Line #128 Series/BabyEinstein


1	[[quoteright:324:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/gw324h243.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:324:Great minds start little.]]
3
4	''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 were 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.
5
6	Not to be confused with ''WesternAnimation/LittleEinsteins'', though created by the same company.
7
8	[[folder:List of ''Baby Einstein'' Videos]]
9	All of the videos released under the ''Baby Einstein'' name.
10	* Baby Einstein: Language Nursery (1997) [[note]]Re-released as ''Language Nursery - Voices from Many Lands'' in 2007[[/note]]
11	* Baby Mozart - Music Festival (1998) [[note]]Re-released in 2008 and 2010 [[/note]]
12	* Baby Bach - Musical Adventure (1998)
13	* Baby Shakespeare - World of Poetry (1999) [[note]]Re-released as ''World of Words - A performance by Bard'' starting in 2010 [[/note]]
14	* Baby Van Gogh - World of Colors (2000) [[note]]Re-released as ''World of Colors - A short film by Vincent Van Goat'' starting in 2010 [[/note]]
15	* Baby Santa's Music Box (2000)
16	* Baby Dolittle: Neighborhood Animals (2001) [[note]]Re-released as ''Neighborhood Animals'' from late-2002 until 2004, and re-released as ''Neighborhood Animals - Discovering Familiar Animals'' in 2007 [[/note]]
17	* Baby Dolittle: World Animals (2001) [[note]]Re-released as ''World Animals'' from late-2002 until 2004, and re-released as ''World Animals - A Musical Safari'' in 2007 [[/note]]
18	* Baby Newton - All About Shapes (2002)[[note]]Re-released as ''Baby Newton - Discovering Shapes'' from 2003 until 2004, and re-released as ''Baby Newton - World of Shapes'' in 2007 [[/note]]
19	* Baby Beethoven - Symphony of Fun (2002) [[note]]Re-released in 2008 and 2010 [[/note]]
20	* Baby Neptune - Discovering Water (2003)[[note]]Re-released in 2009 [[/note]]
21	* Baby Galileo - Discovering the Sky (2003)
22	* Baby Einstein: Numbers Nursery (2003)[[note]]Re-released as ''Numbers Nursery - Discovering 1 Through 5'' in 2007[[/note]]
23	* Baby [=MacDonald=] - A Day on the Farm (2004) [[note]]Re-released in 2009 [[/note]]
24	* Baby Da Vinci - From Head to Toe (2004)
25	* Baby Noah - Animal Expedition (2004) [[note]]Re-released in 2009 [[/note]]
26	* Baby Monet - Discovering the Seasons (2005)
27	* Baby Wordsworth: First Words - Around the House (2005) [[note]]Re-released in 2009 [[/note]]
28	* On the Go - Riding, Sailing, and Soaring (2005)
29	* Meet the Orchestra - First Instruments (2006)
30	* Baby's Favorite Places: First Words - Around Town (2006)
31	* Baby's First Moves (2006) [[note]]Re-released as ''Baby's First Moves - Get Up and Go!'' in 2007, and re-released in 2009 with its original title [[/note]]
32	* My First Signs - See and Sign with Baby (2007) [[note]]Re-released in 2009 as simply ''My First Signs'' [[/note]]
33	* Discovering Shapes - Circles, Squares and More! (2007)
34	* Lullaby Time - Soothing Sounds for Baby (2007)
35	* Baby's First Sounds - Discoveries for Little Ears (2008)
36	* World Music (2009)
37	* World Animal Adventure (2009)
38	* Animals Around Me (2010)
39	* Wild Animal Safari (2010)
40	* Baby Lullaby (2011)
41	* Neptune's Oceans (2011)
42	* World of Rhythm - Movin' and Groovin' with Coco and Pillie (2011)
43	[[/folder]]
44
45	----
46	!!This series provides examples of:
47	* AccessoryWearingCartoonAnimal: Some of the puppets wear an article of clothing (shirt, hat, etc.) but never wear pants (then again, they're puppets in a baby show). Some animals don't wear any clothes. Some of the characters wear clothes in artwork but not as puppets.
