Fans of Saturday Night Live who’ve resigned themselves to the idea that full-season reissues of the show’s golden age would be limited to one every Christmas, take note: Bucking its recent pattern, Universal has just put out Saturday Night Live: The Complete Third Season, a set that catches the show at, if not its absolute finest hour, then certainly one of the peaks. These full-length shows from 1977 and 1978 include outings with well-loved hosts Steve Martin and Buck Henry; musical guests both exotic (Sun Ra) and legendary (Ray Charles, who did double-duty as host); and the now-weird sight of O. J. Simpson fronting one February 1978 broadcast. Vintage SNL captures a New York City that was, for good or ill, scrubbed clean during the Giuliani years; those nostalgic for pre-gentrification Manhattan should seek out a couple of recent evocative books: The images in Martha Cooper’s New York State of Mind ($30), shot for the New York Post during the late ’70s, focus on vibrant street life; those in Vivian Cherry’s Helluva Town ($40), taken in the ’40s and ’50s, are a good deal more downbeat, evoking a Depression hangover even when they depict pastimes, like bocce ball, that look like fun in Cooper’s book. The publisher of both releases, PowerHouse, makes a specialty of Big Apple artists — its latest offering, A Fine Example of Art ($45), showcases the eccentric paintings of John Lurie, better known as a jazz saxophonist and the star of Stranger than Paradise. Photo-book fans who like their New York a little closer to “Live!,” meanwhile, should check out two small new volumes devoted to Manhattan’s sister borough. Brooklyn Street Art and Brooklyn Storefronts are exactly what they sound like: color-crammed photo collections showcasing evidence of the kind of diverse population and exuberant, hand-made creativity that you used to find in Manhattan before rents made it off-limits to all but the most corporate tenants.

Back in the ’90s, offbeat indie-rock heroes They Might Be Giants put a series of mini-songs called “Fingertips” on their album Apollo 18. Many of them were little more than a single phrase, adorned with a musical treatment that was just strange enough to lodge them permanently in your head. They’ve applied a bit of that technique to their two recent addictive kids’ records, Here Come the 123s and Here Come the ABCs; the musical versions of these were mentioned here a while back, but recent versions pack each CD with a must-have bonus — a DVD in which the little learning tunes are accompanied by animated films and introduced by adorable sock-puppet versions of the bandmates John and John. Elsewhere in the DVD aisle are three more restrained pleasures for youngsters, short movies from the ’50s and ’60s that have become such classic fables that one recently inspired a critically praised feature-length remake. Each centers on one object of a child’s devotion: The Red Balloon (the one that was remade) is self-explanatory; White Mane is about a beautiful horse; and Paddle to the Sea is about a little canoe and rider, carved out of wood, who make their way from the Canadian mountains to the ocean, encountering everything from frogs to wildfire along the way. Kids who haven’t had enough of the alphabet after They Might Be Giants’ version should pick up The Alphabet from A to Y with Bonus Letter Z!, another curious celebrity effort. Here, comedian Steve Martin pens memorable alliterative rhymes for each letter, while New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast does illustrations for each. Book-lovers on the other side of the preschool/high school continuum, meanwhile — and maybe their parents — should hunt down The Film Club, the nonfiction account of what happened when a novelist made an unusual deal with his teenaged son. He would let the boy drop out of school, which he hated, on one condition: He had to watch three movies a week, ones Dad chose, and be available to discuss them afterward.

Whether you grow them yourself or buy them in the produce section of the market, there is nothing like a meal made with fresh rather than dried herbs. The flavors are cleaner and more intense. Plus they pretty up a dish and smell great in your kitchen. But sometimes you only need a pinch of oregano or a tablespoon of dill and end up throwing away most of what you bought before you can use it. Which is where the new Herb Savor by Prepara ($30) comes in. It extends the life of your fresh herbs for up to three weeks inside of the refrigerator door by keeping the leaves protected from the moisture in the air while the stems stand in a little well of water. Used with a pair of Endurance stainless-steel herb scissors ($11), also new on the market, fresh herbs are as handy and simple to cook with as salt and pepper. These feature five sharp blades which make it quick and easy to mince, chop or cut the exact quantity you need right over a pan or a plate. Once you taste the difference and get hooked on food flavored with fresh cut herbs, you might like to grow them yourself. At HerbKits, the best-selling product is the Garden Stacker and Indoor Culinary Herb Garden ($60). Each kit includes lots of seeds (for growing multiple parsley, thyme, cilantro/coriander, basil, dill, oregano, sweet marjoram, chives, savory, garlic chives, mustard and sage plants), 50 peat packets to plant and water them in, and a small greenhouse that provides the perfect climate for propagation and growth within a few weeks. Transfer the plants to the hangable indoor/outdoor Garden Stacker (pictured). You can go the traditional route with fresh herb seeds, planting ideas, assortments and advice from Burpee. And if you live in a rural area or like to hike, Bulk Herb Store has a DVD, Making Herbs Simple ($30), which will teach you how to recognize herbs in the wild and show you the right way to wash, dry and store them. This site is devoted to the medicinal and health-promoting use of herbs and also explains the steps necessary to make poultices and tinctures.

