Happy 2014!

From my family to yours, we wish you a happy, fun, and joyous 2014! 

Cartoon Video Game Review: Adventure Time Explore the Dungeon Because I Don't Know!

I'll admit, I'm a little slow on getting this one live on the site, but it's because we've been playing it a LOT here. Adventure Time comes to life with "Explore the Dungeon Because I Don't Know!".

Image courtesy D3 Publisher.

This is a fun little game, available across several gaming platforms. However, we got the WiiU version, and I'm SO GLAD. The integration with the gamepad is brilliant, and something I'd wager you'd only find in this and the 3DS versions. I think it takes full advantage of the technology.

Check out my full review over at the About.com page!

DreamWorks Animation Gives the Gift of Turbo F.A.S.T.!

Starting today, the new animated series Turbo F.A.S.T. begins airing exclusively on Netflix!

Image courtesy DreamWorks Animation.

I'll admit, I had lost interest in Netflix and cancelled my subscription earlier this year, but Turbo brought me back. We love Turbo here in the TV Household. TV Boy went nuts after we went and saw it last summer, and we now own nearly a dozen racing snails and paraphernalia. In fact, as we're watching the episodes, he had to whip out the Turbo snail race track system and is having snail races with TV Dad on the floor.

Check out the official Turbo F.A.S.T. website and be sure to download a fun Party Pack to celebrate the release with your Turbo fan!

It's a Super Mickey Mouse Party!

Just in time for the holidays, we were given the opportunity to have a little family viewing party for the new DVD, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Super Adventure!

Image courtesy Disney.

We were sent a fun party kit, although thankfully this time it didn't involve me making anything (see the Popcorn fiasco from the Jake and the Never Land Pirates party post!)

First, we hung the new Mickey Mouse glove balloon ornament on our tree.

Mickey and the gang fit right in! Can you spot the Millennium Falcon?

Then we donned the Mickey Mouse santa hat.
(Not pictured, TV Mom in said hat. I don't have makeup on today!)

TV Boy grabbed his Mickey crayons to color a picture of Mickey in his new
Mickey coloring book. Can you tell we're working on proper writing instrument holding?
And that TV Boy hasn't picked a dominant hand yet?

TV Boy's coloring creation. He's a minimalist I guess.

Loyal fuzzy friend Doggie got a chance with the santa hat.
Trust me, he still looks better than I do.

A fun pack of trading cards (super sized!) comes with the DVD!

It included a fun lenticular card! I tried really hard to get a good picture of this
because it's really neat in person. Cameras don't do well with lenticular things.

"Yoink! Those are mine!"

Cool comic book beginning!

Here we go! (TV Dog is not nearly as excited about participating.)

Moving in to get a closer look at the most exciting part of the episode!

Check out my review of the DVD over at the Kids' Cartoons page! Thanks to my friends at Click Communications for letting us have this super holiday party! Your kids can join in the fun too with this Super printable fun pack!

Merry Super Christmas from the TV Household!

Despicable Me 2 on Blu-ray and DVD TODAY!

The Minions are back, just in time for holiday gift giving! That's right, your favorite yellow sidekicks and their lovable but "evil" boss, Gru, are on Blu-ray and DVD today! According to the Despicable Me website, there are several different extras you can pick up along with the movie... a Minion Lunch Box at Best Buy, Minion figurines at Walmart, and an Anti-Villain League Handbook at Target!

Image courtesy Illumination Entertainment.

As a special treat, I was given the opportunity to interview voice actor Moises Arias, who plays Antonio in the film!

Moises with his character Antonio.

This kid (I say that like I'm some old lady at thirty, ha!) is so incredibly well-spoken, so articulate, and so busy! I predict bright things from him as he enters his twenties! Be sure to click the link above and see what he had to say about creating an animated character, as well as his role in Ender's Game... you know the geek in me couldn't let an opportunity to ask about THAT slide!

And, for fun, when you bring the movie home to your family, why not whip up a tasty batch of Minon Munch Mix! (And attempt to say it three times fast with a mouthful!) Click the link below for the recipe as well as some fun activity sheets to go with it!