48	* 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. Moreover, the animal puppets' who have their own names [[SpeciesSurname have their surname that indicate their species]].
49	* AmazingTechnicolorWildlife: The goat puppet Vincent Van Goat from ''Baby Van Gogh'' is blue, and many other puppets throughout this specific video follow this troupe, like a pink/purple goat, a red moose, an orange rabbit, and a blue mouse.
50	* AndStarring: The Baby Einstein Puppets.
51	** In ''Baby Shakespeare'', ''Baby Van Gogh'', ''Neighborhood Animals'' and ''World Animals'', it focuses primarily on the main puppet of the video rather than all of them.
52	* AreYouSureYouCanDriveThisThing: In ''On the Go'', during "The Wheels on the Bus", the engine of the bus breaks and everybody has to evacuate the bus.
53	* {{Balloonacy}}: In ''Baby Galileo'', the kangaroo puppet flies into space.
54	* BananaPeel: In ''World Animals'', Jane the Monkey slips over a banana peel, and then makes monkey noises due to confusion, which [[MakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext makes no sense at all in context]]. Jane also slips on a banana peel in ''Wild Animal Safari.''
55	* BathsAreFun: The "Bath Time with the Pandas" scene in ''World Animal Adventure'' and the "Pop Goes the Bubbles" scene in ''Baby's First Sounds'' are prime examples of this.
56	* BeachEpisode: ''Baby Neptune''.
57	* BilingualDialogue:
58	** ''Language Nursery'' uses seven languages intended as exposure to babies; the languages featured depend on the foreign version in question. Most releases use American English, French, German, Hebrew, Japanese, Russian and Spanish, while others substitute British English, Canadian French, Italian, Castilian Spanish, Korean, Mandarin Chinese or Danish passages.
59	** The original Japanese releases of ''Neighborhood Animals'' and ''World Animals'' by Comtec Co., Ltd. under the Eduté brand feature both English and Japanese audio for all the animal names, [[TheSongRemainsTheSame except for the songs, which remain in English]].
60	** ''Baby da Vinci'' prominently uses three languages for a few parts of the video. Which languages are used depends on the language version: the English, Latin American Spanish and French versions use English, Spanish, and French, the Japanese dub uses English, Japanese, and Italian, the Mandarin and Cantonese dubs use English, Mandarin, and Cantonese, the Korean dub uses English, Korean, and Mandarin, the Thai dub uses English, Thai, and Cantonese, the European Spanish and Portuguese dubs use English, Spanish, and Portuguese, the Catalan dub uses English, Catalan, and Portuguese and the Hebrew dub uses Hebrew, English, and French.
61	** ''Baby's First Sounds'' features phonemes in four languages (English, French, Spanish and Chinese).
62	* BoxingKangaroo: There is a toy kangaroo with boxing gloves in ''Baby Noah''.
63	* BroughtToYouByTheLetterS: Pavlov the Dog sports the letter P on his collar, which is the first initial for his name.
64	* CactusPerson: The two dancing cacti toys seen at the beginning of ''Baby Van Gogh''.
65	* CartoonConductor: The koala in certain re-releases of ''Baby Mozart''.
66	* ChristmasSpecial: ''Baby Santa's Music Box''.
67	* ClumsyCopyrightCensorship:
68	** The 2002 DVD of ''Baby Van Gogh'' has Boléro omitted from the Concert Hall, most likely because Ravel's Boléro wasn't in the public domain until 2016. However, it was still left in the video itself.
69	** Many toys featured in the videos (for example, the Castle Pounder toy featured in the ''Baby Mozart'' video) have the company's logo found on the toy painted or taped over. However, the toy chests featured on the home media releases tell you what brand the toy is by, so it's odd that they would even put in the extra effort to cover up.
70	* CountingSheep: Seen in a bonus feature on the ''Lullaby Time'' DVD, in which the sheep puppet.... counts other sheep puppets. How ironic.
71	* CrossReferencedTitles: ''Language Nursery'', and then ''Numbers Nursery''. ''World Animals'' and ''World Animal Adventure'' was probably unintentional.
72	* ClassicalMusic: The staple of the series. The only video without it is ''Language Nursery''.
