Welcome to Video Recall: a new
series about movies that were
banned and buried on DVD
or VHS. Sex scandals, legal
battles and creative feuds are
just a few of the reasons why
you'll probably never see
these rare versions of famous
films. So sit back, buckle up,
and adjust your cup holders,
‘cause we're about to take a
spin through the darkest and
most remote back alleys of
home video history. Notice how
the baby Einstein brand
has moved away from video
entertainment for toddlers and
more into physical toys and
merchandise? No, me neither.
But apparently it has because
the Baby Einstein DVD series
was rocked by a debate almost
as controversial as the theory
relativity in the heyday of
its namesake. Like that,
except completely idiotic and
trivial in comparison.
Long story short, Disney was
marketing the Baby Einstein
franchise as edutainment,
making claims about how
the videos would promote the
mental development of couch
potato tots. See what I did
there? See? A number of
independent, academic studies
contradicted Disney's claims,
reporting that the youngest
video-addicted generation was
learning 6-8 fewer words for
every hour of DVDs they
watched. Let that soak in for
a minute. Imagine if the
amount of video content we
consumed eventually gave
way to entire generations of
almost complete illiteracy.
Yeah. I know, it's tough for
you to imagine, but that's
just because your imagination
was ruined by too many baby
DVDs! At a rate of 6-8 words
lost every hour, the real
danger is that most infants
will know negative words
within just days. No wonder
there's so much negativity in
the world. Anyways, poor old
Baby Einstein was arguably
really just the scapegoat for
a massive campaign spreaheaded
by the Campaign for a
Commercial Free Childhood
against a growing industry of
videos with dubious
educational credentials
marketed to the parents of
young infants. They even tried
to get the Federal Trade
Commission to shut Disney
down, but failing that they
petitioned Disney directly.
Between the pressure from the
CCFC and the potential of an
FTC ruling, Disney said WTF,
NBD and just started a refund
program, buying DVDs back from
disgruntled parents, while
also questioning the
scientific methods employed by
the studies that targeted them
in the first place. It's not
clear if Disney actually
pulled remaining inventory
from store shelves, but they
certainly toned down their
scholarly claims in future
branding. Eventually the
University of Washington
researchers responsible for
most of the controversy were
forced to pay $175,000 in back
legal fees to the company,
and several further studies
concluded that videos for
the under-2 set are neither
beneficial or detrimental to
the development of language
skills. Huh. So it's possible
for TV to neither rot your
brain or grow it? What is
this non-sensationalistic
neutrality? Academically,
legally and commercially,
Disney found themselves in a
stalemate, but the damage to
the brand had already been
done, and the last of the 28
Baby Einsteein DVDs was
released in 2009. By then,
Baby Einstein was actually 13.
So, kind of a bratty tween, I
guess. The real irony, though,
is that this whole controversy
revolves around whether or not
a brand centred on the world's
greatest physicist succeeds
in its mission to teach young
children how to talk, read and
write. Is Einstein really the
best figurehead for such a
program? No, actually, he's
not. Not at all. Nevermind the
fact that he was a physicist
not a writer, by most accounts
Einstein didn't talk until
relatively late in life and
expressed repeatedly that he
struggled with memorizing
words and spelling. A genius?
Yes. A baby's best friend
in learning how to read by
staring at a TV screen?
Probably not. So, has this
made old Baby Einstein DVDs
coveted collector's items on a
lucrative black market? Sadly,
no. But if you want to give
your kid an early start in the
joys of DVD collecting, what
better intro than Baby's First
DVD Recall? I'm Joseph and
you've been watching Video
Recall on Buzzcuts, a channel
that celebrates unpopular
culture and no-budget
independent filmmaking. Be
sure to like and subscribe,
and stay tuned for
more Video Recall. 
