On the same day Alan Hahn quotes an unnamed Garden source as explaining the Knicks’ failure to acknowledge Kobe Bryant becoming the youngest player in league history to score 20,000 points (“the team does not recognize the accomplishments of opposing players”), Newsday colleague Juan Iglesias-Lopez warns us of the impending DVD release of “New York Knicks Baby”.
Smoothly and clearly narrated by legendary Knicks point guard and current MSG broadcaster Walt “Clyde” Frazier, the 30-minute video first introduces infants to the Knicks through simple exercises and past and present highlights in the “Intro” and “Tip Off” segments, the first of nine DVD chapters.
The activities selected for instruction, such as spelling “K-N-I-C-K-S,” and bouncing, dribbling and passing the ball — tasks that Knicks coach Isiah Thomas has a hard enough time teaching his own players — are nevertheless age-appropriate.
The highlights of Knicks action is peppered with clips of infants and toddlers, in NBA-sized sneakers, attempting to shoot and dribble a basketball.
In the following chapters, babies learn numbers, colors and shapes, and how to spell simple words such as “ball,” “hoop,” “team” and “play.”
The animations are inviting and engaging, as is the jazzy music played in the background throughout the video. Children will enjoy the imagery.
The DVD’s one misstep occurs when, in a segement of bloopers from the making of the Team Baby DVDs, viewers see two oddly chosen shots of crying kids, one of whom is a baby girl who is clearly suffering as her bonnet is adjusted by the video production staff.
Curiously, there’s no word yet of how production is going for TBE’s “Houston Rockets Baby” and whether nor Calvin Murphy has been enlisted to narrate.