Amazing Animals - Animal Weapons [VHS]
Nature is, of course, as violent as any Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, but do you want your children to know that? This video deals with the thorny issue of animal clashes without showing any death scenes. Viewers see a lion bound after a buffalo calf, but the footage ends before the inevitable. In fact, the worst they'll see here is a pair of ibex crashing their horns together or a set of fiddler crabs snacking while jousting. As Henry the Lizard defends his castle with an animated battalion of ducklings, he and the unseen narrator explore animal arms ranging from the display and bluffing behavior of the Tasmanian Devil to the chemical weapons tactics of termites protecting their mound. (Sound like a course in World Affairs?) At the end, Henry speaks for worried parents everywhere when he pronounces "All this fighting is kind of dumb." This reptile needs some serious face time with the United Nations.--Kimberly Heinrichs