Tinga Tinga Tales - Why Elephant Has A Trunk [DVD]

More projects like Tinga Tinga Tales should be encouraged. For this is a delightful DVD release, marrying up different cultures, all in the spirit of telling a very good story.

Aimed at children, Tinga Tinga Tales – Why Elephant Has A Trunk utilises African animation styles to evoke its stories. To this animation, it lays familiar children’s stories, and the overall effect is quite brilliant. The visual work is something really quite special, and it doesn’t take long to appreciate it.

The stories themselves are lovingly told, too, with quality production values. That extends through to the voice over work and through to the background music. In fact, it’s hard to pick faults here, so well does the project gel together.

On this particular release, Tinga Tinga Tales – Why Elephant Has A Trunk, you get six different episodes, as well as some welcome extra features. And any parent whose child has been glued to the transmission of Tinga Tinga Tales will easily testify just how respun the DVD here is likely to be. To get the absolute most out of the disc, incidentally, it’s really worth taking a look at some of the books, too. Whether you do or not, though, this DVD is really very strong indeed. --Jon Foster