73	* CymbalBangingMonkey: A toy version is seen in ''Baby Shakespeare'' and early versions of ''World Animals''.
74	* DancePartyEnding: Seen at the end of ''World of Rhythm''.
75	* DisneyOwnsThisTrope: Used to, in this case. Disney owned Baby Einstein for 12 years, having bought it in November 2001 and sold it to Kids II Inc. in October 2013. Despite this sale, they still own ''WesternAnimation/LittleEinsteins''.
76	* DreadfulMusician: Baby Beethoven the Giraffe attempting to play the saxophone in the titular video and the hippo in ''Meet the Orchestra'' mashing keys on the piano are both examples of this.
77	* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: ''Language Nursery'', the first video in the series, is missing classical music, puppets, and stock footage, all of which would become staples in later videos.
78	** ''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 actually debuted in ''Baby Mozart'', but only appeared in one scene).
79	* EducationalSong: There are many, including "Deep Blue Sea" from ''World Animals'' and "I Know My Shapes" from ''Baby Newton''.
80	* EdutainmentShow
81	* EverythingIsAnInstrument: In a DVD-exclusive puppet show in ''Meet the Orchestra'', the duck puppet plays Blue Danube with bottles.
82	* {{Fainting}}: The duck does this after looking at a washing machine for a while in ''Baby Neptune''.
83	* FloatingInABubble: In a scene from ''Baby Neptune'', the turtle and octopus puppets have a bubble-blowing contest. It ends with the octopus puppet blowing a bubble large enough to encapsulate the turtle, causing him to float away inside the bubble.
84	* FollowTheLeader / TheRival / CompanionShow: Many shows and franchises - such as Brainy Baby, Baby Genius and So Smart! - try to copy or inspire it, but some of them may or may not be as successful as Baby Einstein. Even then, they do meet the needs for young children and have inspired many [[EdutainmentShow edutainment shows]].
85	* TheFool: The horse puppet. In various videos in the series, he proves that he's not the brightest.
86	** In ''Neighborhood Animals'', he continues to steal the cow's bale of hay until he ends up getting caught anyways.
87	** In ''Baby Beethoven'', he loses track of the puppets in the parade twice until getting on the right track.
88	** In ''Numbers Nursery'', he eats a flower, which makes him go crazy and make strange sounds until he runs off. Averted in ''Baby [=MacDonald=] '' where he eats a flower without any consequences. He also knocks over the tiger's block tower for no reason and doesn't know numerical order either when he mixes up the numbers 2 and 4 in the final puppet sequence before the credits.
89	** In ''On the Go'' (where he is also the titular host of the video), he doesn't know how to properly row his rowboat and, in a later scene, gets quickly passed by the raccoon's speedboat.
90	* FurryConfusion: Pavlov the Dog can be seen feeding a real life rabbit in the ''Neighborhood Animals'' video.
91	* GotoSleepEnding: ''Baby Shakespeare''.
92	* HandPuppet: Most of the puppets in the older videos are hand puppets. Some hand puppets were used in later videos but rod-controlled puppets were also prominently used, most notably in ''Baby Neptune'', ''Baby Galileo'' and ''Baby's First Moves''.
93	* IdiosyncraticEpisodeNaming: Every video up to ''Baby Wordsworth'' (excluding ''Numbers Nursery'') followed the format of Baby [x]. However, after the release of ''On the Go'', this exact title scheme was not used again until the ''Baby Lullaby'' Discovery Kit.
94	* LaterInstallmentWeirdness: Later videos are notorious for having either reused clips from other videos (''Baby's First Sounds'' is infamous for this), and other videos completely reuse ideas (''Discovering Shapes'' and ''World Animal Adventure'').
95	* {{Licensed Game}}s / {{Edutainment Game}}s: Two in total were released, one on Windows computers based on the ''Baby Newton'' video, and one on the V. Smile Baby educational learning system.
96	* LongRunners: Videos were released from 1997 to 2011 (14 years).
97	* MerchandiseDriven: The series was originally just for videos but slowly turned into a multi-million dollar company. [=CDs=], toys, books, discovery cards, and other baby products were created after the brand. In fact, now that the company doesn't make videos anymore, its profits are from toys and books.
