Archive for the ‘Curious George’ Category

Get ready for Earth Day!

Monday, April 13th, 2009

Earth Day is coming, and that can only mean one thing—you have extra guilt to use as leverage when your kids leave the lights on. Oh, I guess that’s not all it means. But you’re certainly going to want to seize the opportunity to get your kids excited about sharing and caring for our planet, right?

Don’t forget that the U.S. Government has a special page of Earth Day links for kids, to get you started. FamilyEducation.com has some great ideas, too.

Over at the Iddy Biddy Blog, you can read all about the PBS KIDS GO! rev-up for Earth Day, including special themed episodes of many of your favorites, from Curious George to Clifford to Maya and Miguel. And speaking of the Idbids, have you shopped the Idbids Store lately? We have organic cotton Idbids Earth Day shirts ready for personalization; they’re sure to be a hit with your little eco-warrior.

(Of course, we have all of your favorite characters from this month’s eco-themed episodes on PBS here at Ty’s Toy Box, but you already knew that.)

However you choose to get ready for Earth Day, we hope you’ll celebrate!

Posted in Clifford the Big Red Dog, Curious George, Idbids, Kid Stuff, Maya and Miguel, Super Why! | No Comments »

Curious George on your TV, in your museum

Thursday, July 3rd, 2008

Ask any kid (or adult, for that matter) what you need to know about everyone’s favorite monkey, and they’ll tell you two things: Curious George lives with the Man with the Yellow Hat, and he’s a good little monkey but always very curious.

(”Always very curious,” in case you’re wondering, means “gets into a lot of trouble but is cute enough to get away with it.”)

Anyway, the wild success of the PBS show came as a surprise to no one, and the series has been booked through Season 6, at this point, which means there will be new episodes through 2012 (if not beyond). That’s a whole lot of curiosity yet to come!

The thing that I think is positively brilliant, though, is that there’s now a traveling museum event based on George—and right now, it’s in Memphis, Tennessee:

The Childrens Museum of Memphis is hosting Curious George: Lets Get Curious! June 14 – September 28. [...]

Inside the Exhibit

Apartment Building: Move George on pulleys from window to window, climb the fire escape and go inside to play with color, light and shadow.

Sidewalk Produce Stand: Play customer or salesperson and explore shape, sorting, weighing and counting with fruit and vegetables.

Construction Site: Climb into the construction trailer, design a building, make use of building materials, and get to work constructing different structures.

[...]

Museum Within the Museum: Follow H.A. and Margaret Reys work, the escape from France to safety during World War II that saved the Curious George manuscript, and Curious George throughout the years.

I’m leaving out a bunch of details, but even based on that excerpt, aren’t you intrigued? I am! I can’t seem to find a master schedule anywhere, but I was able to find that after the summer in Memphis, the exhibit will head up to the Strong Museum of Play in Rochester, New York.

Keep an eye out—maybe George will be coming to your hometown, much to the delight of your own curious monkeys.

Posted in Curious George, Kid Stuff | No Comments »

PBS scores big with Daytime Emmy awards

Monday, June 16th, 2008

Just in case you missed it, the 35th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards were given our last Friday, and many of our favorite kid’ shows were recognized for excellence. PBS topped the list with 10 awards; for example, Sesame Street won “Outstanding Pre-School Children’s Series,” bringing that show’s total Emmy count to seventy gagillion*.

Other awards of note to those of us with ankle-biters in the house:

  • Curious George won “Outstanding Children’s Animated Program”
  • The Backyardigans won “Outstanding Special Class Animated Program”
  • Wonder Pets won “Outstanding Achievement in Music Direction and Composition”
  • Both Greatest Inventions with Bill Nye and Jack Hanna’s Into the Wild won for “Outstanding Children’s Series”
  • Between the Lions won “Outstanding Writing in a Children’s Series”
  • “Outstanding Writing in Animation” went to both Peep and the Big Wide World and WordGirl

There are other awards, of course, but those are the ones of greatest interest to me. Of course, if you’re deeply moved by the Emmy The Price Is Right won for make-up, well then, to each his own. (My reaction, upon reading that: “Wait… The Price Is Right is still on the air? Isn’t Bob Barker 104?”)

Anyway, it was a pretty exciting day for some great children’s shows. Congratulations to all the winners!

* A “gajillion” is not really a number. Sesame Street has, in fact, won 117 Daytime Emmys, which is very close to seventy gajillion.

Posted in Awards, Curious George, Sesame Street, The Backyardigans, Wonder Pets | No Comments »

And if that wasn’t good enough, Cyber Monday’s up next

Friday, November 23rd, 2007

Wondering what Cyber Monday will hold here at Ty’s Toy Box? Wonder no more, as there’ll be a whole new crop of specials for one day only on Monday, November 26th, 2007.

Did you know that Cyber Monday began as a marketing campaign, and was—initially, anyway—a hoax? There was no evidence to suggest that people did any more online shopping the Monday after Thanksgiving than at any other time. But it has since become the very definition of a self-fulfilling prophecy, and now e-tailers everywhere gear up for a flurry of fingers shop-shop-shopping on this famous Monday.

Ready for a sneak peak at Monday’s deals? Read on to find out how planning ahead can score you some big bargain’s during Ty’s Cyber Monday Sale: (more…)

Posted in Barney, Bob the Builder, Cars, Curious George, Strawberry Shortcake, Teletubbies, The Doodlebops, The Land Before Time, Thomas & Friends, Ty's Stuff | No Comments »

Curious George arrives at Ty’s Toy Box

Tuesday, October 23rd, 2007

I loved Curious George when I was a child, and so when I became a mother, myself, I of course picked up those ubiquitous yellow books, eager to share them with my own children. Perhaps you can imagine my surprise to discover that the lovable little monkey I remembered so fondly was… well, he was a lot bigger troublemaker than I remembered.

Every story follows the same basic structure: George is left alone when the Man with the Yellow Hat has to go off somewhere (and doesn’t have money for a monkeysitter?); George cannot resist either touching something he shouldn’t or wandering off somewhere he wasn’t supposed to; something catastrophic happens; George is scolded; George cries; something marginally good comes of this; everyone laughs and forgives George.

That George was kind of a hoodlum, honestly. But you couldn’t be angry with him for long, because he’s a cute monkey. Which is more or less a summation of most people’s parenting experience, come to think of it….

Anyway, I got over my horror at what a terrible role model George is (and really, there’s an argument to be made for not looking to primates for your role models), I found myself reliving how hilarious his adventures are. My kids were hooked.

When the animated show came to PBS, it’s true that my kids were already a little bit too old for it. But you know what? We watched it anyway. Just because it’s funny, and George is irresistible. Oh, sure—my kids tried to pretend they were watching something else, sometimes, until finally we all had to admit that it’s just the sort of show that’s funny no matter how young or old you are.

And now there’s a whole new Curious George Store at Ty’s Toy Box and I’m nostalgic for the days when my kids were really little, again. I can’t help it. I mean, yes, I suppose that technically sending my son to school in these would be tantamount to taping a “Kick Me” sign to his back, but is that any reason not to offer them in his size?

Welcome to Ty’s, Curious George. Don’t ever stop being cute. (You might want to stop flooding the house, causing chaos at the hospital, sailing away on a kite, and letting all the baby bunnies out, though.)

Posted in Curious George, Ty's Stuff | No Comments »