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• Review: Yo Gabba Gabba! Cuts an Album

  It's about time. I was out at a girls night (without the kid, rare, but it happens), when someone started talking about this show with Biz Markie and his "Beat of the Day."  "And it's for our kids!" they said. After I finished snorting a cosmo out my nose, I pressed for details. "You mean Biz "Youuuuuuuuu can't carry a tune, but it's OK cause you're just a friend" Markie? And there are no freakish overbearing bunnies? Tell me more." Oh, admit it, you've got Yo Gabba Gabba! Tivo'd for AFTER the kid goes to bed, and you can pretend you're back in college and eat some munchies. Only now you can put carry in on your iPod too. Because DJ Lance Rock, Toodee and their music biz friends have put out an album that's only on iTunes. And we've got the skinny for you. Read More... Posted Dec 19 2008, 10:33 AM by JeanneSager with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: music, ipod, TiVo, itunes, kid music, noggin, biz markie, album, Jeanne Sager, dj lance rock, Biz beat of the day, The Aquabats, Yo Gabba Gabba!, Party in my tummy, The Ting Tings

• A Halloween Playlist for Your Kids' Party

  So you're planning a Halloween party for all the kids in the neighborhood and you want to fire up some holiday-appropriate tunes. But you don't want to choose any excessively scary selections from that overplayed Halloween mix CD. In other words, "Tubular Bells" and "Dead Man's Party" might be a bit too macabre. Justine Lorelle Blanchard over at Cookie has compiled a short, nine-song Halloween playlist, and I am digging a few of her choices: "Lil' Red Riding Hood" and "Boris the Spider" strike me as particularly ideal tunes for kids. ("Thriller" is good, too, as long as your little ones are old enough not to be freaked by Vincent Price's voice.) Naturally, I was inspired to devise my own list of Halloween songs that are fun and vaguely spooky but don't run the risk of causing any nightmares. Check it out and feel free to borrow liberally for your own family-friendly Halloween Greatest Hits compilation. Read More... Posted Oct 21 2008, 12:32 PM by Jen Chaney with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: Cookie, itunes, Halloween, playlists, mix CDs, Halloween songs

• Girl Wins Hannah Montana Tickets With Fake Essay

  I have had countless conversations about Hannah Montana over the past couple of weeks, which is stunning, considering I don't think I had uttered the rather catchy (and fake) name more than once or twice total before that.  In any case, all of the discussions involved one or more of these three elements: first-graders (first-graders!); $450 concert tickets (for a fake singer!); mothers living through their daughters (in this day and age!). Until today, the sickest anecdote came from my aunt-in-law, a second-grade teacher, who told me about a first-grader at her school. The girl's mom shelled out nearly $2,000 for four concert tickets, plus transportation and dinner for the mother-daughter pairs in a limo that was taking them on the four-hour round-trip. Did they open the wet bar too? Stand through the sunroof and lift up their Hanna Montana concert tees? That story got trumped, though, when I came across this:   Read More... Posted Dec 29 2007, 02:00 PM by Madeline Holler with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: kids, music, teens, contest, itunes, girls, hannah montana, iPods, tabloids, first grade, country music, miley cyrus, billy ray cyrus, concerts with kids, entitlement, first-graders, Smiley Miley, famous, touring, fan club, concert, billboard charts, celebrities are nothing like us, nashville, highschool, zac efron

• Sesame Street and Electric Company on iTunes

  Sesame Workshop announced that they will be sharing some Sesame Street music and Electric Company episodes for free through iTunes. "You can sing along anywhere to your favorite Sesame Street songs such as: 'C is for Cookie,' 'Sesame Street Theme Song,' 'I Love Trash,' 'People in the Neighborhood,' 'Rubber Duckie,' 'Doin' the Pigeon.'" Aw yeah! "I Love Trash" is one of my all-time favs, as is "Doin' the Pigeon." You just don't get any better than Bert in saddle shoes and a dashing little hat, breaking it down all funky. I also recommend you check out the Electric Company episodes. I watched a bunch of clips recently, and I was stunned by how smart and funny the show was. The star-studded cast is pretty impressive. Since I was a little young to follow cast members' careers back when I was a regular watcher, I had no idea so many great entertainers were on the show (Rita Moreno, Morgan Freeman, and Bill Cosby, to name a few.) Now I finally understand why the sight of Mel Brooks makes me want to suck my thumb. I can think of very few current kids shows (aside from maybe Peep) that have mastered the fine balance of goofy and intelligent the way EC did. Remember "Letterman"? "Easy Reader"? Though I do wonder if kids today will be able to follow the 70's lingo. Here's hoping the excellent Sesame Ernie-Aaron Neville duet, "I Don't Want to Visit the Moon" will be available soon. I also loooove the Elmo and Robert DeNiro method acting sketch. What's your favorite Sesame or Electric Company moment? Posted Jun 13 2007, 05:40 PM by Kelly Mills with | with 8 comment(s) Filed under: sesame street, itunes, kids shows, mel brooks, electric company, ernie

• iPhone Jones: The 5 Reasons Every Parent Needs One

  Steve Jobs gave the world a sneak-peak of the new and much-anticipated iPhone today during the keynote address of this year's MacWorld conference in San Francisco. Mixed reviews aside, I want. I don't even care what it does. It's thin and it's shiny and it must be mine. An iPhone would make my life as a parent so much easier. You don't believe me? Here are five reasons why (as my toddler would say) I neeeeed it. It has a 320 x 480 touch screen, built-in wi-fi, Bluetooth compatibility, and a full-touch keyboard. Now while I am waiting to pick up my daughter in school or sitting in the car with a toddler passed out in her carseat, I can (steal wireless and) check email or post to my blog without going blind. Also, when I go to the park, I'll have something to do cuz ain't nothing more boring than having to watch my kids go down the curly slide for the thousandth time look like all the dads. It has a 2 megapixel camera and the high end model boasts 8GBs of storage. That's plenty of space to store my grainy pictures of soccer dads losing their shit, nannies behaving badly, or cheerleaders acting like strippers...and photos of my kids, of course. There's no crap specialized mobile phone OS; this baby runs on Mac OS X. Have you tried browsing with the phone you have now? I'm all for anything that removes stress and frustration from my life. And (bonus!) an exclusive partnership with Cingular means I can trade in my shitty Razr (hopefully?) and keep my number. iTunes integration. Music anytime, anywhere without having to carry an extra gadget. The iPhone will even display album artwork of songs being played. Kids acting up in a restaurant? Chill out to Laurie Berkner or listen to an audio book. It's a video iPod, too, and you know what that means: "Dick in a Box" anytime, anywhere.*  * Okay, that last one might not make my parenting life easier, but I wouldn't mind being in the middle of a tasty JT-Andy Samberg sandwich...even if they are chanelling Color Me Badd. Hey, if mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy. Posted Jan 10 2007, 12:02 AM by Stefania Pomponi Butler (CityMama) with | with 12 comment(s) Filed under: parenting, gadgets, technology, apple, MacWorld, iPhone, itunes