History Series / BabyEinstein

''Baby Einstein'' is a series of educational direct-to-video programs created in 1997 by Julie-Aigner Clark, a former teacher and the full-time mother of two girls, and the eponymous brand of The Baby Einstein Company. The videos are meant for very small children under the age of 4 years old. The videos use classical music and puppetry to introduce babies and toddlers to various subjects such as art in ''Baby Van Gogh'' and animals in the ''Baby Dolittle'' videos. The series was a financial success and spawned into music albums, books, flash cards, toys, and other baby products. The videos was distributed by [[{{Creator/Lionsgate}} Artisan Entertainment]] until November 2001, when the series and the titular company were bought outright by [[{{Creator/Disney}} The Walt Disney Company]]. Twelve years later, in October 2013, it was sold to Kids II, Inc., previously a merchandise licensee for the series.

* TheSpeechless: Applies to every single Baby Einstein puppet, who generally make squeaking sounds or similar sound effects instead of speaking. There are rare aversions to this trope though, such as Vincent Van Goat saying "merci beaucoup!" after finishing the purple painting in ''Baby Van Gogh''.

* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: ''Language Nursery'', the first video in the series, is basically missing every single staple of the series (classical music, puppets, stock footage, etc.)
** ''Baby Bach'' doesn't have the official Baby Einstein puppets either, but still follows the same formula as the others. The first video to officially include signature puppets was ''Baby Shakespeare'' (Bard was actually featured in only one scene in ''Baby Mozart''.)

''Baby Einstein'' is a series of educational direct-to-video programs created in 1997 by Julie-Aigner Clark, a former teacher and the full-time mother of two girls. The videos are meant for very small children under the age of 4 years old. The videos use classical music and puppetry to introduce babies and toddlers to various subjects such as art in ''Baby Van Gogh'' and animals in the ''Baby Dolittle'' videos. The series was a financial success and spawned into music albums, books, flash cards, toys, and other baby products. The company's videos was distributed by [[{{Creator/Lionsgate}} Artisan Entertainment]] until November 2001, when the company was bought outright by [[{{Creator/Disney}} The Walt Disney Company]]. Twelve years later, in October 2013, it was sold to Kids II, Inc.

* Baby Neptune - Discovering Water (2003)[[note]]Re-released in 2009 as simply ''Baby Neptune'' [[/note]]

* Baby [=MacDonald=] - A Day on the Farm (2004) [[note]]Re-released in 2009 as simply ''Baby [=MacDonald=]'' [[/note]]

* Baby Wordsworth: First Words - Around the House (2005) [[note]]Re-released in 2009 as simply ''Baby Wordsworth'' [[/note]]

* {{Retool}}: Once Disney purchased the company, the videos focused more on learning more complex vocabulary (instruments, vehicles, places around town, movement) rather than simple objects due to the small amount of topics such a simple series could possibly cover. This led to Disney adding sign language into the videos and adding recaps so each word be repeated at least twice, if not more in certain case, which overall made the videos during this era longer than ever. Disney considered these videos more "educational" and added this claim to a majority of their marketing.
** This would eventually be turned on its head, as Baby Einstein would be recalled... for this exact reason. Not only that, but many older fans of Baby Einstein consider these later Disney videos considerably worse than the videos created during the early years, with ''Baby's First Sounds'' even receiving poor reviews from parents due to its confusing structure and copied scenes.

* SeldomSeenSpecies: The video ''Baby Noah'' features a lot of animals you'd expect to see, such as lion, elephant, tiger, dolphin, etc. Oddly enough, in the Animals in the Outback section, they decided to include wombat as one of the animals featured in that section.

** For some reason, the 2003 European French version of ''Neighborhood Animals'' does not dub "Old MacDonald Had a Farm," instead using the American English audio for the singing. It is not subtitled either.

** This would eventually be turned on its head, as Baby Einstein would be recalled... for this exact reason. Not only that, but many older fans of Baby Einstein consider these later Disney videos considerably worse than the videos created during the Clark era of the series, with ''Baby's First Sounds'' even receiving poor reviews from parents due to its confusing structure and copied scenes.

* TheSongRemainsTheSame: Four examples, all in foreign language versions:

* ADogNamedDog: Since most of the puppets are just animals, they go by names such as Duck and Tiger. Other puppets, like Bard the Dragon and Vincent Van Goat, do have their own names.

* TheRival: Several shows and franchises tried to copy it, like Brainy Baby, Baby Genius and So Smart!, but none were as successful as Baby Einstein (although they do inspire Baby Einstein).

* SequelEpisode: Some people think ''Discovering Shapes'' is more of a rip-off of ''Baby Newton'' rather than a sequel since it was meant to replace it rather than spin off of it.

* TheRival: Many shows and franchises tried to copy it, like Brainy Baby, Baby Genius and So Smart!, but none were as successful as Baby Einstein.

* ThemeTuneCameo: The Baby Einstein theme can be heard in ''World Music'' during the post-credits scene, as Jane the Monkey plays the song on the bagpipes.

Not to be confused with ''WesternAnimation/LittleEinsteins'', though created by the same company

* {{Crossover}}: Bard the Dragon appeared on ''[[{{Creator/Sprout}} The Sprout Sharing Show]]'' once, and conducted Strauss II's "Blue Danube."