2013 Holiday Cartoon Special Schedule!

Want to find out when your favorite holiday cartoon special will air this year? Click over to my About.com page to see the full holiday schedule, which I will update as new shows are mentioned!

Image courtesy IMDB.com.

Am I missing your favorite? Feel free to comment below and I will get it added! 

Rich Collins ROCKS!

I'm in the middle of a serious fan-girl day. Not only do I get to interview Moises Arias (voice of Antonio in Despicable Me 2 and played Bonzo Madrid in Ender's Game), but Rich Collins, aka "Mover Rich" from The Imagination Movers, EMAILED ME PERSONALLY to thank me for buying from his website! He even sent me this "cool bonus pic" of him rockin' out:

Image courtesy Rich Collins. All rights reserved.

Never in all my life have I had such friendly and PERSONAL service from a musician! So, this is my treatise to all of you readers to check out his site http://www.richcollinsmusic.com/ and buy his album! (His music, I think, is quite reminiscent of Sister Hazel's style of southern rock. Which is why I adore it, because Sister Hazel is one of my all time favorite bands.) Pretty please support his work! He's just too awesome not to!

Love you Rich! Keep Rockin'!

Thinking About Buying This Game For Your Regular Show Fan?

Have you seen Regular Show on Cartoon Network and thought, gee, this might be a fun game? Well, apparently someone did. There is now a 3DS version of the show entitled Mordecai & Rigby in 8-Bit Land... but it's not what you'd expect it to be.

Image courtesy D3Publisher.

While the premise of the game is... what am I talking about? There IS no premise to the game. Of course, one could argue the same of the series, but I digress. The game has very little to do with the popular Cartoon Network program, and really the 3D aspect is a gimmick at best.

Check out my full review over at About.com!

Holiday Gift Idea for a Disney Princess Fan!

Do you have a little girl running around your house in princess dresses? Are you a mom who secretly wishes that princess dress came in grown-up sizes because you love Disney Princesses too? For this holiday season, perhaps you should pick up the new Blu-ray combo pack from Disney Home Entertainment featuring two Little Mermaid movies that were originally direct-to-video releases: The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning and The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea.

Image courtesy Disney Home Entertainment.

Now you can find out not only what happened to Ariel's mom (what is UP with Disney killing off parents? I mean, seriously!), and you can also find out what kind of mother Ariel herself is (hint: she makes mistakes too, and I'm sure if she had the internet in her palace, she'd be seeking out advice from mommy blogs galore). Plus there are fun bonus features, including a classic Disney animated short! Check out these fun clips! Also, hop over to About.com to check out my review!

    

Never Land Rescue Pirate Party!

In celebration of the new full-length Jake and the Never Land Pirates: Never Land Rescue DVD, the TV Household was given the opportunity to have a Pirate Party!

We were sent this cute little Pirate Party Kit, complete with everything needed to have a super fun viewing party. Okay, so I made the popcorn myself... more on that in a moment... and TV Boy added the "bloons" to the treasure chest from the tokens he nabbed from one of the TV Grandparents' houses (they have a slot machine in their basement).

TV Dad will attest that I can only cook certain things... popcorn, apparently, is not one of them. FAIL.

Radar, one of the TV Cats (he's actually specifically TV Boy's cat), thought the box that the kit came in was for him. It's the "if I fits, I sits" mentality.

I thought he should look more... participatory. He, however, was not amused with my idea.

TV Boy is all pirate-d up and ready to watch the movie! Notice his pirate tattoos (not real, don't worry TV Grandmas!) and his new Sword of Destiny (which comes with the DVD!).

I put on a tattoo too (say THAT five times fast!). TV Boy insisted I put with my real one, which is his first initial in Binary around an 8-bit heart, for those who are wondering what the heck I have on my arm. I'm a huge geek, remember. However, I apparently am allergic to temporary tattoos, so I quickly removed mine. Real tats are surprisingly less painful and irritating to me. Go figure.

Let the movie begin!

