“Great Gorilla” was released to DVD not long ago, and the minute my son saw the ad, he wanted it. Ah, the magic of television advertising . . . we picked it up at Blockbuster the other day and watched it as a family. While only my youngest two are in to Diego and the rest of us consider it a unique form of torture, I had to admit there were some better than expected moments.
The DVD contains four episodes. The first is the one for which the DVD is named. Diego travels to Africa to attend the crowning of the new king gorilla. In order to get there, he jumps from an airplane and floats down in a parachute. But he discovers that the baby gorilla who will be named king has disappeared! The viewers learn some basic words in sign language while helping Diego find the missing gorilla.
Next we travel to Egypt, where Diego meets up with workers from the Animal Rescue Center near the desert. We meet animals who live in the desert and don’t need to drink water, such as the desert fox. But other animals do need water, and the river is drying up. An old wise camel tells a story about a golden cloud that can create water wherever it’s needed, so Diego sets off in search of the golden cloud.
In our next episode, we see that Dora has come for a visit. She and Diego talk to Lonely Louie, a giant tortoise from the Galapagos Islands who’s lonely because he’s the only one left of his kind. He would really like to meet a nice lady tortoise and start a family, so Dora and Diego go off to the Galapagos Islands to see if they can find Louie a lady friend.
Our last story teaches us all about flying squirrels as we see one of these amazing animals swoop in to save a baby marmoset who is falling from a tree. We learn that flying squirrels don’t really fly, but glide from tree to tree.
If your children are fans of Dora and Diego, this will be one you’ll most likely want to get your hands on. And I think you’ll find it’s not quite as annoying as some of the regular television episodes, although I do think Diego tampers with the natural order of animal life too much and will end up taming the wild animals thereby rendering them unable to fend for themselves, but . . . that’s a whole ‘nother blog.
Related Blogs: