They Might Be Giants: Here Come the 1-2-3s Review

They Might Be Giants: Here Come the 1-2-3s — 

My kid loves numbers. Barely four years old, he can count to 100,000 and back again, and has a basic grasp of arithmetic. So when his godfather got him the CD/DVD of They Might Be Giants' Here Come the 1-2-3s for his birthday, my son was rapturous. Songs about numbers! Animation! Sock puppets!

Needless to say, it's now his favorite. They Might Be Giants has had a long career in music, specializing in quirky pop songs of two minutes or less, such as "Particle Man" and "Don't Let's Start."

With 2004's Here Come the ABCs, TMBG moved into the realm of children's music, providing an intelligent, less annoying alternative to Raffi and the Wiggles. Not that some of their songs don't get annoying after multiple listenings: "Seven Days of the Week (I Never Go To Work)" is a song I never, ever want to hear again. I wish it had never been written, recorded, or made into a video (equally annoying, produced by the lamers behind "Wonder Pets"). If I could cleanse my brain of its infectious, martial melody, I would.

But I digress.

Among the gems on the disc are "12 Monkeys" (no relation to the Bruce Willis/Brad Pitt sci-fi flick), "Zeroes," and "813-Mile Car Trip." The good ones far outnumber the bad, even if the bad ones are very, very bad (see above).

Here Come the 1-2-3s is also one of the "mini-shows" on "Playhouse Disney," and is certainly more tolerable, and more educational, than the likes of "Ralph's World" or "This is Emily Yeung."

Despite the inevitable annoyance of any music that your child insists on hearing five times in a row, and a couple of lesser numbers (see above), They Might Be Giants' Here Come the 1-2-3s is one of the better kidvids currently on the market.