Starting with this DVD release of “Mickey Mouse Clubhouse: Numbers Roundup”, Disney is creating a new form of interactivity for educational DVD’s for your children. With the new “Discovery Mode”, children can now use the “Mickey Mote” (sold with the DVD or without) while watching an episode and partake in several fun questions about colors, shapes and sizes. Definitely a big step for educational interactive DVD’s for the children. Highly recommended!
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DVD TITLE: Mickey Mouse Clubhouse: Minnie’s Masquerade
DURATION: 120 Minutes
DVD INFORMATION: Dolby Digital, NTSC, Family Friend Widescreen (1:78:1 – Enhanced for 16×9 Television), Spanish Language Track, Subtitles: English SDH
COMPANY: Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment
RATED: TV Y
RELEASE DATE: February 8, 2011
Directed by Rob LaDuca
Written by Bobs Gannaway & Leslie Valdes
Producer/Story Editor: Leslie Valdes
Executive Producer: Bobs Gannaway
Line Producer: Bradley Bowlen
Featuring the voices of:
Wayne Allwine as Mickey Mouse
Tony Anselmo as Donald Duck
Bill Farmer as Goofy
Tress MacNeille as Daisy Duck
Russi Taylor as Minnie Mouse
Jim Cummings as Pete
Corey Burton as Ludwig Von Drake
April Winchell as Clarabelle Cow
Mickey Mouse Clubhouse: Minnie’s Masquerade starring Disney’s Fab Five — Minnie, Mickey, Donald, Goofy and Daisy – takes viewers on an all new adventure as they dress-up in their favorite costumes for Minnie’s Masquerade Ball. In this episode, Minnie needs some help getting everything ready for her party including making royal crowns for their costumes, searching for Sir Goofalot’s lost shoe, stringing up paper lanterns and much, much more. At the ball, Professor Von Drake hosts the great Clubhouse Costume Show and gives out prize ribbons to all the friends who have dressed up in some funny and fancy costumes. All it takes is a heaping helping of imagination…and the right Mouseketools.
“MICKEY MOUSE CLUBHOUSE†is a children’s television animated series (presented in CG) that airs on the Disney Channel’s “Playhouse Disney†block targeted towards pre-school children.
The series is created in a similar style as “Blue’s Clues†and “Dora the Explorer†in terms of the main character interacting with the viewer. Disney’s “MICKEY MOUSE CLUBHOUSE†features Mickey Mouse as the main character communicating with his friends and then occasionally looking towards the viewer for help in a variety of adventures. Mickey uses a variety of tools and a compass inside the clubhouse to help them solve their problems and get from point A to point B. And then during the mission, Mickey offers various ideas of paths they can take and asks the viewer which path should he take.
“Mickey Mouse Clubhouse: Minnie’s Masquerade” is the third DVD release along with “Mickey Mouse Clubhouse: Numbers Roundup” and “Handy Manny: Big Construction Job” to utilize the “Mickey Mote”, a child-friendly handheld remote to answer fun questions about colors, shapes and sizes. It’s important to note that you can use your regular DVD remote but the “Mickey Mote” is child friendly and will be much easier to use for children. But the Mickey Mote can be used with Disney Preschool DVD that includes the Discovery Mode and to date, there are more than 11 titles that can be used with the remote control (look at the back of the packaging to make sure).
In this latest DVD release of “Mickey Mouse Clubhouse”, for “Minnie’s Masquerade”, we get a total of five episodes (24 minutes each). One of the episodes is a never-before-seen episode and premieres on this DVD:
- Minnie’s Masquerade – Goofy has lost his boot for Minnie’s masquerade, will Mickey and friends be able to help Goofy in time?
- Minnie’s Mouseke-Calendar – Minnie is missing her Mouseke-Calendar and so Mickey and friends go to look for the pages.
- A Surprise for Minnie – Mickey forgot it’s Valentines Day and needs to come up with a surprise for Minnie.
- Secret Spy Daisy – Secret Spy Daisy is contacted to stop Pete from stealing Clarabelle’s secret recipe.
- The Friendship Team – Twelve party hats are missing, help Mickey, Minnie, Daisy and Pluto find them.
“Mickey Mouse Clubhouse: Numbers Roundup” utilizes the new MickeyMote, a child-friendly handheld remote control, shaped like Mickey ears, that will take children’s viewing experience to a whole new level by providing an engaging interaction with their favorite Disney characters. With multiple levels of play, the new Mickey Mote will provide hours of fun, engaging and challenging adventures for kids age 2-5.
According to Disney:
The Mickey Mote works with any Disney Preschool DVD that includes Discovery Modeâ„¢, the interactive “Watch & Play†feature on the DVD! All parents have to do is program the remote control – there‟s an easy and quick set-up guide in each DVD- and select the Discovery Mode feature on the menu screen. Within minutes, kids will be easily responding to questions, throughout the story, about scenes they just watched (such as “What color is Goofy‟s hat?â€) by pressing one of four color-coded buttons on the device — a yellow star, green circle, orange triangle or blue square – to click in their responses. Discovery Mode features include two levels of play, which provides more challenging questions as the child grows.
