It was only a couple of months ago that the famed children’s producers, The Foundation and CBeebies, released their DVDs on the popular Big Barn Farm and they have now made a new DVD from another of their popular shows, Waybuloo.
The format and structure of the show has made it popular among children and grown-ups alike, even getting the CBeebies channel to change the new format earlier this year (which had Dave Lamb from Come Dine With Me and Big Barn Farm narrating and having half the running time cut down) back to the original format (which has no narration and is twenty minutes long).
This latest DVD joins a big number of Waybuloo products already released, but has some new and interesting features to make it appealing for fans of the series.
Set in the land of Nara, the show focuses on four magical characters called Piplings, who each represent a different animal and color, each one having their own personalities. Lau Lau represents a rabbit and loves painting; Nok Tok is a bear and likes to fix items; De Li is a cat and likes gardening; and Yojojo is a monkey and is cheeky.
They all love to do a gentle type of yoga called yogo and they do these with human children who visit Nara, which the Piplings always call cheebies. These lovely and gentle positions that they represent on-screen is one of the many big appeals of each episode and is one of the few shows that encourage children to do exercises in-front of the television (including the up-coming series Tree Fu Tom).
The writers have done a great job of adding stories into each episode as well that focus on the four Piplings for the problem that they must solve (one of them looses the other one’s precious item, they accidentally knock over something, etc) and the cheebies usually help them after having some relaxing yogo sessions.
This structure is greatly written and the production team have managed to use the script at a great effect, featuring some of the best set designs and CGI animation for a television show.
Unlike the other children DVDs that I have reviewed so far, this release has an instructional poster and a feature on the disc where people can learn to do some yogo positions. This is a nice extra to see as it gives the children watching it some new activities and keeping them occupied and more importantly, offering some fun and making this DVD a little bit special.
Of course, this disc also offers seven twenty minute episodes to keep everyone entertained and a good value at just around four pounds.
Overall, this is a fun and interesting CBeebies release that not just offers a good range of episodes, but a nice feature to get the young ones interested.
As an open fan of the series and someone who welcomes some additional content on top of the episodes themselves, this is a great DVD and is worth the purchase if you know any cheebies that love the show.
