Wee Bee Tunes Travel Adventures: Get Your Passport! (NR, 2002)

A travel show for children, GET YOUR PASSPORT features catchy music and enticing animation and begins with an introduction to character "guides" to the continents (a penguin for Antarctica, a yak for Asia, and so on). Maps are pointedly shown with emphasis on where countries lie in the continental scheme. Each continent is explored through a variety of cultural ideas and specific dates and facts. Partying in Brazil for Carnival, for example, is a theme chosen for South America.

Despite the catchy tunes, Wee Bee Tunes Travel Adventures: Get Your Passport ends up coming across as a confusing amalgamation of cultural exploration and musical animation that places as much emphasis on defining the character guides as it does defining the place that they're visiting. The content can get disturbingly convoluted. Unless an adult can pause the DVD and explain the concept of Parliament in England, for example, or the fact that the desert moved in and "the economy dried up" in Timbuktu, these facts are throw-aways.

Very few people of color are shown in the Carnival scene in Brazil, which misrepresents the population. Shopping in Turkey, where viewers are told to "prepare to spend" at the "original shopping mall" that has "over 4,000 shops," takes the cake. Money changes hands and goods are hoarded. There are also deeper issues in terms of slavery, cultural conflict, and ecology that are glossed over. The CD release of the same title might be a better choice, since this DVD tries to do too much.

Studio: Girdwood Partners
Director: Trevor Bentley
Genre: Family and Kids
Run time: 40 minutes
Theatrical release: October 15, 2002
DVD release: November 7, 2001
MPAA Rating: NR