Berenstain BearsGet in a Fight
Berenstain Bears
"I can't even understand my car, so I'm not going to get heavily into techstuff," Stan Berenstain says. "Jan and I draw the old-fashioned way, with little pens and brushes."
Stan and his wife Jan have been doing just that for over 30 years now, and in the process pleasing millions with their beloved Berenstain Bears books. For the CD-ROM version of The Berenstain Bears Get in a Fight, they brainstormed a bit and wrote some dialog not contained in their original book. Despite their limited participation, they heartily approve of the new product. "I like when the flamingo comes out of the little birdhouse," Stan says. "And I like the vignetting-the camera work is very effective. The storyboards are very complicated, like a full-length movie.
Frankly, there have been so many Berenstain Bear spin-offs, ranging from clothing and cookie jars to amusement park areas, their creators say they sometimes feel more like witnesses than participants. "There's tons of stuff," Stan says. "Even sneakers." He begins to laugh. "Although the bears don't wear shoes-nobody noticed that."
While the Berenstains enjoy giving the CD-ROM a whirl, the family's real product testers are their four grandchildren, who visited on Father's Day and gave a big thumbs-up to the new release. "One of 'em was almost always fooling with it," their grandfather says. The children particularly liked seeing their grandparents in the disk's "Meet the Author" video-a new QuickTime feature for Living Books. "What an endless process that was," Stan says of the filming. "It was exhausting. It was like [the crew] thought we were Liz and Dick."
"They were very good," he adds. "They've helicoptered into volcanoes, that kind of stuff, so I guess it was pretty tame for them."
Despite his enthusiasm about the CD-ROM and everyone involved in the venture, Stan does voice a concern about the medium: "Unless prices comedown," he says, "I don't know whether our audience is going to be able to buy more than three or four $40 products. It's still a lot of money, except for folks that are pretty well fixed. I think the real money is going to be made out of CD-ROMs that are game oriented, for idiots." He pauses, then says slyly, "You know, I've got some idiocy in me.
"There are so many new platforms being invented," he continues. "Prophetic statements keep getting made. Like 'CD-ROM will only last six-and-a-half years.' I don't understand any of that."
What the Berenstains do understand is children, who respond to their work with gusto. Stan, who has been perusing the latest batch of fan mail, chuckles and quotes one boy's letter: "I've been reading your books for eight years now. Some of those years I couldn't even read."
One of the first to notice the couple's talent was none other than Theodor Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, who edited their first 17 books. It was he, in fact, who suggested that the Berenstains change their pen names from Stanley and Janice to Stan and Jan. Coincidentally, this fall Living Books plans to release its first Dr. Seuss CD-ROM-Dr. Seuss's ABC.
Until then, there's plenty to explore on The Berenstain Bears Get in a Fight. "How do I play the soundtrack on my CD player?" Stan asks. "What do I have to do not to break anything?"
Getting Those Bears on CD-ROM
Once Living Books decided to produce a CD-ROM version of The Berenstain Bears Get in a Fight, a team of animators, artists, programmers, sound designers, musicians, and narrators went to work. We talked to Senior Project Director Bridget Erdmann, herself an animator, about her latest product and the people behind it. Erdmann's creative touch can also be seen on such Living Books favorites as Harry and the Haunted House, Arthur's Birthday, and The New Kid on the Block.
If you ask how many hours it took to produce the Berenstain Bear CD-ROM, Erdmann responds in a firm but friendly manner: "Hours? I don't understand what that means. All I do is the best I can, whatever it takes. It's less of a product than just doing something you really love. . . . Every once in a while somebody will tap us on the shoulder and say, 'You guys are really sick. When are you going to go home?' "
Before the team started logging all those hours, Erdmann says everyone had to do some homework. "The Berenstains have become such a cultural icon," she explains, "that we really had to live in 'Bear Country' for a while." Another big help was a brainstorming session with Stan Berenstain, whom she calls "a great guy."
Living Books tries to create new features for every release, and The Berenstain Bears contains some scenes with fancy new animation. "They're fully animated sequences, like what you would see on Saturday morning cartoons-the screen zooms, it pans, it cuts," Erdmann says. "That's something we haven't done before. Because we're tied down to memory and speed issues, mostly what we've done is lock down a scene and move the characters over the top [of a page]. But we're always trying to stretch boundaries, like explorers."
One of the greatest challenges multimedia teams face is to develop such new features without putting system requirements out of reach for average consumers. "I'd love to send checks to everybody so they could have high-end computers and we could do all sorts of wonderful things," Erdmann muses. "But we want everybody to be able to play our CD-ROMs, so we just have to be creative, that's all.
The Berenstain Bears Get in a Fight
Once again, the folks at Living Books have outdone themselves. The Berenstain Bears Get in a Fight contains the wonderful animation and surprises these children's CD-ROMs are known for-and then some. Three new features include even more sophisticated animation, a new QuickTime video segment about Stan and Jan Berenstain, and an activity book for parents and children to share. And, as always, this Living Books package contains a paperback copy of the original book.
The layout-a cinch for newcomers-will be familiar to those who've enjoyed such Living Books titles as Just Grandma and Me and Arthur's Teacher Trouble. Choose between English and Spanish narration, then either have the story read aloud or "play around" on each page. Click on different "hot spots" on each page and watch them come alive in ways that will amuse all ages: a squirrel pops out of a mailbox, a mountain begins to yodel.
The new animation "camerawork" gets fancy on pages three and six, with scene changes and panning and zoom shots. On page three, for instance, the action begins with Brother and Sister racing down a winding staircase, then moves on to breakfast, the school bus, back to their tree house, and finally the playroom. Whew! The size of the animated sequences shrinks a bit on these pages so that the action looks just as smooth as on other pages.
The Meet the Authors video is an entertaining and informative visit with Stan and Jan Berenstain in their Pennsylvania home. Other multimedia teams should look here for a role model, because this is something the original books don't offer-a real-life look at creators and the creative process. How can you or I learn to draw as well as they do? the young narrator asks. The video is short, about five minutes or so, but you'll see Stan and Jan discuss ideas, swing on their deck and reminisce, stroll outside and watch the neighbor's sheep, and, of course, write and draw. There's plenty of fun, too, and you'll probably be wishing you could spend more time with the Berenstains.
The third innovation of this package comes in the form of a 19-page activity book called Beyond the Computer. Make a rainbow, sing a song, cook Mama Bear's Honey Nut pancakes, read other books, use puppets to discuss conflict-all the suggestions are well presented, allowing parents an opportunity to rest assured that this CD-ROM won't simply be a high-tech alternative to the tube.
Finally, two more things to enjoy with The Berenstain Bears Get in a Fight. Can you spot the bee hiding somewhere on every "page" of the program? He's in a buzzing tiz because he can't find his honey. And don't forget to pop the disc into your home stereo (be sure to skip track one, however; it's computer data that sounds alarmingly unpleasant on speakers). Even parents will enjoy the soundtrack's foot-stomping bluegrass.
For PC: IBM or 100% compatible 386SX or higher with 4 MB RAM, Windows 3.1, Super VGA (640x480), 256 colors), 100% compatible sound cards, mouse, CD-ROM drive.
For Mac: CD-ROM drive, System 6.07 or higher, 256-color monitor, 4 MB RAM
Alice Cary is a freelance writer in Groton, Mass., who can be reached at alice_cary@bookpage.com.
