February 24th, 2010 Ryan
This review is from our Chicago editors when George visited their city.
Whether your family reads the books or watches the cartoons, this show excels at bringing the characters to life. Curious George LIVE! is a new musical that is packed from start to finish with songs that tell the tale of George’s adventure from New York City to the streets of Rome. In this original story, George sets out to prove to the world that his friend, Chef Pisghetti, makes the best meatballs in the world. Performances of the show run between Thursday, January 28 - Sunday, January 31, 2010 at the Sears Center Arena in Hoffman Estates. Tickets are priced from $15-$38.
The production successfully creates a believable translation of the characters to the stage. The Man with the Yellow Hat, Professor Wiseman, Chef Pisghetti, and the Doorman are protrayed by actors who do spot-on impersonations of the characters voices and mannerisms. Their larger-then-life costumes translate perfectly. George’s animal friends Hundley and Gnocchi are cleverly depicted through simple puppetry. Of course George is the most difficult to portray. They did a great job with the costume, and tried their best to match his frenetic movement with some pretty cool tumbling. My 5 year-old was a little disappointed though. He wanted to see more climbing and “monkey stuff,” and I would agree. Overall they did an exceptionally believable job bringing these beloved characters to life.
Our favorite musical numbers were the opening productions of the first and second acts. “Special Delivery” followed by “Big Brown Box” makes for a bustling street scene. Both song are very catchy - they were what the kids were singing during intermission. The second act opens with a super fun song, “Straighten Up and Fly Right.” There is a cute gimmick with flashlights that makes for a cool visual effect. This song revolves around George stowing away on an airplane to Italy. It started the second half of the show off on a great note.
The low point for me is the pacing of the show. Pretty much the entire story is told through song. At times this is very successful, but at other times I would have preferred some of the story to have been told through dialog to move the production along. There was a great deal of antsy-ness going around around me near the end of the first act. The show is 1 hour 40 minutes long including a 15 minute intermission. For this age group I think a far shorter running time is more successful. The 5 year-olds I was with were able to sit through the entire show, but at times they were bored.
Even with some faults this is a fun show. From the festive lobby displays, to the intermission’s strolling vendors, to the great characterizations, this is a cute show for the pre-school aged Curious George fans in your life.
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February 17th, 2010 Ryan
If you find your family traveling through Vermont and you are near Waterbury, you’ll want to make a stop at the Ben & Jerry’s Factory for a tour and some free ice cream samples. On a recent excursion to Burlington, we made a pit stop to check out the ice cream making process and taste some Ben & Jerry flavors. Located about 5 minutes off of Route 89, the Ben & Jerry factory offers a 30 minute tour of the facility for $3.00 a person and kids under 12 are free. It is best to plan a visit during weekdays as they are usually not making ice cream on the weekends, but you can still take the tour.
The tour itself starts with a six minute informative short video detailing the history of Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, how they started making ice cream in 1978, and how Ben & Jerry’s has become what it is today. The next stop on the tour is an enclosed walkway overlooking the production facility. Large numbered signs make identifying the different parts of the plant easy while the tour guide explains the process of making ice cream. This is the part where it’s better to visit during the week to see workers doing their craft.
After the tour your group will visit the tasting room, where you’ll get to try a current flavor of ice cream and ask any questions you might have. Everyone gets to grab a small scoop of frozen goodness, and if there are still extras they allow you to take seconds. Our tour guide was friendly and knowledgeable and kept the tour moving at a reasonable pace. If the tasting was not enough to satisfy you, there is a counter at the front of the building to order as much ice cream as you can eat – just follow your nose toward the smell of fresh waffle cones!
During the warmer months you can also enjoy the Flavor Graveyard, as well as a picnic area with a playground and patio. Check their website for events – they run a Free Outdoor Movie Festival throughout the summer at dusk, and during the winter they offer snowshoe tours on the grounds of the factory.
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February 11th, 2010 Ryan
The Commerford Zoo Kids Fun Fair travels around the east coast putting on kids’ fairs with a petting zoo and kiddie rides. We recently went to a fun fair at the DCU Center in Worcester and had a great time. This is not a full-featured circus or carnival, but was a welcome break from the cold we’ve been experiencing. Tickets were $10 per adult and kids under 12 were free with a coupon that you can get at the ticket booth. These tickets gives you access to all of the animals, but the games and rides are À la carte with cash or tickets for purchase.
The Animals
Commerford has a wide variety of animals including elephants, lemurs, monkeys, snakes, camels, a zebra, various birds, and even a uni-cow, which is a large cow with a single horn on its head. You and your kids can feed many of the animals, so bring your quarters and hand sanitizer. For an additional charge, pony, camel, and elephant rides are available as well as photographs with many of the animals.
Rides and Games
Carousel and kiddie rides await your little ones in exchange for tickets and cash. Tickets can be purchased for the rides at booths throughout the venue and can be purchased individually for $1.25, or save some money and buy them in blocks of 12 ($12.50), 24 ($25), and 36 ($37.50). Rides required either 2 or 4 tickets per person and included a carousel, train ride, car ride, super fun slide (highly recommended!), a huge bouncy, and several others. Games required a few dollars to play and included your standard carnival games of water gun squirting and balloon burst, all to win stuffed animal prizes.
Overall Thoughts
This fair is smaller when compared to the large, outdoor carnivals and fairs throughout New England, but is a nice change of pace to get out of the cold and see some animals up close and personal. While petting zoos can get old for parents, kids never seem to be able to get enough of seeing animals in this setting. The fact that kids were free was a benefit, but we ended up spending $20 for two adults to enter and $12.50 on tickets to go on a few rides. We spent an hour and a half at this one, and could have extended that to 3 hours if we ate there and took in a few more rides.
Check out their website for upcoming shows.
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February 4th, 2010 Ryan
This post comes from our sister site in Chicago and was written by Larry.
We had a crew over for the football playoffs a couple of weeks ago and all the kids were comparing their holiday presents - their new Leapster, Wii, and Nintendo games. They were discussing which game they liked, which games they were going to trade, and what they wanted to get next. However, just one week later, my kid was staring at his games. Mario Kart was still a blast, but everything else he either mastered, was bored of, and in some cases wasn’t old enough for.
We had the same problem with buying DVD movies. So we solved that problem by letting him take one of every 3 of our NetFlix movies. They come, he watches them many times, and we send them back, without the expense of buying the DVD. So I searched for similar services for games. SmartyRents and Gamefly came to my attention immediately.
SmartyRents has cornered the ”try before you buy” service for educational games. Started by credentialed teachers, they rent games for Leapster, Didj, Clickstart, Little Leaps, the V suite of game consoles (Smile, Motion, Flash, and Smile Baby). They have also gone through and documented the exact skill sets that each of the games teach so you know if it is age appropriate. Interestingly, they also have the back catalog for all of these consoles, so you can rent games that are actually out of circulation. Packages start at $9.99 a month for 1 game at a time and up to $24.99 for 4 games at a time.
Gamefly is concentrating on the exact opposite, more traditional part of the game market. Focusing on the Wii, PS3, PSP, XBOX, Nintendo Game Cube and Nintendo DS they sell everything from Super Mario Brothers to Grand Theft Auto. With over 7,000 games, you can rent one game at a time for $15.99 a month and 2 games at a time for $22.99 a month. The site sorts by popularity or release date and provides information on what type of equipment you need to play. So for Wii, it will let you know if you need the Steering Wheel for the game.
So if your kid is like mine and seems to go off and on with games, leaving you frustrated at the $30-$50 games that are just sitting there next to your TV unused, SmartyRents and GameFly provide a great alternative using the NetFlix model.
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