Videos Offers Faces a Pet Fancier Could Love

The cross-generational appeal of “Babymugs,” “Baby Faces” and similar recent home videos consisting of close-ups of babies’ and toddlers’ faces has inspired canine and feline versions, although only the most dedicated pet lovers will want to watch in one sitting.

Most entertaining are “The Cat’s Meow” and “Those Doggone Dogs and Puppies,” available in one- or two-video sets from Brentwood Home Video. Action-oriented and “full of the joy of living” as one volunteer viewer and animal lover put it, the videos show dogs and cats running, playing and snoozing with one another and with their human friends, inside and outdoors. From a basketful of adorable kittens and a real cat in a hat to frolicking hounds and a mutt paying solo soccer, the lively scenes, set to listenable classical, pop and jazz music, are pleasurable, relaxing viewing.

* “Those Doggone Dogs and Puppies,” single video, $7.99; two-tape set, $12.99; “The Cat’s Meow,” single video, $7.99; two-tape set, $12.99. 30 minutes each. Brentwood Home Video: (800) 522-5223.

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Competing videos, “Doggy Faces” and “Kitty Faces,” are less successful, although “Kitty Faces” is not as dependent on physiognomy alone and thus has more lasting appeal. “Doggy Faces” is repetitious and static in its close-ups of gaping gullets and lolling tongues and dogs sitting obediently at attention. The often juvenile accompanying music is uninspired. It’s interesting to see canine diversity, but the film’s best effort is in shots of dogs being dogs.

* “Doggy Faces” and “Kitty Faces,” 28 minutes each; $9.98 each. MVP Home Entertainment: (800) 637-3555.

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If your young animal enthusiast would rather take a walk on the wild side, don’t miss the most recent offerings available from Sony Wonder’s fascinating preschool home video series “See How They Grow.” Each live-action video in the series, based on Dorling Kindersley Publishing Inc.’s children’s books, follows an unexpected selection of creatures of the earth and sea from birth to young adulthood, giving each a narrative voice to tell its own story.

In “See How They Grow: Jungle Animals,” for example, you’ll see a captivating view of a formidable mama scorpion carrying her babies--delicate miniatures of herself--on her back, plus glimpses of furry tiger cubs, a grinning alligator and a surprisingly attractive land snail.

Other new titles in the series include “Desert Animals”--a baby tarantula, a gerbil, a tortoise and a gecko; “Sea Animals”--a ray, a pipe fish, cuttlefish and a hermit crab; and “Tree Animals”--a chameleon, a stick insect, a buzzard and a fruit bat.

* “See How They Grow,” Sony Wonder, 30 minutes each, $12.98 each. Major video retailers.