Dr. Donna's Review

About the Film

This month’s Kidtoon feature presentation opens with Strawberry Shortcake and her pets, Pupcake the dog and Custard the cat, checking out the strawberry plants in anticipation of this year’s strawberry crop. As they talk, their memories lead us into the story of the first Berry Blossom Festival.

Strawberry Shortcake proposes the idea of a Berry Blossom Festival and everyone gets excited and contributes ideas including Blue Berry Muffin’s suggestion that they should select a queen to make it extra special. Everybody gets busy performing his or her tasks in preparation for the festival.

Angel Cake invites everyone to a fancy tea party and they have a fashion show in order to decide what to wear. While preparing for the tea party, they realize that such a formal party requires “doing formal things” and they are not sure they know what to do. Angel Cake offers to instruct everyone in good manners. During her lesson, Raspberry Torte gets upset and tells everyone that she doesn’t want to be bothered by manners. “Manners don’t matter,” she says. The others disagree but Raspberry Torte storms out saying “you’ll have to prove it to me.” Strawberry Shortcake proposes that they put on two types of parties: one with perfect manners and one with no manners. Then Raspberry Torte can choose which type of party she likes best. Shortly thereafter, Raspberry Torte arrives at Strawberry Shortcake’s house. She finds that everybody is already there for the party. When she says she’s upset because they didn’t let her know, they reply that they thought she didn’t want to be bothered with an invitation! The party proceeds with no manners. The girls don’t share, they talk with food in their mouths, they fight and argue, they stick their fingers into the food, they slurp and spill things, and they even burp out loud. Raspberry Torte has to acknowledge that it was not a good party. Then the invitation arrives for the second party. This time when Raspberry Torte arrives, things are very different. The girls share, pass things around, say please and thank you, and practice good manners. Raspberry Torte agrees that the second party was better but she says it was better because she got more food. She still thinks that manners don’t matter. However, when she goes off and thinks it over, she concludes that maybe manners do matter. She goes back to apologize to Strawberry Shortcake and admits that she really doesn’t know much about manners. Strawberry Shortcake agrees to teach her. Strawberry Shortcake turns to the camera and suggests that the audience “learn along with us.” At the end of the manners lesson, Strawberry Shortcake and Raspberry Torte arrive at the tea party and everyone has a good time practicing good manners.

Back in the strawberry patch, Custard, reminds Strawberry Shortcake of the other thing that happened at last year’s Berry Blossom Festival. Her memory takes us back to last year when the First Ever Berry Blossom Festival is getting underway. Hearing the announcement that Strawberry Shortcake is to be named the queen of the festival, the
berry birds rush off to share the news with The Purple Pie Man and Sour Grapes. The Purple Pie Man comes up with a scheme to have Sour Grapes selected queen so that he and she can control the harvest and make money selling strawberry pies. Purple Pie Man and Sour Grapes arrive at the festival where he produces a “rule book” that says the queen must be selected through a competition. He proceeds to name himself master of ceremonies and conduct a series of four contests pitting Strawberry Shortcake against Sour Grapes with Purple Pie Man “cheating like crazy” to ensure that Sour Grapes wins. The last contest is a beauty contest between Strawberry Shortcake and Sour Grapes in which the winner is to be selected through the applause and cheering of the audience. Pie Man has his helpers make all kinds of noise during the applause and cheering for Strawberry Shortcake but Strawberry’s friends get wise to what he is doing. They join together in a loud rendition of a song about what a perfect queen Strawberry Shortcake would be. Their voices even drown out Pie Man’s team and Strawberry Shortcake is crowned Queen of the Berry Blossom Festival.

About the Kids
This film’s primary appeal is to younger children, especially girls, up to the age of 5. Some younger boys may enjoy it also. The film may continue to appeal to older girls up to the age of nine. Those children who have collected and played with the “Strawberry Shortcake”characters will be pleased to see many familiar personalities and to meet some new characters.

All children will be able to relate to the themes that are developed through “Berry Blossom Festival.” Themes such as manners are important, good friends help us learn and grow, and cheating doesn’t pay are relevant and important to children in the viewing age group.

Film Content and Features
“Berry Blossom Festival” is a bright, happy film featuring several songs that highlight and enhance the film’s messages. The conduct and role of good manners is deftly woven into the fabric of the story. Several charming songs that underscore the messages move along the film. The characters have unique personality traits that allow children to identify with their different strengths. Raspberry Torte shows that not all children are perfect all the time. She is a bit of a rebel. However, when she learns through experience that some of her opinions are wrong, she is able to change and even to apologize for past behavior. Pie Man is the type of classic villain that children love to hate yet he never resorts to violence to accomplish his nefarious goals.

Things to Talk About

It is important to talk with children about the stories and characters that they meet through media. Such discussions help children understand that media stories not only give us pleasure but that they also teach us important lessons. Talking with children about the fact that they are learning from story content helps children develop an important first step toward “media literacy” i.e. that all media contains content and information and that it is worthwhile to take the time to figure out what messages the creator of the content is giving us.

Some of the specific themes to be discussed after watching “Berry Blossom Festival” together include:

• Why are manners important? Ask children to recall and describe the ways in which the two parties, one with good manners and the other with no manners, were different. Which party would they rather go to? Ask if they have ever seen examples of bad manners.

• What are some examples of good manners? Ask children to recall examples of good manners: napkin on the lap, saying please and thank you, not talking with food in your mouth, elbows off the table, not slurping your drink, etc.

• What were some of the ways that Pie Man cheated during the contest? (He asked Strawberry Shortcake harder questions than he asked Sour Grape. He had his helpers interfere in the contests and cause Strawberry Shortcake to be distracted from her tasks. He made up unfair tricks for the pets so that Sour Grape’s pet would be sure to win. He had his helpers fix the beauty contest make-up so that Strawberry Shortcake would look silly.)

• How did Strawberry Shortcake’s friends win in the end? They worked as a team by joining together to sing the song about their friend, Strawberry Shortcake, and drown out Pie Man’s noise.

• Have children draw a picture of their favorite scene from “Berry Blossom Festival.”