| | |  | DVDs | Home » » Wild Kratts: Creature Adventures | | | | | | | Description: | | Animals can take you anywhere in science! Creature teachers Chris and Martin Kratt will take 6- to 8-year olds and their families along on ten extraordinary animal-powered adventures. The show transforms the Kratt Brothers into animated versions of themselves, allowing the real-life zoologists to visit wild animals in their little-seen habitats and showcase key science concepts along the way. | | | Product Details: | | | Format:
| Color, DVD, NTSC | | Language:
| English | | Number of Discs:
| 2 | | Studio:
| Pbs (Direct) | | Run Time:
| 270 minutes | | DVD Release Date:
| April 05, 2011 | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 47 reviews |
| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
Average Customer Review:
 ( 47 customer reviews )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
21 of 22 found the following review helpful:
Hooray for the Kratt Brothers!Apr 12, 2011
By HappyReader
"HappyReader"
This is our new favorite DVD! Both my 5.5 year old son and I are completely delighted with this new series. The Kratt brothers are the super heroes of the animal world! The episodes are packed with interesting facts, and beyond that---even the "super powers" that the brothers derive from their special suits mimic the special characteristics of the animals in the episode. Of course, all super heroes need villains, and these are comical and fun, too. All in all, loads of entertainment and just as much learning---and it's all clever, fast-paced, entertaining and great fun! Thank you! Keep these DVD's coming, please!
14 of 15 found the following review helpful:
My boys LOVE it!!!May 11, 2011
By Heather J. Finnegan
"Teacher Momma"
My boys ages 6 and 3 LOVE this show. They have learned so much about animals! They watch the show and then act it out, coming to the creature rescue of all kinds of worms and insects! This DVD set is 10 episodes, so be prepared to watch many of them! I love that I don't have to worry about content or language, and it entertains a variety of ages! My boys watch the DVD's daily!
9 of 9 found the following review helpful:
Great new kids show on PBS!Apr 21, 2011
By EMS
Very educational for kids who like animals. Most of the time I don't mind watching. The good vs. evil plots make this not that much different from other shows. That's why the kids like it. Educational while being exciting and giving the kids characters to root for! Thank goodness it came out on video so we didn't have to watch it only at the times when it was on TV. No violence. Very preschool friendly.
6 of 6 found the following review helpful:
A great nature series for children ages 5-9Dec 14, 2011
By Z Hayes
My first grader loves Wild Kratts which is a nature-themed series for young children. The real-life Kratt brothers introduce each episode with a fun description of the featured animal and there's a cartoon following this with Martin and Chris meeting all sorts of animals from different parts of the world.
The brothers Kratt have amazing Creature Power Suits which bestows on them some special abilities that help them communicate with animals and rescue them from trouble, usually from a set of villains (differs from episode to episode) that want to destroy these creatures or use them for their own selfish ends.
I have watched several of these episodes with my daughter and I am amazed at how educational this show is, which also combines animals facts with other fields such as science (e.g. the draco lizard and the physics of gliding) and so on.
This DVD (the only DVD on Wild Kratts so far, I believe) features 10 episodes:
Mom of a Croc
Whale of a Squid
Aardvark Town
Flight of the Draco
Mystery of Squirmy Wormy
Platypus Cafe
Build It Beaver
Voyage of the Butterflier XT
Honey Seekers
Bass Class
I highly recommend this show for animal-loving children ages 5-9.
6 of 7 found the following review helpful:
 Living free and in the wildAug 02, 2011
By Dienne
The Kratt brothers are back for their third creature adventure series aimed at younger children (plus they had a mini-series aimed at older children). I for one missed them in their absence, but I have mixed feelings about this reincarnation.
There are ten episodes on two disks in this collection. Each episode begins with the brothers on location in the wild talking about a certain class or family of animals, or certain animal features. They focus on animals which possess unique and overlooked attributes, such as the Draco lizard's ability to glide or the digging powers of aardvarks or the building capabilities of beavers. These first couple minutes are quite similar to their other series, but then this series take a new turn not previously used by the Kratt brothers. Imagining what it would be like to wield the creature powers they've just explained, the brothers leap forward exclaiming, "What if?!" and, poof!, they become cartoons.
