The Adventures of Chuck & Friends: Trucks Versus Wild review

We cut cable in 2012.  Because of that there are dozens, if not hundreds of shows I had no idea that exist.  Witness Chuck & Friends, we have the toy and it’s awesome.  But wait they have a TV show too?  We were sent The Adventures of Chuck & Friends:  Trucks Versus Wild on DVD for a test drive and our kids loved it and I found it quite cute too.

Chuck the truck has lots of vehicle friends and they’re all about 8 years old or so.  The only exception to this is Chuck’s brother who is a teen truck and Chuck’s parents who are adult trucks.  Kudos to Shout! Factory and the creators of Chuck for making his parents real and normal.  Most parents, in real or animated shows that actually have both parents present display one of them as being aloof or lazy. In this case they’re both there and of sound mind, just in the body of a truck.

The lessons that Chuck & friends learn are simple things that young children need to know.  Trips to the doctor, sharing, manners and playing nicely are just a couple of the things that Chuck and his friends discover.

Each episode is short, about 9 minutes long.  As a parent this is great because it provides enough time to do something quick, or is short enough for them to watch two episodes without you feeling guilty.  A 12 minute episode means that it’s closer to half an hour, whereas 18 minutes is less than 20 minutes.  It’s a minor detail but give parents who are concerned about how much television kids watch breathing room and comfort at the same time.

There are ten episodes in Trucks Versus Wild and a bonus sing-along.  I was surprised at how much our 4 and 2 year old liked it.  At first the 4 year old said that he didn’t like it.  I thought it was a little too young for him.  After one episode he said that he wanted to see the truck movie.  Our youngest just yells and points at the television, in a good way.  If you have small children that love cars or trucks they’ll dig The Adventures of Chuck & Friends:  Trucks Versus Wild.

We were sent a copy of the video for review purposes.  All thoughts are our own.