Instead of burnt popcorn, I opted for salad. Grew those tomatoes in our own backyard! Thankfully, I didn't feel too hippie-ish, Izzy has a salad in the opening scene in the movie. Boom. Pirate food.

Grow, Forever Tree, grow! And this was my epiphany of why we were sent a tree growing kit in our Pirate Party materials. Now we can grow our own Forever Tree (an Evergreen... get it?)! Alright, I'll be honest... I'm about as good with growing things as I am cooking popcorn. The tree will be TV Dad's responsibility so I don't kill it. I've killed cacti. Plural. 

I'd like to give a special thanks to my friends at Click Communications for allowing the TV Household to have this awesome Pirate Party! Let's hope I don't kill the Forever Tree. I have a feeling that would be incredibly ironic.

Disney Planes... out TODAY!

 

This was one of the movies that came out this summer that I never made it out to see in a theatre. I was really bummed, because TV Boy loves planes and Disney's Cars movies, so it was going to be awesome to see them on the big screen. However, time got away from us this summer. So when I was offered the chance to check out the Bluray combo pack from Disney, I jumped at the chance! 

The story, for those of you who maybe haven't seen it yet, is a young crop duster plane (who is conveniently named Dusty) wants to become an ariel racer plane and leave his quiet, boring, crop-dusting existence behind. He enters into a contest that is a race around the world, with several world-class racers. 




Dusty must overcome his fear of extreme heights and his crop-dusting ways in order to become a world class flyer. Along the way, he meets some interesting new friends and foes, including two planes named Ned and Zed, voiced by Gabriel Iglesias... who I got the pleasure of talking to on the phone! (Click the link to read my full interview!)


Be sure to pick up your copy of Disney's Planes on DVD and Bluray, out TODAY! Also, to continue the high flying fun, you can download fun activities by clicking on the images at the top and bottom of this post! 

TMNT for the XBOX 360!

Alas, TV Dad had his day in the sun with this review... a video game! He was so excited when I told him I was expanding into the realm of cartoon-related gaming. He got to HELP! In fact, he got to play the game while I watched and took notes!  I couldn't very well do both things by myself, now could I? Even better, he and TV Boy got to play together, and neither of them was bored and asking when I would be done watching this so they could watch/do something of their own. "TRIUMPH!", says I!

Image courtesy Nickelodeon/Activision.

So yes, this is my expansion into all forms of children's media that I have been talking about (or, perhaps you noticed my slight re-wording on the ol' header up there). Kids cartoons don't end when the show is over anymore. There are video games, accessories, and apps for crying out loud. So much for our kids to become engrossed in their favorite characters, in ways we couldn't even have imagined in the '80s and '90s when we were flooded with character everything, from under-roos to toilet paper.

Check out my review of the game over at the About.com Kids' Cartoons page!

Be sure to stay tuned this week for my review of Disney's Planes as well as an interview! :)

Happy Halloween from TheTVMom.com!

October has been a month of incredible things here at TheTVMom.com and I am excited to get to work on some awesome new stuff for November, including video game reviews... squee!

Here is some stuff to keep you busy for the rest of this very busy week in parenting land (Halloween, plus here in Ohio, some severe weather to go with it! Should make Trick or Treating interesting!)

First of all, Hub Network is replaying the Hub Halloween Bash one more time, at 8pm Eastern on Halloween night. You have one more chance to look for me in the crowd! Now, I obviously know where I sat and I noticed myself right away a couple times (one of which was me quickly shoving a cookie back in my purse coming out of a commercial break... shows take a long time to tape and I was HUNGRY!), however, for the regular viewer, I might be tougher to spot. Check out stage left/screen right in the bleachers and look for green... that's me (I was shiny and sparkly too!) and the gal sitting next to me who was dressed as Peter Pan!

Bloggers on the purple carpet... I'm front row, second from the left!

Speaking of which, I wanted to give a special link "shout out" to all my new blog-world buddies! Please check out the following sites and tell 'em The TV Mom sent you! Be sure to like their Facebook pages and follow them on Twitter too! Spread the love!