New DVD releases of Lady and the Tramp, The Bee Movie and Alvin and the Chipmunks make April a movie month for preschoolers and young elementary students. If any of these is a particular favorite of your child, there are many tie-in toys and products available too. In honor of  the film’s 50th anniversary, Disney released a digitally restored version of Lady and the Tramp. The voices of Peggy Lee and Barbara Luddy enhance the story of Lady, a cocker spaniel in a wealthy household, and her romance with Tramp, a witty stray dog. Amazon sells the DVD for $14. This film is most famous for its spaghetti-eating scene, where the two dogs share a winsome plate of pasta with Bella Notte playing in the background. Disneyshopping.com has many products related to this film, including the Lady and the Tramp snowglobe, $60, and the movie album, $7, which includes three songs from the film. The Lenox china figurine of Lady and the Tramp is $95. The Bee Movie, starring the voices of Jerry Seinfeld, Renee Zellweger and Chris Rock, tells the story of a bee named Barry B. Benson. In the movie, Barry sues humans for taking bees’ honey for centuries, and eventually learns the value of the bee work ethic. The DVD is $15 from Amazon. ToysRUs.com sells various Bee Movie toys, including Cuddly Buzzin’ Barry, $10. This stuffed version makes buzzing noises when you squeeze him. Talk Walk and Flutterin’ Barry, $20, moves his wings and talks. The Barry B. Benson radio-controlled flying bee, $50, can zip around the room. The new Alvin and The Chipmunks DVD is $30 and stars Jason Lee as Dave, the songwriter who adopts the chipmunks, and Justin Long as the voice of Alvin. The computer-animated chipmunks interact with live-action humans in this movie, singing and dancing about the holidays as they learn the value of family. You can buy a Chipmunk Hula Hoop Singing Doll from Toywuala.com for $12.89.

When people use the term “movie magic,” what they’re really referring to (whether they know it or not) is the work of Georges Méliès, the grandfather of all movie special effects. Stumbling upon inspiration when his camera jammed while filming, this silent-era pioneer proceeded to invent many of the techniques — from abrupt disappearances to superimpositions and the use of models — that dominated fantasy films until the computer age. An exhaustive new box set, First Wizard of Cinema ($90), devotes an astonishing five DVDs to the most thorough collection of Méliès short films ever: more than 170 films, looking as good as their age allows, presented in chronological order so that fans can follow the filmmaker’s developing technique. (An image from A Trip to the Moon from 1902 is pictured.) Less expensive editions of his work exist, but this is one to make hardcore fans of movie magic scream “bravo!” Those fans should also definitely make note of Houdini the Movie Star, a three-disc set offering a rare glimpse of history’s most famous escape artist in every one of his feature-film appearances, and a handful of early documentary shorts as well. Méliès’s work was reportedly influenced by Albert Hopkins’s book Magic: Stage Illusions, Special Effects and Trick Photography, but today’s aspiring illusionist might prefer more modern prose such as The Illustrated History of Magic or The Magician and the Cardsharp. Actor and performer Ricky Jay, one of the most engaging modern authorities on slight-of-hand, may not have written a magic guide per se, but his collaboration with photographer Rosamond Purcell, Dice, is a beautifully evocative look at one of the humbler items in the magician’s arsenal.

Was your man born with two left feet? You’ve got just enough time until the season of wedding party dances is upon us to teach him – and maybe yourself – how to move on the floor with the greatest of ease. Chuck Reed’s How to Dance with Two Left Feet: A Comprehensive Guide to Real World Dancing ($60) offers hope to the rhythmically-challenged with simplified, sometimes humorous instruction on a three-disc DVD covers basics such as how to lead and how to find and follow the beat in the music. Direct your guy to How to Have More Social Success for  tips on the basics of dancing. The site, written by a self-described recovering socially inept awkward guy, says men need to know that they just have to be good enough to blend in with the crowd on the dance floor and not look like a dork. At Learning2Dance.com, you and yours can learn from a dance instruction video that timing really is everything in salsa, hiphop, ballroom, Latin, tango and more and will even make a custom DVD for you. Highly recommended is DanceTutor.com, because its instruction videos can be downloaded and watched frame-by-frame and in slow motion. A manual is still a good choice if you or your partner scored high in kindergarten on the “follows directions well” portion on your report card. The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Ballroom Dancing includes step-by-step photos that cover common ballroom dances and an instructional DVD ($17). Both you and your partner will feel like stepping out in official ballroom wear from DanceSport Ballgowns. For those who crave context, the dance manual section at Library of Congress includes much more than a history of social dancing in America. Video clips feature dancers in period costume performing dances like the Washington Post two-step against the backdrop of the Library’s Great Hall in the Jefferson Building.