Educational Favorites: Furry Animals

Have you ever seen a drawing that, once you laid eyes upon it, you were certain it would kill you? That's how I feel about this fucking bear. In fact, this entire tape looks like some sort of warped cursed item from the shop in Needful Things, to be quite honest with you. This thing isn't appropriate for kids, this thing is barely appropriate for unborn fetuses. And they have the audacity, the sheer gall, to state you have a lifetime guarantee with this tape and their other products in the same line? This thing will kill you, that doesn't sound like a lifetime guarantee to me! For the record, I have nothing against educational tapes. Being a kid of the 90s, these sorts of things were a big deal, and hell, I watched a ton of PBS because it was educational and entertaining. But judging from the cover of this tape, and the covers of the (presumably) other tapes available on the back...this doesn't look educational or entertaining. It looks confusing and traumatizing if anything.

And what is educational about it? You may note that they don't tell you, not once, what the tape is about. Nope. It's just titled "Furry Animals". Is it about animals? Do the animals teach you something? Do the animals teach you about animals? Who the fuck knows, dude. Also they're called 'instructional videos', so what are they trying to instruct children to do? Torture furry animals? There's just no context whatsoever for what lies on the spools of this tape, and it leaves a giant terrifying question mark over it.

Sure, the titles of the other tapes all make sense. "Learning To Read Signs", that's pretty self explanatory. "Learning Your Letters" also makes sense, though I'm unsure as to why they felt the need to put the word "letters" in ALL CAPS, but whatever. They even have a generic Aesops Fables table, which teach children about morality through cute animals. All of those make sense, you can get a sense of what they're attempting to accomplish. But this one? What the fuck is Furry Animals? It's not even titled something coherent like "Learning About Furry Animals", no, it's just "Furry Animals". I'm willing to bet good money that the only thing these animals are going to teach your child is the meaning of unfiltered terror. But even beyond that, it's a horrible box design isn't it? The text on the spine is super blocky and the color of a dead salmon that's lied rotting in the sun for a week straight, and the book has like 8 different fonts, some in multiple colors, and there's absolutely zero explanation for the film proper.

Guys, this might be one of the ugliest tapes I've covered, solely because there's absolutely no coherency to it whatsoever. Okay sure, it's meant to be a pseudo "educational" and "instructional" tape for babies, so perhaps babies don't care about artistic integrity, visual cohesiveness and design continuity as much as I - a professional artist and medium level graphic designer - do, but come on. You could've given at least two halves of a shit, right? So, who do we have to blame for this monstrosity? I did some research, as you know I like to do, because I want you, the reader, to be well informed. So these tapes were released by Trans Atlantic Video, a company founded in 1985, and from a listing for one of their tapes in this set (Learn Your Arithmetic) that I found on Amazon, they made a fucking ton of these things. The categories range from whatever generic school subject you can think of to things like learning about Fireman and even the Postal Service. A noble effort, indeed, but not unless you're willing to put more than $3.75 cents into the production costs.

Eventually, Trans Atlantic Video turned into the Diamond Entertainment Corporation between 87 and 90, and from there I managed to find a few of their other titles on IMDB. None were very interesting, mostly old classic movies, except for one I came across that was yet another (go figure) "instructional" tape about using the internet. It was titled "All Right Here At Your Fingertips", originally titled, "The Kids Guide To The Internet", released in 1997. Sadly I cannot find it anywhere online, nor any footage or even a box for it, so it'll have to live on in the annals of our imagination, which, frankly, is probably for the best if we're being honest. I do want you to know that I tried, though, I really truly did try. Because I care.

I'm sad to say there isn't much else for me to talk about other than just the overall hideousness of this monstrosity. There's no alternate covers, there's not even really another box by this company that, at least none that I could track down, comes even remotely close to equaling the horrific visuals we're being assaulted with, so thus ends our brief (thank god) foray into the world of Trans Atlantic Video and their bizarre "instructional" and "educational" VHS releases.

And if you ever, ever, see a bear in the woods that looks like this, run.