KID STUFF : The Sound of Being a Kid

If you could capture all the simple joys of being a kid--building sandcastles, biking around the neighborhood with your pals, running and jumping and acting silly just for the heck of it--and set them all to music, you’d have a pretty good idea of what Parachute Express sounds like. The Glendale-based trio will drop into Anaheim’s Celebrity Theatre on Saturday morning for an hour of bouncy, funky, swingy music that’s geared toward kids 2 to 8, but shouldn’t send parents into sugar shock.

The performers want “to create rhythms and music so catchy that parents would love to listen with their children, instead of just tuning it out,” says Donny Becker, who co-founded the group in 1982. “The whole focus of our music is to help the family connect, to give them a time to really come together, enjoy each other and just get silly.

“Plus, we try to write music that has so much in it melodically, rhythmically and lyrically that it will reach children on all different levels. At 4, a child who has been listening to us since he was 2 can suddenly turn to Mom and say, ‘Wow, did you hear such and such?’ New doors should always be opening up.”

The group’s bouncy “Around the Block,” for example, brings the lofty ideal of world harmony into a child’s perspective:

“Look at the world as one big street

Everyone’s your neighbor

Come on, neighbor, put a smile on your face

Let’s run together in the human race” The group relies heavily on simple choreography and pantomime to bring children into the show’s action. In “Choo-Choo,” Becker takes the audience on a rollicking make-believe train ride, inviting kids to make the wheels turn by rolling their arms and to clang the bell with a pull of their arms. “When I Build My House” finds youngsters pretending to saw wood, hammer nails and paint walls.

Parachute Express is associated with the Gymboree Corporation, an international network of children’s “play-movement” programs. The trio was born when Becker, who owns a Gymboree franchise in the San Fernando Valley, found a dearth of original children’s music to use in his classes and set out to create his own.

One evening, the former teacher and camp director threw out the idea to his neighbor, musician Stephen Michael Schwartz, while the two were emptying their trash. Schwartz brought in artist Janice Hubbard and two years later the trio released its first recording, “Shakin’ It.”

These days, the group’s catalogue includes four other records (all sold exclusively through Gymboree retail stores and franchises) and a video, “Parachute Express: Live in Concert.” The group, which has been featured on the Disney Channel, tours about six months a year.

What: Parachute Express

When: Saturday at 10:30 a.m.

Where: The Celebrity Theatre, 201 E. Broadway, Anaheim.

Whereabouts: Take Harbor Boulevard south from Riverside Freeway or north from Interstate 5 and head east on Broadway. The Celebrity is on the left, just past Anaheim Boulevard.

Wherewithal: $10.75 for children and adults. Children under 10 months are admitted free.

Where To Call: (714) 832-1587, or the Celebrity Box Office at (714) 999-9536. Tickets also available through Ticketmaster outlets, located in Music Plus and May Company stores, or through the Ticketmaster charge line: (714) 740-2000.