Kids, CANDY LAND, and the DVD By Darryl Wilkinson June 29, 2005 — Just when you thought home entertainment technology couldn't get any better, more entertaining, or more thrilling, along comes an item that rejuvenates your faith in the creative power of mankind.

It's taken 56 long years, but the venerable children's board game CANDY LAND has finally emerged from its low-tech cardboard-box cocoon as a beautiful, remote-controlled pixel-painted butterfly. The game you once played sitting on your mother's lap or on the living room floor with your siblings - the board game loved by one and all "for its wholesome fun and sweet adventures" - will soon be available in a new electronic guise as the CANDY LAND DVD GAME. According to Hasbro, the game's muggers - er, makers - the new version "gives parents and grandparents a new way to share a classic game with their kids...Parents will find that we remained true to CANDY LAND's heritage, but brought the game board and its characters to life in a way that transforms a passive leisure activity into a more active and interactive experience." The DVD-based game "reinforces skills like color recognition and following directions in three games that gets kids ages 4 and older moving and playing with their CANDY LAND friends, Mr. Mint, King Kandy and Grandma Nutt." (There's no word on whether ISF-approved or THX-certified versions of the game will be released. As long as we're teaching kids color recognition skills, let's make sure they're the correct colors, okay?)

The CANDY LAND DVD GAME comes packaged with a "pop-and-play" DVD, 24 floor mats, and 24 gingerbread cookie tokens. (They're not really gingerbread, so don't eat them, all right?) A DVD player is not included, but highly recommended if not actually required. Three electronic games-within-the-game include "King Kandy's Gumball Challenge", "Mr. Mint Says", and "Grandma Nutt's Musical Moves". Hasbro explains that "music and character animation bring the games to life and urge young players to use their bodies to complete tasks that incorporate the mats."

The DVD slyly includes three singing features from the recently released, direct-to-video DVD titled Candy Land: The Great Lollipop Adventure.

Here are some sugary tidbits about the game:

• King Kandy's Gumball Challenge is a color-matching game for younger kids that rewards children for knowing (or correctly guessing in the cases when they have no clue at all) their colors. When King Candy says the color of the gumball he's just released from his giant gumball machine, the players must circle the mats looking for one that matches the color. (Fights, pulling hair, and kicking are fun add-on activities that can be introduced to liven things up.)
• Mr. Mint Says takes children on a journey to the Peppermint Forrest where the kids must listen closely to Mr. Mint and act only if they hear "Mr. Mint Says." (This type of inculcation in blind obedience to authority is just the sort of thing we need in a modern democracy...)
• Grandma Nutt's Musical Moves is a blatant feel-good rip-off of musical chairs in which no one really wins or loses. Players walk around six, "character-emblazoned" mats until the music stops. Grandma Nutt asks if anyone is standing on a particular character. If so, that player becomes the leader of the following round and can choose to hop, skip, walk backwards or move in any manner he or she prefers - and all the other players must follow. (This can be particularly distressing if one of the kids is able to levitate or fly ala Harry Potter.)

All this entertainment - and don't forget the three singing features from the direct-to-video DVD - can be yours for only $29.99. Rumor has it that there will be both an HD DVD and a Blu-ray version out next year.

The original CANDY LAND is the top-selling preschool game of all time. It was invented by Eleanor Abbott of San Diego, California during the 1940s while she was recuperating from polio.