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I have a beef with whoever puts four hundred previews at the beginning of kids DVD’s. Here’s the thing. I know that the reason previews are on DVD’s is to entice me to rent or watch other movies in the future. That’s their form of advertising and it works. I have seen previews and actually said, out loud or otherwise, to myself, “I’d like to see that”. However I don’t think they have any place on kids DVD’s and here’s why.
Let’s say I am home with my two young kids and would like to take a shower in the morning. I think to myself, what better way to distract the kids for around fifteen minutes than to pop in Finding Nemo or something similar? Well here’s the issue with that. What could take literally two minutes to find the DVD, turn it on, and push play quickly turns to a half an hour of skipping previews, reading warnings, and thinking in the back of my head that the running water is slowly getting colder. What could be a simple morning ritual turns into something that lasts until lunch time.
Here’s my solution. Don’t put them on there. That way my kids can be entertained for a few minutes and I don’t get hypothermia from a cold shower. See how that works?
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...in case you were wondering. 
At the risk of someone commenting we need to chill out, I couldn’t agree more! I was laughing as I read this post as I have been saying this (out loud to myself) for years. I’ll take your above scenario even further. Okay, you know how long this process can seem to take for the adult and then, to the kiddos that are trying to wait patiently. Especially, the little ones who get really antsy…
Comment by Melody Milbrandt December 4, 2007 @ 2:09 pmSo, I started my family very young and have four kiddos(oh yes, and I am also now a single mom). Just trying to get the ambiance right here. Ha.
Two boys and two girls. Well, both my boys have autism. One boy is six, the other is three, and my youngest girl and boy are about 18 months apart. My boys (especially the six year old) love Disney movies. They find them soothing and connect with them so much that their therapists actually integrate them into many of their sessions to motivate them. It is amazing. Anyway, transitions can be a real struggle with kiddos who have autism. In addition, the concept of time is a real doozy for my boys…
So, here we all are trying to get the kids DVD to play as fast as we possibly can because all the boys know is I said I’d put on the movie and they’re NOT seeing their movie! As Brody said… a half hour later here comes the movie, but by this time my boys are freaking out and now we have to pause said movie (that is FINALLY on) because we need to transition back into calm movie watching mode or no one will even be able to hear the blessed movie.
Whewwww…I’m tired just thinking about it.
I so wish I had a video of this to post.
So, if anyone can convince the “four hundred previews on kid’s DVDs” people to stop, I’m on board! 🙂
Laughing out loud…I am a father who agrees whole-heartedly…
Comment by ernestparker December 4, 2007 @ 2:13 pmIn general, I detest the previews.
Have you seen that some of the Disney DVDs (but not all, for whatever reason) have what they call “FastPlay” where it automatically loads and plays the previews, the movie, and then maybe a few of the bonus features as well. It’s kinda nice, actually, as you really can just pop in the disc and walk away knowing that you don’t have to fiddle with loading the menu or anything else. But, you still get kids whining for you to buy the movie they say a preview for.
Comment by euphrony December 4, 2007 @ 3:06 pmmy daughter actually likes watching the previews for the movies, nuttily enough. she seemed to think they were part of the movie or something maybe… something that was always there so she got used to watching it. so it was just a matter of teaching her to hit the triangle (play) by herself to start the movie after them.
though i love what the wiggles did on some of their older videos. they put them at the end after the credits, not the beginning, and then rather than being a summary of the video they were selling, it was a long (2 min or so) clip of one of the songs telling you which video it was from. i bought more videos from that than any other sort of preview…
Comment by blueraindrop December 4, 2007 @ 6:07 pm