And Disney does have plans to release more Discovery Mode enhanced DVD titles that utilize the Mickey Mote.
Once families have purchased a Disney Preschool DVD that comes packaged with the Mickey Mote, they can continue to build their Disney Preschool libraries as the Mickey Mote works in compatibility with any Discovery Mode enhanced DVD. For example, kids can immediately use the remote with any of the following titles: Mickey Mouse Clubhouse: Road Rally, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse: Mickey’s Adventures in Wonderland, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse: Mickey’s Choo Choo, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse: Minnie’s Bow-Tique, Handy Manny: Manny’s Motorcycle, Adventure Handy Manny: Manny’s Big Race, Little Einsteins: Fire Truck Blast Off, My Friends Tigger & Pooh: Super Duper Super Sleuths, My Friends Tigger & Pooh: Bedtime With Pooh
Note: Discovery Mode can also be played using any DVD remote control.
VIDEO & AUDIO:
“MICKEY MOUSE CLUBHOUSE†features colorful CG animated episodes for the children. Nothing too detailed but simple and clean enough for the young children to enjoy. Presentation this time around is in Widescreen (1:78:1), previous DVD’s were in full screen (1:33:1). As for the audio, audio is presented in Dolby Digital Surround Sound plus French and Spanish language tracks.
Subtitles in English SDH are offered.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
“Mickey Mouse Clubhouse: Minnie’s Masquerade” comes with the following special features:
- DISCOVERY MODE – Using your Mickey Mote (or DVD remote), viewers can partake in Discovery Mode where they can answer fun questions about colors, shapes and sizes. Children have the choice of selecting Level 1 and Level 2 for more challenging questions.
- Program Remote – Instructions on how to use your remote control to program the Mickey Mote.
EXTRAS:
“Mickey Mouse Clubhouse: Minnie’s Masquerade” comes with a free mask inside plus color your own DVD cover.
For families looking for an educational DVD for their children, you really can’t go wrong with “Mickey Mouse Clubhouse: Minnie’s Masquerade”. You get a total of five episodes included in this DVD release.
With this latest Mickey Mote DVD release, as the other two DVD’s did have a more targeted release for young boys (and can be enjoyed by girls as well), “Minnie’s Masquerade” features the character Minnie Mouse and Daisy Duck more and thus, is targeted for the young girls but because of the involvement with Mickey Mouse, Donal Duck and Goofy, boys can still easily enjoy this release as well. Pretty much, the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse episodes are geared for both boys and girls but for this release, they chose episodes that primarily feature Minnie Mouse.
Also, among the Disney releases targeted towards children, “Mickey Mouse Clubhouse” is probably the best out there from Disney that caters to the education of your young child (2-5 years old). Similar to other popular children’s shows which require your children to help the character decide on how to solve a puzzle, it was one thing to allow the child say it out loud but now with the introduction of “Discovery Mode”, using the new Mickey Mote (or your own DVD remote), children have more interactivity with these episodes.
Although you don’t need to purchase a release with the new Mickey Mote, for younger children, it’s quite convenient as it’s pretty big and you only have four buttons: yellow star (up), blue square (left), green star (right and orange triangle (down). A regular remote may be too difficult and confusing for the younger children. For those that are curious about purchasing “Mickey Mouse Clubhouse: Minnie’s Masquerade” with the Mickey Mote, you will need two AAA batteries.
Programming the remotes are easy, for example, by holding the front of your DVD/Blu-ray remote towards the front of the Mickey Mote, pressing a combination of two buttons on the Mickey Mote starts the programming session and you see a green light on the Mickey Mote front light up. By clicking four times up on your DVD/Blu-ray remote, you will see the Mickey Mote green light flash (this means it learned the up button). Then you repeat by pressing down four times, left four times and right four times for the Mickey Mote to learn all four directions. And if you mess up during the programming, no problem, you can easily repeat it.
On the Discovery Mode, for children, to keep things simple, the Discovery Mode don’t ask what directions to press but more of pressing the color of a button for the correct answer (which is typically a color that is featured on the Mickey Mote). It’s very simple to use, just watch the episode and answer fun questions that are asked throughout the stories.
But this is a pretty big step for Disney as they are really wanting to make these DVD releases interactive and the release of Disney’s new Mickey Mote + DVD Set is a pretty big deal, especially for parents and children who are familiar with the Disney characters and Disney animated shows.
As mentioned, “Mickey Mouse Clubhouse: Minnie’s Masquerade” is for the young girls but yet boys can still enjoy it. For the girl’s, by purchasing this release, you also get a free mask inside and a color your own cover (reverse of the DVD cover).
Overall, “Mickey Mouse Clubhouse: Minnie’s Masquerade” is an entertaining, educational children’s release and is definitely recommended!