98	* MusicalThemeNaming: ''Baby Mozart'', ''Baby Bach'', and ''Baby Beethoven'' are obvious examples of this.
99	* NamedAfterFirstInstallment: The Baby Einstein Company was originally named I Think I Can Productions, with the first video, released by Franchise/{{Gymboree}}, being titled "Baby Einstein." However, the company was initially renamed to "Aigner-Clark Productions" with the original release of ''Baby Bach'' and eventually got changed again to what it is today in 1999 after ''Baby Shakespeare'''s original release. Starting with 2001 video releases onwards, the first video would be retitled "Language Nursery."
100	* NamedAfterSomebodyFamous: Every video up to ''Baby Wordsworth'' except for ''Numbers Nursery'' follow this. ''Language Nursery'' was originally called ''Baby Einstein'' and the ''Neighborhood Animals'' and ''World Animals'' videos were originally released as ''Baby Dolittle Neighborhood Animals'' and ''Baby Dolittle World Animals'', respectively.
101	* NoAntagonist: For obvious reasons.
102	* NoPlotNoProblem: These videos don't really have a need for a plot. The target demographic wouldn't be interested anyways. The closest thing to a 'plot' in these videos would be the structure of ''Baby Van Gogh'', where each segment is about one of six basic colors, and similar themed structures exist in other videos like ''World Music''. ''Baby Bach'' has by far the least plot, as it barely qualifies as coherent anyways. Of course, this isn't a bad thing.
103	* NonIndicativeName: This series was notorious for being recalled by the FTC for being "non-educational and unhealthy for your baby". However, it was revealed that this is neither true nor false.
104	* OddballInTheSeries: ''Language Nursery'' (which was also the first video ever released) has no classical music or puppets, and is in multiple languages.
105	* OpenTheDoorAndSeeAllThePeople: Seen in the ''Baby Newton'' puppet show "Knock Knock, Who's There?" when the horse's door bursts open as other puppets begin to walk in.
106	* OffScreenCrash: Pops up often in several videos.
107	** ''Baby Van Gogh'', after the titles, opens with one after a brief second of static.
108	** ''Neighborhood Animals'' has one in the brief puppet sequence before the Cat music video.
109	** ''World Animal Adventure'' features one in the "Horse Shoe" puppet show, when the mother horse is playing a game of horseshoe with her foal. The first time she throws the horseshoe, it ends up flying past the peg and crashing off-screen.
110	* OffTheShelfFX: In this series of videos, real toys are commonly used as props. For instance, the first video in the series featured a Betsy Wetsy doll, a ''Series/SesameStreet'' train and a Raggedy Ann doll.
111	* PlayfulOtter: The otter featured in ''My First Signs''.
112	* ProductPlacement: Heavily featured, especially in Disney titles.
113	** Baby Einstein toys or books are seen in these video titles: ''Language Nursery'' (2004 version), ''Baby Mozart'' (2004 and 2008 versions), ''Numbers Nursery'', ''Baby [=MacDonald=]'', ''Baby da Vinci'', ''Baby Wordsworth'', ''Baby's Favorite Places'', ''Baby's First Moves'', ''My First Signs'', and ''Lullaby Time''.
114	** Baby Einstein products are often advertised towards the end of the credits segment of each video.
115	** An advert for other Baby Einstein products is featured on every home media release from 2000 to 2008, known as the Video Tutorial or About Baby Einstein.
116	** Most toys featured in Baby Einstein videos can be found on the Toy Chest featured on certain video/DVD releases or on the company's old website.
117	** ''WesternAnimation/LittleEinsteins'' is often advertised on releases from 2004-2008, and the canceled series ''Einstein Pals'' from 2007-2008.
118	* PublicDomainSoundtrack: Almost all of the music tracks and songs in ''Baby Einstein'' are from the public domain. Few music tracks and songs are original.
119	* PuppetShows: Another staple in the series. As usual, the only video without it is ''Language Nursery''.
