Tiki Tour. Volume one product reviews

My kids (3 and 4.5) love to watch Tiki Tour. It has a definite New Zealand flavour with the Maori language and the scenery and animals. Many of the places we have been to (or our local equivalent) and the kids can relate to it. The Maori is intergrated into English sentences in such a way that we can understand that is being said with the help of the pictures and context.

The presenters ask the viewers lots of questions and my 3 year old loves this interaction. I can tell she isn't just blooping in front of the TV she is focusing on what is being said. There is lots of great learning happening including prediction, problem solving along with songs and crafts.

The favourite part of the show for all of us is Little Monster's segment. Little Monster (as the name suggests) gets into situations where she has to make a decision to do the right or wrong thing. She is told to "Stop and think, Little Monster." This phrase is now used regularly in our house when one of the girls is about to do something stupid. It is a way of preventing (usually) the problem in a light hearted way.

Tiki Tour is a show that I am more than happy for my kids to watch as it is safe viewing and educational.

My three year old LOVED this DVD. I really was not expecting much, so was pleasantly surprised with it. Its a cross between Blue's Clues and Dora the Explorer - but with a Kiwi flare.

The DVD has six different adventures/travels including: to a Pet Shop, Aquarium, Road Works, Camping, the Zoo and the Supermarket. My daughter preferred the Aquarium (or though she was disappointed they didn't show Sharks) and the Pet Shop (we have Canaries and the story was focused around Budgies.)

Like the other shows they ask for participation starting by introducing themselves and then asking what your name is and automatically Keana was hooked. They have the hosts asking questions and Kiwi kids yell out the answers - its nice and clear and the hosts interact with them beautifully (unlike Steve who never understands people and ignores them).

The stage is animated and its nice and bright and vibrant. They have a couple of regular characters Mappie (who looks like Towelly from South Park), Buzz, Toru (3) & Rima (5) and Little Monster (which was our favourite) a cute mischievous Taniwha who has to learn to Stop and Think.

Probably only bad point are the presenters they don't really jell together very well and when they sings duets it just sounds bad. Also the dancing skills need to be greatly improved.

I enjoyed it as was educational and it was completely Kiwi with Maori words and New Zealand items we can all relate to. As I only let my daughter watch channel 44 or 45 for the educational benefits I would definitely let her watch this some more.

We have the TVNZ DVD of The Go Show and used to access episodes on TVNZ On Demand also. We are huge fans and I was hoping the Tiki Tour would be as good.

However I didn't enjoy Tiki Tour that much. Neither did the kids actually and they pretty quickly bored of watching this. I felt it was far less engaging than The Go Show and the editing of it made it such that it didn't feel that there was a lot of actual "real" content in each episode.

The show has two presenters, one male (who was quite engaging) and one female (she seemed very awkward and didn't seem to connect well) and "mappy". My immediate thought was "umm, is this a Dora rip off?" Mappy seems very similar to "the Map" in Dora and I do wonder if Pickled Possum Productions are infringing just a little on someone else's turf? Could they not have come up with their own original idea? But anyway moving on.

The concept is that the three travel around in this crazy house bus, which is animated, to different parts of the country. You know they are travelling around because every few minutes you get the animated bus shot as it travels on the animated road in the animated country side. Then there are shots of the presenters talking or singing ridiculous songs inside different rooms of the animated house bus (I imagine it is all filmed and then separately superimposed as the presenters often look a little out of place with their surroundings). There is a little token Maori and NZ Sign Language but it is not used repeatedly enough for children to catch on and learn. I don't think mine even noticed the Sign Language being used.

Then there are "real life sequences" such as children supermarket shopping with their mum. It was all just a bit too irritating for me when the little boy counts each orange by hitting it against his head and then counting it and bagging it. ie "Ouch, one, ouch, two..." and then the carrot sword fights...

The shots are edited in a way that doesn't encourage long attention spans either and I just didn't quite get why I would want to buy this if I had a choice between this and The Go Show. There was just too much distracting animation in this and Mappy and the female presenter just didn't do it for me.

Pickled Possum Productions and TVNZ might do better to put Tiki Tour's money into making The Go Show better!!

If you have watched Tiki Tour on TV and liked it then you will most likely enjoy this. But if not then there are other TVNZ DVD's out there like The Go Show and Pop-up; Imagine with Rufus which in my opinion will give you (and your child) better value for money.