See How They Grow

See How They Grow was the first series of programmes created by Dorling Kindersley Vision, comprising five episodes released direct-to-video in 1993 and another five released in 1995. Each episode follows the life-cycles of four species of animal that all fit under a broader shared theme.

## Introduction

All ten episodes of See How They Grow were filmed in the UK. The narrator in the original UK version was Johnny Morris, most well-known for his children’s television programmes on the topic of zoology, particularly *Animal Magic*. In the USA rerelease, the programmes are revoiced by a cast of several voice actors, including Bob Bergen, Brian Hamilton, Lynda Lopez (identified as Linda Lopez) and Carol Swarbrick.

See How They Grow was based on a series of books of the same name, intended for younger children (the books are recommended for around of the ages of 3 to 5, while the programmes are recommended for ages 5 to 8). By the time the first programmes came out in 1993, there were fifteen titles. Many of these (twelve of the fifteen) were filmed as programmes themselves – Foal, Penguin and Giraffe were never produced as programmes. In 2021 and 2022, the See How They Grow book series was rereleased with three titles (Pets, Farm and Forest) which each contained five animals – an increase on the programmes which contained four animals and on the original books, which were each dedicated to just one species.

While the original source books were all based on one species, the programmes combined four animals that all fell under a more general theme such as pets, farm animals or mini beasts.

## Style

All the videos followed the same format. They opened with a title sequence that showed clips of each species’ life-cycle which would later appear in the main programme. Then, a still image title card would show the first species of the programme. This would be followed by the life-cycle of the animal – this part could vary from eight to eleven minutes in length, with ten-minute parts being the most common. This would then be ended with a hand-drawn animation sequence produced by Ealing Animation, which recaps the animal’s life-cycle. This format would be repeated three more times for each of the other animals, before the credits roll.

In the UK releases, there was a change in narration style between the earlier and later videos. In the first five programmes, Johnny Morris voices all of the animals in the same voice but in the later five, the animals are given different voices to the narration style.

Almost all of the animals are filmed in studios in front of a white background and are often contained within detailed sets (the only exceptions are Calf from Farm Animals and Duck from Pond Animals, where parts are filmed outside). The later programmes about habitats often make no attempt to follow correct zoogeography and instead show a composite range of animals from different parts of the world that share the same habitat. As an example, the Gecko segment of Desert Animals shows an Asian leopard gecko occurring alongside an Australian blue-tongued skink and a California kingsnake and red-rumped tarantula that are both native to Mexico (albeit opposite sides of Mexico).

## Programmes

The ten programmes were divided up into groups of five – the first five were published on VHS on 31st May 1993. These were:

Farm Animals

Mini Beasts

Pets

Pond Animals

Wild Animals

The five later videos were all released on VHS in 1995. They were divided up across this year, with one coming out on 5th April in that year:

Woodland Animals

The remaining four programmes in this set were released later, on 19th November 1995:

Desert Animals

Jungle Animals

Sea Animals

Tree Animals

## Availability

As of 2022, seven episodes of See How They Grow have been uploaded on the internet with their full UK narration (Farm Animals, Jungle Animals, Mini Beasts, Pets, Pond Animals, Wild Animals and Woodland Animals); another two partial episodes have been uploaded with USA narration (Desert Animals and Sea Animals).

## Appearances in other DK Vision media

Footage from the See How They Grow programmes have been used in other pieces of Dorling Kindersley Vision media – clips from Jungle Animals, Mini Beasts, Pond Animals and Sea Animals have appeared in four episodes of Amazing Animals, and another clip from Sea Animals was used as one of the Animal Movies in the Amazing Animals Activity Center PC game.