This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Skurczysyn (talk | contribs) at 13:01, 25 October 2005 (Cleaned up, added some dates and figures from an interview with Aigner-Clark). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
Revision as of 13:01, 25 October 2005 by Skurczysyn (talk | contribs) (Cleaned up, added some dates and figures from an interview with Aigner-Clark)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)The Baby Einstein Company specializes in learning toys and films for babies and toddlers. It was founded in 1997 by Julie Aigner-Clark out of her home in suburban Denver. Aigner-Clark and her husband invested $18,000 of their savings to produce the initial product, a VHS/DVD called Baby Einstein (eventually renamed "Language Nursery") which shows a variety of toys and visuals set to music with stories, numbers and words spoken in English, French, Spanish, Russian, Italian, Hebrew, and German.
The video is designed to capture the attention and stimulate the mind of its baby and toddler audience.
This first endeavor was extremely popular with parents, and Aigner-Clark eventually convinced a national retailer to test-market the video in six of its stores. Response was so positive that video was soon selling nationwide. Following that success other similar videos/DVDs were developed, first to deal with other basic concepts, such as art and color (Baby VanGogh), rhyming and English word syntax (Baby Shakespeare), animals, and numbers.
What became a multi-million dollar business eventually attracted the attention of The Walt Disney Company, which purchased Aigner-Clark's company in 2001. Under Disney's guidance the production budgets were increased and the concept was expanded with media to teach more complex topics that would appeal to pre-schoolers, such as Baby MacDonald which teaches about agriculture. A line of toys was also developed.
Aigner-Clark still acts as a consultant and and is seen at the end of each of the videos touting the benefits of Baby Einstein
External links
Other similar baby videos can be found in the market today such as Galloping Minds, Brainy Baby, So Smart Baby.
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