120	* RearrangeTheSong: The ''On the Go'' DVD bonus features include a song titled ''The Bells on the Train'', which is just ''The Wheels on the Bus'' (already present in the video) with altered lyrics to feature vehicles other than a bus.
121	* {{Retool}}:
122	** 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 three videos that feature sign language into the videos and most of the ones initially distributed by Disney adding recaps so each word be repeated at least twice, if not more in certain case, which overall made the videos longer than ever. Disney considered these videos more "educational" and added this claim to a majority of their marketing.
123	** 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 some of 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.
124	* 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.
125	* SantaClaus: Winks at the viewers (through stock footage) near the end of ''Baby Santa's Music Box''.
126	* ScaryJackInTheBox: A jack-in-the-box toy is seen in many videos, but it is never scary.
127	* ScreenTap: Pavlov the Dog licking the screen in ''Neighborhood Animals''.
128	* 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. However, ''Discovering Shapes'' would've been more of a sequel to ''Baby Newton'', since it has a variety of classical music and it is more interactive rather than just Vivaldi.
129	* TheSongRemainsTheSame: Multiple examples, all in foreign language versions:
130	** The Eduté Japanese, Hebrew and original Castilian Spanish versions of ''Baby Shakespeare'', ''Neighborhood Animals'' and ''World Animals'' leave "The ABC Song," "Old [=MacDonald=] Had a Farm" and "Deep Blue Sea" in English instead of dubbing or subtitling them.
131	** For some reason, the 2003 European French version of ''Neighborhood Animals'' does not dub or subtitle "Old [=MacDonald=] Had a Farm," instead leaving it in American English.
132	** The 2004 version of the ''Baby Newton'' song "I Know My Shapes" has all the singing parts remain in American English for the [[SameLanguageDub British dub]], with the exception of the speaking parts in the middle of the song.
133	** The ''World Music'' song "This World, Our World" (save for the instrument names halfway through) isn't dubbed or subtitled at all in French or Latin Spanish.
134	** The Latin Spanish version of the "World Animal Song" from ''World Animal Adventure'' is re-used for the Castilian Spanish version.
135	* TheSpeechless: Applies to every single Baby Einstein puppet, who generally make squeaking sounds (similar to those of [[Series/TheSunnySideUpShow Chica]]'s) 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 ''Orchards in Blossom, View of Arles'' painting in ''Baby Van Gogh''.
136	* SpidersAreScary: The ''Baby's First Sounds'' video features Little Miss Muffet in Spanish, which is portrayed by an animation of Mimi getting scared and running off once the spider appears.
137	* SpinOff: ''WesternAnimation/LittleEinsteins''. Another spinoff called ''Einstein Pals'' was set for direct-to-DVD release sometime around 2007-2008, but was quietly canceled after controversy sparked about the brand.
138	* StockFootage: Seen in most videos, besides a majority of the ones that focus on music or language.
139	* ThatCloudLooksLike: Seen in a puppet show featured in ''Baby Galileo'', where Baby Galileo and his mother look at the clouds. Near the end of the sequence, a flock of geese fly into the clouds above, forming a goose-shaped cloud that magically flies away.
140	* TiredAfterTheSong: In ''Baby Van Gogh'', once the red music video is over, Vincent Van Goat yawns and turns off the light without finishing his painting, resulting in the duck coming in and finishing it for him.
141	* TooLongDidntDub: The 2005 Mandarin version of ''Baby Bach'' doesn't dub the chicken joke and leaves it completely in American English.
142	* ViewersAreGoldfish: Especially applies to the Disney-distributed videos, which think babies are so dumb that everything needs to be repeated twice.
143	* TheVitruvianPose: ''The Vitruvian Man'' painting makes an appearance at the start of ''Baby da Vinci''.
144	* WashyWatchy: Seen in ''Baby Neptune'' during the Washing the Clothes puppet show when the duck ends up watching the washing machine. Due to becoming dizzy, he ends up fainting, as mentioned earlier.
145	* YouDontLookLikeYou: The video ''World Music'' redesigned the puppets, since the entire team up to that point was almost entirely recast, including the puppeteers. These puppets are known for looking... not the greatest, at least to fans of the series.

Context Series / BabyEinstein