''Baby Einstein'' is a series of educational direct-to-video programs created in 1997 by Julie-Aigner Clark, a former teacher and the full-time mother of two girls. The videos are meant for very small children under the age of 4 years old. The videos use classical music and puppetry to introduce babies and toddlers to various subjects such as art in ''Baby Van Gogh'' and animals in the ''Baby Dolittle'' videos. The series was a financial success and spawned into music albums, books, flash cards, toys, and other baby products. The company's videos was distributed by [[{{Creator/Lionsgate}} Artisan Entertainment]] until November 2001, when the company was bought outright by [[{{Creator/Disney}} The Walt Disney Company]]. 12 years later, in October 2013, it was sold to Kids II, Inc.

* SequelEpisode: ''Discovering Shapes'' is more of a rip-off of ''Baby Newton'' rather than a sequel since it was meant to replace it rather than spin off of it.

* TheRival: Many shows tried to copy it, like Brainy Baby & Baby Genius, but none were as successful as Baby Einstein.

* {{Crossover}}: Bard the Dragon appeared on ''{{Creator/Sprout}} The Sprout Sharing Show'' once, and conducted Strauss II's "Blue Danube."

* {{Crossover}}: Bard the Dragon appeared on ''Creator/Sprout The Sprout Sharing Show'' once, and conducted Strauss II's "Blue Danube."

* {{Crossover}}: Bard the Dragon appeared on ''{{Sprout}} The Sprout Sharing Show'' once, and conducted Strauss II's "Blue Danube."

* OpentheDoorandSeeAllthePeople: Seen in ''Baby Newton'' when the horse's door bursts open as other puppets begin to walk in.

* AnythingCanBeMusic: In ''Meet the Orchestra'', the duck puppet plays Blue Danube with bottles.

* TheSongRemainsTheSame: Three examples, all in foreign language versions:
** The ''Baby Shakespeare'' adaptation of the ABC song is entirely in English in the Hebrew version. Southeast Asian versions skip it altogether. Justified as the Hebrew, Chinese, Korean and Thai alphabets are drastically different from the Latin alphabet used in English.

* BilingualDialogue: ''Language Nursery'' and ''Baby's First Sounds'' received criticism for using more than one language in the same video. ''Baby's First Sounds'' uses four languages (English, French, Spanish and Chinese), while ''Language Nursery'' uses seven (English, French, German, Hebrew, Japanese, Russian and Spanish). Not only that, Baby da Vinci uses three (most versions use English, French, and Spanish, the Japanese dub uses English, Japanese and Italian, the European Spanish and Portuguese dubs use English, Spanish and Portuguese, the Catalan dub uses English, Catalan and Portuguese, the Hebrew dub uses Hebrew, English and French).

* TheSongRemainsTheSame: Two examples, both in foreign language versions:

* ClumsyCopyrightCensorship: All [=DVDs=] after the 2000 release of ''Baby Van Gogh'' have Bolero omitted from the Concert Hall, most likely because Ravel's Bolero wasn't in the public domain until 2016 due to many copyright issues. However, it was still left in the video itself.

** ''Baby Bach'' doesn't have the official Baby Einstein puppets either, but still follows the same formula as the others. The first video to officially include signature puppets was ''Baby Shakespeare'' (Bard was actually a coincidence in ''Baby Mozart''.)

* GotoSleepEnding: "Baby Shakespeare"

* Fainting: The duck does this after looking at a washing machine for a while in ''Baby Neptune''.

* SameLanguageDub: 15 of the videos were dubbed in British English for the European and Australian DVD/VHS releases. DVDs released in 2005 often contain both British and American versions on the same disc.

''Baby Einstein'' is a series of educational direct-to-video programs created in 1997 by Julie-Aigner Clark, a former teacher and the full-time mother of two girls. The videos are meant for very small children under the age of 4 years old. The videos use classical music and puppetry to introduce babies and toddlers to various subjects such as art in ''Baby Van Gogh'' and animals in the ''Baby Dolittle'' videos. The series was a financial success and spawned into music albums, books, flash cards, toys, and other baby products. The company's videos was distributed by [[{{Creator/Lionsgate}} Artisan Entertainment]] until November 2001, when the company was bought outright [[{{Creator/Disney}} The Walt Disney Company]]. 12 years later, in October 2013, it was sold to Kids II, Inc.

* DisneyOwnsThisTrope: Used to, in this case. They sold it to Kids II Inc. in October 2013.

''Baby Einstein'' is a series of educational direct-to-video programs created in 1997 by Julie-Aigner Clark, a former teacher and the full-time mother of two girls. The videos are meant for very small children under the age of 4 years old. The videos use classical music and puppetry to introduce babies and toddlers to various subjects such as art in ''Baby Van Gogh'' and animals in the ''Baby Dolittle'' videos. The series was a financial success and spawned into music albums, books, flash cards, toys, and other baby products. The company was owned by Artisan Entertainment in 2000 and was then bought by The Walt Disney Company in 2001, and was then sold to Kids II Inc in 2013.

* DisneyOwnsThisTrope: At least they used to. They sold it due to the major controversy behind the videos in 2013 to Kids II Inc.

* BilingualDialogue: ''Language Nursery'' and ''Baby's First Sounds'' received criticism for using more than one language in the same video. ''Baby's First Sounds'' uses four languages (English, French, Spanish and Chinese), while ''Language Nursery'' uses seven (English, French, German, Hebrew, Japanese, Russian and Spanish). Not only that, Baby da Vinci uses three (English, French, and Spanish.)

* BilingualDialogue: ''Language Nursery'' and ''Baby's First Sounds'' received criticism for using more than one language in the same video. ''Baby's First Sounds'' uses four languages (English, French, Spanish and Chinese), while ''Language Nursery'' uses seven (English, French, German, Hebrew, Japanese, Russian and Spanish).
Not only that, Baby da Vinci uses three (English, French, and Spanish.)