Like last time, it's a cute little game and offers enough gameplay to make it worth a look for most kids.

You also get some commercials for Leap Frog and Lionsgate products. Let's Go to School
The first extra is a manually-controlled gallery that matches the alphabet song in the show, presenting a letter and a word it starts with. Here is where one of my biggest issues with this disc is repeated. For the letter X, the word presented is exit. Exit doesn't start with X. What the hell? Just use X-ray or Xylophone. That's all there is that makes sense.

There are also five songs from the DVD presented with karaoke-like on-screen lyrics, letting your child sing along with the songs (once they learn them.) It's a cute bonus that my daughter certainly enjoyed playing with.

Once again, the standard Leap Frog and Lionsgate product promos appear here as well.

The Bottom Line
As one could expect from a reviewer like myself, my house has a lot of DVDs in it, and my daughter's built up a healthy collection of her own. Despite an array of Pixar classics, Disney hits and Nickelodeon favorites, she frequently wants to watch these Leap Frog DVDs, so they must be doing something right. Though this set doesn't offer enough to sway owners of previous releases, newcomers can dive in to this short, though educational collection.

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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.