The Great Baby Einstein Scam, page 1

Last year, lawyers threatened a class-action lawsuit for unfair and deceptive practices unless Disney agreed to refund the full purchase price to all who bought the videos since 2004. “The Walt Disney Company’s entire Baby Einstein marketing regime is based on express and implied claims that their videos are educational and beneficial for early childhood development,” a letter from the lawyers said, calling those claims “false because research shows that television viewing is potentially harmful for very young children.”

Link to complete article.

This is a very interesting turn of events. For years now, I've been looking at this booming market in videos aimed at infants and wondering when someone was going to say something. It is indoctrination at its worst; conditioning kids from their youngest days to receive information from the great glowing box. They're trained to do this before they have any chance of developing the higher level analytical and critical thinking skills needed to process mass media.

I've known parents who will defend this practice saying that they only let the kids watch them occasionally as a "special treat" As if that were any better! Now all your doing is teaching them that video indoctrination is a reward, a special event.

Now to have a company as monolithic as Disney actually offering refunds makes you wonder how bad these videos actually are for kids. This seems like a swift, decisive move on Disney's part to try and end this controversy and avoid any closer examination of the materials.

The look, feel and content of the Baby Einstein stuff has change radically since Disney bought out the smaller independent-ish company that originated the line. It almost makes you wonder who has been guiding the changes and dumbing down of the brand and its targeted consumers.

[edited for egregious typos!]

[edit on 27-10-2009 by RobertAntonWeishaupt]