‘Fruit’ Video A Peach Of A Production For Kids
Afternoon TV shows for preschoolers, such as “Sesame Street,” do an admirable job of introducing spelling, counting and other basic concepts. But no program has a monopoly on reaching out to youngsters and engaging their imaginations.
In the home-video field, a small independent company called Stage Fright Productions has for several years been turning out terrific half-hour cassettes on topics with huge kid appeal, including farm animals, tractor-trailers and locomotives.
Stage Fright’s “Close Up and Very Personal” tapes are pure visual experiences. They have no narrator, cute cartoon character or other authority figure on hand to “explain” the material. Instead, the producers assemble their footage (of trucks, trains, chickens or whatever) into compelling montages that entertain young viewers while revealing the processes of the natural and man-made worlds.
The newest title, “Fruit,” (30 minutes, $14.95) departs slightly from the formula by being more overtly educational. Words appear on the screen along with drawings of fruit representing six broad categories, such as “citrus,” “tropical” and “berries.” Again, there’s no narrator on this tape, so parents should probably help out by explaining the terms as they appear (hint: have a dictionary handy for “pomes” - apples and pears - and “drupes” - peaches, apricots).
Except for these fleeting captions, however, the tape continues the Stage Fright tradition of relying solely on carefully selected images, well-edited montages and a touch of background music to tell its story. Among the everyday sights that somehow become fascinating here are the bountiful produce aisles of a supermarket; the long green rows of an orchard seen from the air; the planting of new fruit trees; the harvesting of blueberries, cranberries, bananas and more; and the conveyor belts in processing plants that ferry lemons, limes and oranges to their various fates.
Each fruit is also presented in close-up to show texture and sliced in half to reveal the succulent interiors and the interesting patterns of their seeds. Among the more exotic ones are papaya and kiwi.
As a change of pace from scenes of orchards and boxes of fresh fruit, there’s a wordless running gag concerning an artist and his attempt at painting a still life of a fruit bowl over a week’s time. Each day he eats one more piece from the bowl and then has to remove the piece from his work in progress. Ultimately the bowl on the canvas is empty.
Although such imagery may stimulate a welcome appetite for fruit among young viewers, that would be but a residual effect. No trace of dietary propaganda spoils its simple pleasures.
The nice thing about “Fruit,” as with all Stage Fright titles, is that the fun comes first.
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