In the cartoon world, the brothers often wear their "creature power suits" (in their signature colors, of course) which, with the help of tech guru Aviva and her nerdy sidekick Jimmy, allow the brothers to take on the unique features of the creatures they are studying and protecting. They can turn into sperm whales or colossal squid, they can glide like a gecko, tunnel like an aardvark or use a "sixth sense" like a duck-billed platypus.
Using their creature powers and a variety of back-up technology, our heroes save their fellow creatures from threats of all sorts. Some of these threats are stereotypical human villains: the fashionable Donita Donata who seeks to turn living creatures into high-fashion accessories, Gourmand who seeks out the most endangered creatures for his menu of delicacies, or the spoiled and lazy overgrown child Zach Varmitech who uses the labor of animals for his own ends and has trouble playing by the rules. Other threats come simply from the natural environment such as predators, rivals, and weather conditions. Along the way we learn a great deal about each creature, its survival mechanisms, its life cycle, how it cares for its young, its eating and sleeping behavior and a whole lot more.
After the Wild Kratts save the day (with a lot of help from nature's know-how), the final few minutes of each episode feature Chris and Martin back in their normal human forms again discussing and demonstrating their creature knowledge and adventuring skills.
On one hand, these videos are great. Like the Kratt brothers' other series, they are packed with information delivered in a manner which appeals to younger and older children alike and which children can understand and absorb. My daughters (ages 4.5 and 2.5) love watching the videos and my older daughter has practically memorized every detail. We took these videos on two long driving trips and they kept the girls entertained for hours in the car. I certainly can't complain about the enthusiasm the videos have stirred in my daughter for learning all about creatures.
On the other hand, I'm not entirely thrilled with the cartoon format. First, I can't say that the videos are dumbed-down, but they are hyped to appeal to kids. Nearly every moment of the cartoon portions are breathless, urgent and dramatic. I can appreciate how this brings out the drama inherent in nature, but it's too much. Real drama in nature is more subtle and gradually unfolding, not panic-inducing. I find myself wanting to hand Chris and Martin a paper bag and tell them to take a few deep, slow breaths to stop hyperventilating.
This intensity at times create a bit too much pressure for the younger set. The first time we watched the videos, my daughters got rather upset fearing that something bad was going to happen, especially when baby animals were threatened. With both Kratts Creatures and Zoboomafoo, parents could rest easy knowing that no scary or inappropriate material would be shown. With this series, parents of younger children will need to supervise and support the little ones a bit more.
Second, I'm just not impressed with the quality of the animation. Chris and Martin hardly look like themselves in their cartoon forms - thank goodness for the color-coded suits. The facial expressions are also pretty bad - the cartoon Chris and Martin are always either grinning idiotically or frowning worriedly.
And finally, I'm just not too sure about the direction in which the brothers - and children's entertainment generally - have gone. Kratts Creatures didn't rely on any gimmicks to capture children's attention. The interest and excitement of the program came entirely from the Kratt brothers' knowledge and enthusiasm about animals and the excitement of seeing animals on location in the wild. Zoboomafoo introduced some gimmicks, such as the goofy leaping lemur who told bad jokes and silly stories from Zobooland to appeal to children, but the focus was still mostly on the creatures - watching their behavior and interaction and learning interesting facts about each animal. But with this new format, the high intensity drama, the animation and the technology (both real and fictional) become the focus in and of themselves, which, to me, distracts from the creatures themselves. In the first two series, it is evident that Chris and Martin are excited by the animal world itself. In this series, it almost seems like they are trying to make the animal world exciting by adding excessive drama.
On the other foot (I'm aware that I'm out of hands), I can see why they chose to use animation. For one thing, animated characters can go places and see and do things that the real Chris and Martin can't do. Filming a real sperm whale encounter with a colossal squid in the depths of the ocean, for instance, would be difficult to do in a way that would make it easy enough to see from all angles. Also, Chris and Martin aren't getting any younger (I was actually rather shocked at how much older they look), and consistently being on location and going on more active adventures is probably getting harder for them.
Don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled that the Kratt brothers are still sharing their knowledge and passion for the creature world with a new generation of young children who will, I hope, learn to share their love of and concern for nature. And I have no complaints with the material content presented - the Kratt brothers' knowledge of animals and their ability to impart that knowledge is second to none. My concern is purely with the format, and even that is admittedly the concern of an old fogey who's been passed up by the speed of the world these days.
If you haven't already introduced your kids to the Kratt brothers (or met them yourself), you can't go wrong with any of their work, whether this series or any of their others. 4.5 stars.
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