Richard Scarry's Best Videos Ever! is the basic educational learning animated classic video series of Random House Home Video which were released on videocassette/VHS in 1980s and the 1990s, re-released on DVD in the early-mid 2000s and published on YouTube and Dailymotion in the early-late 2010s and also aired at times during TLC's Ready Set Learn block between scheduled programs from 1995 to 2003 as some of the network's Short Stuff breaks.
Videos[]
- Richard Scarry's Best ABC Video Ever! (1989)
- Richard Scarry's Best Counting Video Ever! (1989)
- Richard Scarry's Best Busy People Video Ever! (1993)
- Richard Scarry's Best Learning Songs Video Ever! (1993)
- Richard Scarry's Best Silly Stories and Songs Video Ever! (1994)
- Richard Scarry's Best Sing-Along Mother Goose Video Ever! (1994)
Cast[]
- Brett Ambler
- Blaze Berdahl
- P.J. Brown
- Ryan Brown
- Colin Carman
- Mitchell Cepler
- Lacey Chabert
- Sivan Cotel
- Michael Fass
- Sara Froikin
- Paul Glazer
- Amy Gross
- Clay Hale
- Eliza Harris
- Alison Hashmall
- Wendy Hashmall
- Agnes Herrmann
- Alexander C. Iwachiw
- Ali Jeffers
- Bruce Bayley Johnson
- Vickie Jones
- Randall Kaplan
- Joanna Leeds
- Michael Levesque
- Ron Marshall
- Tommy J. Michaels
- Corinne Orr
- Tish Rabe
- Eden Riegel
- Larry Robinson
- Sarah Schoenberg
- Palmer Swansborough
- Jim Thurman
- Tara Brook Tyburczy
- Tricia Tyburczy
- Lateaka Vinson
- Candace Walters
Trivia[]
- Lowly Worm, unlike in The Busy World of Richard Scarry and Busytown Mysteries, does not speak at all in this series.
- ABC and Counting are the only videos in the series that do not have a preview, having been released in the 1980s. As a result, they are also the only videos that do not have the 1992 Jumbo Pictures and 1984 Random House Home Video logos shown after the credits.
- On the ABC and Counting videos, especially a "The End" banner on the same plane animation from the ABC and Busy People videos, the birds-eye view of Busytown and the "Based on books and characters created by Richard Scarry" wallpaper sign from the ABC, Counting, Busy People and Learning Songs videos, those animations are very similar to Schoolhouse Rock!.
- ABC is the only video whose title has more than just two colors. The rest of the videos' titles have only two colors: red and blue/black.
- Silly Stories and Songs and Sing-Along Mother Goose are the longest entries in the series.
- Also, in Silly Stories and Songs and Sing-Along Mother Goose, after the preview and before the warning screen, there is a dedication text that reads "In Warm Memory of Richard Scarry 1919-1994", signifying that Scarry passed away before the final two videos were released.
- The ending of every video has the narrator reading a "THE END" card before the credits start.
- ABC and Busy People are the only videos to have a "THE END" sign on the banner of the same plane that pulls the video title.
- ABC, Counting, Busy People, and Learning Songs are the only videos to have a "Based on books and characters created by Richard Scarry" sign on the same wallpaper.
- ABC and Counting are the only videos to have a "Produced entirely in New York City" sign on the same wallpaper.
- At the end of the ABC and Counting videos when the credits are shown, the music sounds like the start of a sonata.
- At the end of the Busy People, Learning Songs, Silly Stories and Songs and Sing-Along Mother Goose videos when the credits are shown, the instrumental version of the four songs played over the credits:
- Busy People: "Olive Owl's song"
- Learning Songs: "Please Learn Some Manners, Bananas"
- Silly Stories and Songs: "The Library Song"
- Sing-Along Mother Goose: "Sing a Song of Sixpence"
- From 2001 to 2002, Sony Wonder in association with Sony Music Entertainment rereleased the videos on DVD. By 2006, they were taken out of print.
- In 2010, YouTube user TheMissFixit split the first four videos into three parts and uploaded them to YouTube.
- In 2013, veteran YouTube user ACME Crime Net (distributor of Where in the World/Time is Carmen Sandiego?, Golden Step Ahead, Spot the Dog (or The Adventures of Spot (1993 U.S. dub)), and Chucklewood Critters/Buttons & Rusty among other shows) syndicated the video series to YouTube. The original uploads contain a closed caption bug at the beginning of the video. After the title is shown, a CBS StereoSound logo appears for a few seconds. In 2017 and 2018, the videos were digitally enhanced in High Definition and the closed caption and stereo bugs were placed inside a box along with the TV rating.
- These videos were closed captioned by The National Captioning Institute. ACME Crime Net's prints were captioned by the Caption Center at WGBH.
- In 2014, two YouTube users ohtaywhattimeisit and OKWhattimeisit94 uploaded the video series to YouTube. These uploads were not enhanced in any way, unlike ACME Crime Net's.
- Eden Riegel and Lacey Chabert (neither of whose roles are ever specified in this series) later did voices in Disney Junior's The Lion Guard as characters who originated in The Lion King II: Simba's Pride (only with Riegel as Kiara and Chabert as Vitani; previously, in Simba's Pride, Chabert had only done the speaking voice of Vitani as a cub, but in The Lion Guard, she reprises the whole role, including the adult one, throughout).