Who the fuck is Baby Bear? Where are the normal, awesome SS characters? Are any of the live action folks still left? Maria? Luis? Olivia? Anyone?
And cripes, I LOVED that pinball thing! It just started running through my head as soon as someone mentioned it in the thread!
When I have kids, they’re watching Kenneth Branaugh and Emma Thompson movies instead of children’s programming. They might be a little warped, but at least they won’t want me to buy them an Elmo.
Ava
(Yip…Yip…yip, yip, yip, yip…uhuh…uhuh)
I loved those aliens!
I loved the typewriter guy on wheels…Doo dee Doo dee Doo…Is he still around?
FB
Zoe? Baby Bear? I feel old.
Crucify me if you must, but I’d rather have Elmo be the focus of the show than Telly. Elmo is the lesser of two evils.
For a while there, before Elmo came around, there was a real danger that Telly was going to become the show’s focal Muppet. Telly was (and is) a whiny neurotic mess. So what if Elmo annoys us grownups, at least our kids won’t grow up afraid of their own shadows.
I really miss the Sesame Street of my youth. The show today is so different that it hardly deserves the same title. Back in the day, the idea was that kids (especially lower-income, inner-city kids without a lot of outdoor-play options) watched TV, so they might as well get something out of it. And they found that kids retained (and were entertained) most by commercials, due to their short duration, high production values, and catchy tunes, lyrics, and images. So, the show was designed as a series of commercials. Sure, things went fast, but that’s what kids liked, and that’s how they learned best.
Back then, live segments were split into chunks of a few minutes each, and they were evenly spaced throughout the show, every 10-15 minutes or so, with the commercial-like bits in between. Now, the show starts with a live segment that’s about 20 minutes long, then about 15 minutes of the shorter skits (maybe), and the last 20 are given exclusively to Elmo. I truly believe that they made these changes not to reflect a new philosophy of learning but so that they couldn’t be blamed for ADHD or promoting short attention spans, which, frankly, come naturally to kids. The thing is, I rather think the old approach is better, because somehow they managed to get kids to follow one storyline over the course of a whole hour, which when you think about it is pretty phenomenal.
Oh well. Maybe someday they’ll come out with that “classic Sesame” DVD set. Until then, I still have my memories.
“Do you know what a square is?” “I know WHO a square is!”
Nope, probably because typewriters don’t exist anymore.
Robin
I liked the bohemian bit with the blue guy who chants a letter to a cool song for 4 beats and then lays into a manic riff about it.
I think Sesame Street jumped the shark at the same time that the Smurfs showed up on TV.
That was also when all the 70’s cartoons were “baby-fied”: Baby Tom and Jerry, Baby Scooby Doo, Baby Looney Toons, etc.
Yeeech! I vomit upon thee, little cute babies!!
Do they still have the “3 of these things belong together. 3 of these things are kinda the same.” segment?
One of these things is not like the others, one of these things just doesn’t belong…
Is that what you mean, Kat?
I dunno, I do like Elmo, I think he’s cute. But I grew up with Telly and Cookie and Big Bird and Grover and Barkley-is Barkley still around?
My sister managed to get “Christmas Eve on Sesame Street” from Amazon. I can’t BELIEVE there isn’t a DVD set! That’s just unheard of! Even the crappiest of the crappy are on DVD, but not Sesame Street? Blasphemy!
The little segments taught me a LOT. My sister and I knew big words, about other countries, customs, etc. Even a little bit of espanol.
Now…I’ll take your word for it. I don’t want to see it.
Like many others here, I’m glad to find out it isn’t just that I’ve grown up. I’ve watched SS recently with my toddler and I can’t stand it. Elmo is annoying, Zoe is annoying, baby bear is annoying. Grover doesn’t do anything interesting anymore and where is Kermit? And what is “Global Thingy”? My toddler like SS for the first 1/3 of the show but she always walks away at Elmo’s World if she hasn’t already lost interest.
Almost forgot, I havn’t found the show, but from Sony you can get a 3 volume CD, “Songs from the Street” which includes many SS regular songs as well as guest singers, like the previously mentioned REM Happy Monsters.
Amen. I fucking hate Telly. The first Sesame Street I remember watching had Telly whining to Oscar about something. Baby SpazCat immediately fell in love with Oscar for telling Telly to buzz off. I’m not surprised that Telly became part of the Cabal of Evil. He was the primal Evil of SS. Fuckin’ Telly. May the moths feast on his furry little carcass!
I will build a shrine to you for this jpg.
The mr. and I are watching the special. So far it all seems to be a bit too new - no Mr. Hooper yet. (Although I did see Bob, Luis, and Maria - that brought a smile to my face.)
And is it really bad that Elmo’s got email, his computer’s flying around him ‘making him dizzy’, and we’re both yelling “Hit him! Knock him down! Smack him!”. Elmo is not a popular guy in this apartment.
We don’t need kids yet.
Ava
Does anyone else remember Prairie Dawn? And who was the other one-Cindy Lou? Or something like that. I know Prairie Dawn was Grover’s friend. I had a book where they have a sleepover.
I haven’t seen Sesame Street since about 1977 and I’m watching this special and it’s good. Ernie was making rubber duckie play the bugle. Then I’m pretty sure Christopher Meloni was dancing around.
I don’t remember very much. Prarie Dawn and Cindy Lou ring a bell. But all monsters kinda look the smae to me :o
Bert: “where am I?”
Elmo: “You’re in Elmo’s World!”
Bert: “How do I get out of here?”
Heh. Bert.
The special is now over, but it hasn’t been on in all timezones, so I’ll use the spoiler box:
[spoiler]There was a brief shot of Mr. Hooper, and also shots from Maria and Luis’ wedding, when Maria was in the hospital after having Gaby, and when Gordon and Susan brought Miles home. Also, there was a typewriter-guy segment, and the “10” segment with the guy balancing all those cakes and falling down the steps. I don’t understand why they didn’t use the pinball segment though, because that went up to 12.
Truthfully, I cried when Mr. Hooper was on, and also at the very end, because the show was dedicated to Michael Jeter, who died last year.
My only criticism is that there was way too much Elmo and not enough older material. For a show that’s celebrating a 35th anniversary, they really should have emphasized the old material.[/spoiler]
All in all, not a bad use of an hour.
Robin
I keep remembering more and more-Guy Smiley, the game show host, and “This Is Your Life”, with French Toast!
The fake soap opera, “The Heartthrobs”, where Gordon lost his favorite bookmark, a red shoelace. It turned out to be in David’s sneakers. (Didn’t he die of a drug overdose, after running down teh street naked screaming, “I’m David from Sesame Street!”?)
“Me and My Llama”-my sister’s FAVORITE.
Kermit as a reporter.
No. David died of stomach cancer.
Robin
You collect Sesame Street slash fiction?!
Holy shit, Olentzero, now I have to Windex my monitor. Thanks.
Hmmm, I thought I heard about David. Weird. That’s sad-I always liked him.
Although Olivia was my favorite. I had an imaginary little sister when I was a kid and I called her “Olivia”, after the Sesame Street character.
I’m sad to hear it’s gone downhill so badly. I have fond memories of singing a vamp version of “Meet Me at the Bus Stop” to my SO after watching the show with my son. Another of my favorites was the potato head Diva singing Bizet. Please tell me the music hasn’t suffered the same degeneration as the rest of it!