• valmg.com
• BeingAlison.com
• midgetmomma.com
• mommykatie.com
• thebraggingmommy.com
• emilythomaswrites.com
• sarahsblogoffun.com
• daysofadomesticdad.com (Yes, we had a Dad blogger!)
• simplybeingmommy.com
• momspark.net
• mommyhasalife.com

(Note: If you're one of my blogger friends and you don't see your site listed, give me a shout! These are the ones who emailed me back and/or I followed while I was in LA. I'll get buttons up soon too for those of you who sent me one!)

Then, this Saturday, Hub Network premieres new seasons of Littlest Pet Shop and.... drumroll... MY LITTLE PONY! That's right Bronies, your pony pals are returning a little earlier than previously announced! Yes, you'll have to sit through another showing of Equestria Girls (heck, maybe you like it as much as my little Brony does lol!), but they're back baby!

Also, be sure to watch here at TheTVMom.com and on my Facebook page for a giveaway to celebrate my 2 year blog-aversary, which is coming up in a couple weeks, believe it or not! (So is my thirtieth birthday, but shhhh! We're not talking about that!)

HAPPY HALLOWEEN and bring on November!

Gravity Falls: Six Strange Tales on DVD

Gravity Falls is another one of those Disney shows like Phineas and Ferb that is totally okay to be watching without your kids. Don't believe me? Check it out on Disney Channel or Disney XD sometime. It has Kristen Schaal for pete's sake! And they really do let her run amok! You won't be sorry!

Image courtesy Disney.

Be sure to check out my DVD review over at the Kids' Cartoons page at About.com! 

Rah Rah Roar! Monsters University Available TODAY!

Attention all scarers! Monsters University is available to own TODAY on DVD, Blu-ray combo pack, and 3D Blu-ray from Disney!

Image courtesy Disney.

Now, I'll be honest, I didn't get to see this one out in the theatres myself. It was a busy summer and by the time we had the time, its run was already over. So when Disney offered me the opportunity to review the Blu-Ray, I jumped at the chance (and not out of fear!)

The film is really adorable, and not at all the buddy film I was expecting. It was actually a sad story about a monster who wants to have it all, but just doesn't cut the mustard to live up to his lifelong dream of being a top scarer. Poor Mike! I know what it's like to be the shortest, least scary one of a group (many of my high school friends were in the goth/grunge movement of the 90's... ha!). Meanwhile, Sully is skating by on his family name recognition, since his father is a renowned scarer, when in reality he knows very little about the art and mechanics of a good scare. I thought it was interesting that initially, Sully and Mike weren't even friends, but rather direct nemeses. I really got a good sense of how their friendship developed through the adversity both faced in the film. The writers did a fantastic job with showcasing the changes that both Mike and Sully went through. (And now I'm a huge fan of the new monster, Art, who is a Philosophy major like I was in college... those jokes were written just for me!)

The Blu-ray combo pack includes the film on both Blu-ray and DVD (thankfully, since TV Boy only has a DVD player in his room!), as well as all the special features on a separate Blu-ray disc. The special features are exactly what film buffs like myself are going to love: lots of behind the scenes footage of animators, story writers, musical composers, directors, deleted scenes, and what fun it is to work at Pixar. I'll admit, TV Boy petered out after a while watching adults using technical terms, but I soaked up every second of it.

Here are some neat sneak peeks as well as some fun printables from my friends at Disney Home Video (do they still call it that? Showing my age a bit here!) to get your little monster ready to bring home their favorite scarers!





Recon - Monsters University Deleted Scene on Disney Video


Gag Session - Monsters University BTS on Disney Video


Designing the Campus - Monsters University Featurette on Disney Video


Rivalry - Monsters University BTS on Disney Video


First Contact - Monsters University Blu-ray Clip on Disney Video


ROR Material - Monsters University Blu-ray Clip on Disney Video


OK Initiation - Monsters University Blu-ray Clip on Disney Video


Terri, Terry and Art - Monsters University Blu-ray Clip on Disney Video Disclaimer: A review copy was provided by the publisher for use in this article. The opinions expressed herein are all those of TheTVMom.com and in no way represent views by Disney, Pixar, or the publishers, and were not influenced by receipt of a free copy.

