Kidsongs

So far, every category on this site has at least one entry — except for “In Retrospect.” As stated on the About page, “In Retrospect” takes a look back at toys, games and other fads from my childhood. I have plenty of ideas for this section, the first being Kidsongs!

If you grew up in the ’80s and early- to mid-’90s, you may remember the Kidsongs videos! I believe there was a television show as well. Each Kidsongs video told a little story around central theme — A Day at Camp, I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing; Cars, Trains and Planes, etc., and the kids in the video would “tell” the story by singing and acting out familiar songs. For example, in the Day at Camp Video, they sang “The More We Get Together” on the bus ride to camp, and “On top of Spaghetti” while they were eating dinner, and so forth. The videos were never overly silly or goofy, and they didn’t look down upon their audience (something I can’t say for a lot of the kids’ stuff coming out today, but maybe I am biased). Plus, each video came with a sing-along card that contained the lyrics for all of the songs featured in the video. The only thing I didn’t like about Kid Songs is that they had a tendency to rewrite lyrics for well-known songs to make them shorter or to fit with the video’s storyline.

My brother and I usually watched Kidsongs during lunch and dinner (yes, we had a TV in the kitchen). I idolized the girls in the videos. In fact, there was always at least one girl in each video that I especially wanted to be like (right down to the hair, clothes, mannerisms, everything, lol). Sometimes I would take my dolls and make them sing and go on adventures just like the Kidsongs kids did. These videos were huge stoker of the fuel for my love of music and singing in general.

My favorite Kidsongs video was “A Day at Camp.” We watched it nearly every day during the summer of ’92 (I was 9). That video is essentially the soundtrack for that summer!

Of course, as my brother and I grew older our mother gave the videos to Goodwill and to our younger cousins. But these days I sort of wish we hadn’t given them away. I’d like to watch them all today, if I could. I’m not very interested in the newer ones, only the ones I watched as a kid. Luckily, today we’ve got YouTube, and quite a few people have added the videos over the past few months (last year I checked the site and there were none). I’m really happy about that! A search for “kidsongs” on YouTube will uncover a good number of fruitful results!

Below, a list of all the Kidsongs videos we owned (links to videos on YouTube if available):

• A Day At Old MacDonald’s Farm
• I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing
• Good Night, Sleep Tight
• Sing Out, America! (renamed to Home on the Range)
• Cars, Boats, Trains and Planes
• A Day With The Animals
• Wild World of Sports (renamed to Let’s Play Ball)
• What I Want To Be
• A Day At The Circus
• A Day At Camp
• Ride The Roller Coaster

Clip from “A Day at Old MacDonald’s Farm”

Clip from “A Day at Camp”

2 Clips from “What I Want to Be”