Wee Sing
It all started with two elementary music teachers, Pam Beall and Susan Nipp, who bonded over favorite childhood songs they wanted to share with their children and students. Realizing that they couldn’t remember all the words or even some of the melodies, they began a long and difficult search through collections of children’s songs. Slowly they discovered that the music from their childhood and that of their parents was being forgotten. In an effort to preserve it, they decided to create a book filled with favorite children’s songs to help not only themselves but all interested families share the joy of music together, titled Wee Sing Children’s Songs and Fingerplays.
Pam and Susan continued to develop new titles for the Wee Sing series after their first book became an enormous success. In 1981, they broke new ground in children’s publishing with the addition of audiocassettes to their established songbook collection. This was taken one step further in 1985, when the first Wee Sing video, "Wee Sing Together", was produced, beginning a series of direct-to-video musical films that continued until 1996. They were then followed by two less successful sing-along videos made up of recycled songs from the previous videos.
These videos include:
- "Wee Sing Together" (1985)
- "King Cole's Party" (1987)
- "Grandpa's Magical Toys" (1988)
- "Wee Sing in Sillyville" (1989)
- "The Best Christmas Ever" (1990)
- "Wee Sing in the Big Rock Candy Mountains" (1991)
- "Wee Sing in the Marvelous Musical Mansion" (1992)
- "The Wee Sing Train" (1993)
- "Wee Sing Under the Sea" (1994)
- An Aesop: Profster will spout these on a dime, much to the confusion of the other characters until one of them is able to explain its meaning.
- Anvilicious: Each adventure always teaches a lesson, or two, or three, or twelve...
- Christmas Episode: The Best Christmas Ever could count as this.
- Crowning Music of Awesome: This introduced most tropers to some beloved childhood songs. Seriously, take your pick!
- Ear Worm: See Crowning Music of Awesome
- Fantastic Racism: The conflict of Wee Sing in Sillyville.
- The Fantastic Trope of Wonderous Titles: Most of the titles of the Wee Sing films fall under this trope, particularly Wee Sing in The Marvelous Musical Mansion
- Follow the Bouncing Ball: Two more tapes were made recycling songs from the previous videos with this feature.
- George Lucas Throwback: Pam Beall and Susan Nipp basically did this, focusing on beloved songs and chants from their childhood. The videos quickly followed and helped their popularity spread.
- Living Toys: The focus of Grandpa's Magical Toys (of course!). Subverted in Wee Sing in The Big Rock Candy Mountains with the Snoodle Doodles.
- Narm Charm
- Nostalgia Filter: Most people who watch these videos again years later, whether they be babysitting, have kids of their own, or rediscover them on YouTube will probably have these on.
- Nursery Rhyme: King Cole's Party centers around the characters from most of these rhymes coming together to celebrate the birthday of, well, Old King Cole.
- Sliding Scale of Anthropomorphism
- Tears of Joy: Profster sheds these during the Fly and Bumblebee's wedding in Wee Sing in The Big Rock Candy Mountains, leading to this exchange.
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Snoodle: Why are you crying? |
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