Aaahh! Real Monsters returns to DVD!

Just in time for Halloween, introduce your kids to the original scary monsters: Ichis, Oblina, and Krumm!

Image courtesy Shout! Factory.

That's right, the 90's Nicktoon "Aaahh! Real Monsters" is back on DVD thanks to Shout! Factory! For those of us who were young in the 90's, it's a blast from the past and a return to some of the best kids television in modern history.

Be sure to check out the Kids' Cartoon Page at About.com for a full review! 

It's Time! The Hub Network Halloween Bash is HERE!

I finally have the green light (and the time to sit down at the ol' computer desk) to tell you, dear readers, all about my exploits in L.A. with The Hub Network's First Annual Halloween Bash!

Image courtesy Hub Network.

Thanks to my friends at Hub Network, they flew me out to Los Angeles last weekend (you knew that) so that I could attend the taping of the Halloween Bash.

First and foremost, we got to attend the red... er, purple... carpet arrivals. This was probably my favorite part, and you'll see why in just a second. We got to meet and chat with all the stars who were invited, presenting, hosting, and judging. Picture time!

Family Game Night host Todd Newtorn.

Khylin Rhambo who plays Dink in the new Ender's Game movie!

Kenan Thompson arriving (one of the best shots I got of him all day)

Actor Nick Purcha from the new Spooksville series.

Voice actor Jaden Betts from Doc McStuffins. 

Ian Patrick from ABC's The Neighbors series.

Rico Rodriguez from Modern Family.

Nick Purcha and Keean Johnson from Spooksville.

Aubrey Anderson-Emmons (Modern Family) and Chloe Noelle (True Blood)

The only other half decent shot of Kenan Thomspon.

Singer Cody Simpson.

Judge Coco Jones.

Nolan Gould from Modern Family.

Joey King from Oz the Great and Powerful.

Judge Hal Sparks

My favorite pic of Hal Sparks! He looked right at me and made this face.

Judge Martha Stewart.

Musical Guest Fifth Harmony.

Do you see what I see??? (And what stars on the carpet saw!)

The set!

And now for the best parts of the whole day for me: The hug and thumbs up I got from THE Bill Nye The Science Guy! Ahhhh! Does my gigantic smile give you any indication as to how big of a moment this was for me??? I got to HUG BILL NYE! (Insert geek-girl squee here.)

Bill Nye hugged me!!!

Thumbs up indeed!

Oh yeah, and then there's this...

Image courtesy Getty. I don't have an account, so watermark it is.

That's me, photo-bombing Martha Stewart and Hal Sparks. I'm a dork, yes, but the fact this exists in the world makes me beyond proud. I tweeted it to Hal Sparks, but he never responded. Poo. So, Hal, if you read this, sorry you have a dorky crazy redhead over your shoulder, but I did what had to be done! Ha!

My only note for Hub next year when it comes to pulling off Bash #2: Have a kids-only category. I was kind of down to see only one kid in the final six. There were definitely some kids I think would have been up front and center had they not been up against some of these professional costumers and cosplayers. Give them a more fair shake next year and make a "cute kids" category! :)

Now for a sneak peak clip, care of Hub Network! (And yes, I think that *IS* the kid who does the break dancing on SYTYCD!)


 

Be sure to tune in to Hub Network TOMORROW NIGHT, Saturday, October 26 at 8pm Eastern/5pm Pacific to see what I saw! Comment with your favorite costume!

Also, don't forget to tune in earlier on Saturday for the new animated series, Sabrina: Secrets of a Teenage Witch on Hub Network!

Disclaimer: Hub Network provided travel and accommodations for me to attend this event. Opinions expressed herein are all expressly those of TheTVMom.com and were not in any way influenced by Hub Network. All images Copyright (c) TheTVMom.com unless otherwise stated.