Little Bill - Me and My Family [VHS]
Gap-toothed 5-year-old Little Bill radiates with the sunny realism of his creator, Bill Cosby, but aFat Albertredux this series is not. For starters, pull the strings on each episode's tidy package and you'll find more family than friends. Little Bill's New York apartment, not the local junkyard, is the nexus of his universe and where he works the kinks out of his kindergartner's world alongside his parents, older sister and brother, and the improbably named and ingenious Alice the Great, his great-grandmother. Inside, there's a whole lot of togetherness going on:Me and My Family's four episodes encapsulate a crowded car ride to Super Family Fun Land (a two-parter), the forming of a neighborhood cleanup committee tasked with clearing a trash-strewn lot, and the dusting off of a time-honored family tradition as Alice the Great breaks out her magic quilt to keep the bogeyman at bay. The look of this series also is something of a novelty--it shares the Colorformish quality of its sister Nick Jr. seriesBlue's Clues, an effect that adds to its producers' keep-it-real commitment. That said, anybody intimate enough with the realness of inner-city strife may not be blamed for criticizing the sedateness of this show. Otherwise, the youngster himself isn't the only likable part ofLittle Bill. This being a Cosby creation, there's music--vintage-sounding jazz melodies thread through each story, guaranteeing a finger-snapping good time for parents as well as their more preoccupied preschoolers.--Tammy La Gorce