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by Jarrod Chambers My first encounter with “Stanley” was at Walt Disney World in Orlando, at the Disney-MGM Studios. There is a show combining live actors and puppets at Playhouse Disney, and Stanley and his goldfish Dennis were among the attractions. When they announced that they were going to look up gorillas in The Great Big Book of Everything, every kid in the place leaped to their feet and sang along with the Great Big Book of Everything song. I quickly realized that I was one of the few who had not heard of “Stanley”.
For those who are new to this as well, Stanley is a little boy whose best friend is a talking goldfish named Dennis. (His dog Harry and his cat Elsie also talk, but none of the other animals in the show do; how Disney decides which animals are allowed to talk is a question with no satisfactory answer.) Stanley is also the owner of the aforementioned book, which despite its name is really a book about animals. Animals can be summoned from its pages into Stanley’s world, or he can enter the book with Dennis and others in tow. Each episode follows a rough formula: Stanley has a problem and solves it by learning from an animal or animals, and he and Dennis discuss the day’s events as he drops off to sleep.
After watching these two discs, my kids and I are crazy for “Stanley”. The animation is bright and colourful, filled with off-kilter two-dimensional shapes and angles, more a nod to the stylistic modesty of “Roger Ramjet” or “George of the Jungle” than most of Disney’s more traditional animation. The stories are aimed squarely at the kids, so if you’re expecting some hip, pseudo kid’s show like “Spongebob Squarepants” or “Fairly Oddparents”, this ain’t it. It is, however, a superbly-written show that teaches kids about animals and many, many other things without patronizing the audience or dumbing down the material. Given the lineage of the show (it was conceived by the Cognitive Skills Group at the Harvard Graduate School of Education), this is not too surprising.
Our DVD foray into “Stanley” started with Hop To It. I knew “Stanley” was something different when in the first story, Stanley summoned a kangaroo to help him clean up his parents’ room, only to have Dennis explain that the kangaroo’s pouch is a home for its young, not a big pocket. It was a wonderful relief to hear Dennis the goldfish giving Stanley the real facts about the animals, and with a musical British accent to boot. (He’s voiced by Charles Shaughnessy, late of “The Nanny”.) Each story is like that, reinforcing some positive behaviour, such as taking responsibility for your mistakes, even managing to throw in some educational basics such as counting and spelling along the way. The tone is not syrupy, just straightforward, with Dennis advising Stanley on the ways of the world and Stanley actually listening.
Hop To It includes encounters with a kangaroo, ants, an anteater, and a sloth, who shows Stanley that even just hanging around doing nothing can cause problems. My favourite moment on this disc was such a little thing that many other cartoon studios, aiming for the most product with the least effort, would never have thought up: When Stanley is about to leave the Great Big Book after his lesson in kangaroos, he stops to give the kangaroo mother a six-year-old’s hug good-bye, a touch so warm and appropriate that it melted my heart.
Spring Fever is a collection of stories featuring more familiar animals: groundhogs, caterpillars (leading, of course, to butterflies), and bluebirds. The disc’s final story, “Baby Pictures,” is a departure from the norm. Stanley is worried about growing up, and to make him feel better, he and Dennis discuss the life cycle of all of Stanley’s pets and of humans, too. This episode should comfort many small children faced for the first time with the scary idea of having to grow up and leave home someday.
THE DVDs
Aside from some Disney trailers and a Baha Men music video, the main extra on each DVD is an interactive game in which the child performs various tasks using the keys on the DVD remote in order to paste animal pictures into the Great Big Book of Everything. My four-year-old loved it and played it right to the end. I found it a bit long, but it certainly kept his attention, and he could play it with very little help from me. It relies mostly on pattern matching, although there are numbers and words for the child to read if they want to and are able. Once the pictures are all pasted into the book, you can turn to the various pages and “read” them: you are shown photographs of animals and hear Dennis reciting interesting facts about them. For people without the patience to sit through the game, another menu item takes you directly to the finished book.
I loved both discs, with the groovy Baha Men theme song (incidentally composed by Peter Lurye, who did the wonderful music for “Bear in the Big Blue House”) and all the crisp, eye-catching animation, which is presented in fullscreen. The stereo sound is excellent for a kids’ series. I love knowing that I can let my kids watch “Stanley” and be certain they’ll learn something, be entertained, and be safe in Stanley’s company. One thing still escapes me, though. While we were watching, my twelve-year-old pointed out that Stanley’s head and Dennis’s fish bowl are the same shape. But why?
Both discs – 46 minutes; NR; 1.33:1; English DD 2.0 (Stereo); CC; English subtitles; DVD-5; Region One; Disney
