Customer Reviews

The Earth Day Special [VHS]

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Barbra Streisand performance of "One Day", not available on any other format.

I watched this video in class and when I saw the opening credits I was astounded! There are so many famous celebrities like E.T., Kermit the Frog,Bette Midler, Meryl Streep, Robin Williams,Bill Cosby and Christopher Lloyd as Dr. Emmett Brown from the all famous Back to the Future. These celebrities offer you many helpful ideas on saving the Earth in a very funny way. Martin Short and Dennis Miller perform two skits from the TV Show Saturday Night Live. This video is reccomended to families with a sense of humor and an interest in saving Planet Earth.

It teaches you some things that you can do to save our earth today. I like the fact that it has stars in it that i have heard of. I think that anyone that cares about the earth should see it. It really is a helpful guideline to save the planet we live in!

It's a very interesting special with a variety of celebrities like Bette Midler, Dustin Hoffman, Barbra Streisand, Meryl Streep, Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase, Bill Cosby, Kevin Costner, Rodney Dangerfield, Morgan Freeman, Magic Johnson, Rick Moranis, Martin Short, Harold Ramis and Robin Williams... plus Bugs Bunny, ET, Kermit the Frog, etc... it's quite a star studded show with a message. The premise is that Bette Midler is Mother Earth, and thanks to everyone polluting and ruining her (the Earth), she is sick and dying. There were a lot of segments from TV shows current at the time including the casts of Cheers, The Golden Girls, Married... With Children, etc... plus cast members from medical, crime, and news shows. There is humor, clever segments, moments to ponder, a rap song with Will Smith (among others) along with scenes showing how we are destroying the Earth followed by simple steps and solutions that everyone could do to help reduce the level of our negative impact on the Earth and ending with a haunting song by Barbara Streisand.
My version was a 20 year old VHS tape, which unfortunately didn't work, and so therefore I'd recommend either a DVD or Blu-Ray version if available. This is something worthwhile to show to kids/students at least on or near April 22nd every year.

I first saw this on TV twenty years ago and loved it then. I bought a video copy of it back then but it was stuck in storage when I wanted to use it for a class I was teaching. The video was excellent, held the kids attention when they started recognizing the stars, most of whom are still active. The message is meaningful and leads to great conversations about the work that is still needed. Recycling isn't enough, so many people do it and considered that the end of what is needed, the video tells about other issues. It was well produced and directed and is still viable in today's world.