Microsoft's latest batch of kid-friendly Kinect games includes projects developed in collaboration with Disney Pixar, Sesame Workshop, National Geographic and the Games for Learning Institute. Wow. Back in our day, we had to make do with The Castle of Dr. Brain.

Disney Pixar's game, codenamed "Rush," will scan and deposit you and your diminutive kin into the wonderful worlds seen in five Pixar movies: The Incredibles, Ratatouille, Up, Toy Story 3 and Cars 2. It sounds like you can expect some minigames while you're in there, though Microsoft prefers to call them "exciting challenges."

Kinect Sesame Street TV purveys basic education in the best way possible: via adorable muppets, with Sesame Street footage filmed specifically for Xbox 360. Kinect will also host Kinect Nat Geo TV, which lets you explore the natural world as an animal (in case you've grown tired of being a hedgehog all the time), and a game tentatively called "Project Columbia." It's proposed as a way to immerse young gamers in books, pairing storytelling with interactive music and illustrations.

We'll see more of these projects before they start arriving in Spring 2012. Another game, Double Fine's Happy Action Theater, is due this holiday. You'll just have to see the trailer to understand its insane exuberance.