Grizzly Adams Family Entertainment has released its first feature in a decade after concentrating on family-friendly and faith-based documentaries.

Made with Michael Flynn Productions, wildlife drama Friends for Life (978-1-934-64601-4, $19.95) tells the story of a despondent widower who finds new meaning and hope on becoming the reluctant rescuer of four wolf pups left helpless after the death of their mother.

The story includes a dramatic encounter with a bear, appropriately enough for the makers who brought the successful “Grizzly Adams” stories to cinemas and television in the 1970s.

Shot on location in Utah last year, the new 90-minute film is the first of a planned new raft of family-friendly movies from the producers.

“There’s a yearning among the public for … feel-good movies that used to be produced by Frank Capra 50 years ago,” said Charles E. Sellier, president of Grizzly Adams Productions.

Horse-riding children’s presenter ‘has a special way of communicating’

Cowboy Dan hopes that his new children’s DVD series, fresh to Christian retail stores, captures the spirit of Mr. Rogers—though he swaps a hat for a cardigan and welcomes viewers to “Cowboy Dan’s Frontier” rather than the neighborhood.

The 30-minute episodes were shot at a friend’s farm and on location as host “Cowboy Dan” Harrell visits different people on his horse, Biscuit, offering educational tidbits, music and homespun wisdom for a kindergarten through 4th-grade audience.

Created as an outgrowth of Harrell’s popular school assembly presentations about health and character—to more than 450,000 kids in the last 12 years—his videos each take the title of one of the songs he has recorded on three albums. One of the recordings won a Best Children’s Album prize at the Nashville Music Awards.

Last month’s debut release, Under Construction (8-84501-06642-6, $10.99), explicitly features Harrell’s Christian faith. Three more episodes to follow soon offer more general lessons in positive family values, though Harrell intends all future productions to incorporate Christian concepts.

Move over Hermie, “The Adventures of Carlos Caterpillar” recruits bugs to teach 4- to 10-year-olds, with programs 4 and 5 released last month from Vision Video. The Litterbug DVD addresses care of the environment, while Buggy Bigbucks looks at contentment and true friendship. Each 25-minute episode has English and Spanish subtitles, and retails for $9.99.    

Moving underwater, the “Starfish Cove” series has just brought two episodes to Christian retail. Distributed by Bridgestone Multimedia Group, Never Trust a Krum! alerts youngsters to the dangers of child predators, while Da’Codfather recasts the story of the good Samaritan. Total running time for the set, with extras, is 49 minutes. Retail price, $14.95.

A developmental DVD series that aims to give young viewers global awareness as well as biblical foundations begins distribution to Christian retail this month by PorchLight Home Entertainment’s new Inspire division.

The “Little Leaders” collection from the same-named company offers four, 30-minute programs about well-known Bible characters that blend live action, computer animation and puppetry in Sesame Street-style presentations for 2- to 4-year-olds.

The programs feature interactive learning tracks in American Sign Language as well as other language tracks in addition to English. The different episodes variously offer Spanish, Chinese, Danish, Germany, Italian and Portuguese.

While watching the DVDs may not teach children to learn a second language, “it will certainly expose their ears and minds to the sound of different languages” at a key developmental time, the creators said.
Describing itself as “a ‘little’ company with a great vision,” Little Leaders has won recognition for its work, including the Film Advisory Board Award of Excellence and the Seal of Excellence Award from Creative Child magazine.

Little Noah (8-10863-01070-8) explores the diversity of God’s creation, Little Ruth (-1-5) tells the story of Ruth and Boaz, Little Joseph (-2-2) looks at how God guided Joseph, and Little Moses (-3-9) follows the life of Israel’s great leader.

The Little Leaders programs retail for $9.98 each, or $34.98 for the box set (-7-7). For more information, see www.porchlight.com, or to order, call PorchLight Inspire at 615-754-5754.

Leaders collaborate across generations to shore up Christian essentials

Best-selling author Charles Colson turns what many have called his most important book into an intergenerational conversation as part of a national campaign to define and defend