Bob, Gordon, and Luis: FIRED!

fuzzygobo

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What made Sesame work so well for so many years was the perfect chemistry:
1. Muppets (at least as long as Jim was alive)
2. Innovative animation (Hubleys, Jim Simon, to name but two)
3. Joe Raposo's (and Jeff Moss, not to be ignored) music
4. Jon Stone's direction (set a high standard for those who followed)
5. A human cast kids can identify with. None of them had super powers, they all had flaws, but were believable, relatable, and close enough to be part of your family.

Take any one ingredient out of the formula (or add too much) the results won't be quite as good.

I've known Bob since Day One. I remember Luis opening the Fix-It Shop with Rafael (Raul Julia). I remember Roscoe as the latest in a long line of Gordons.
Roscoe being the youngest of the three,at age 72, it would be a challenge to keep going forever. (40+ years on any show is no easy task).
Still, it would've been decent to have some kind of send-off, as opposed to being kicked to the curb.

This isn't sour grapes from some old fart who whines about how the show ain't the same since he was a kid.
I've made my peace with Elmo long ago.
I am amazed Sesame managed to last as long as it has. It's just gotten harder for me to recognize it.
 

Censored

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There was no reason for the actors to leave at all. They were doing their jobs just fine. I guess if Will Lee was still alive, they'd be firing Mr. Hooper right now too. Ageism, disloyalty, and arrogance are sickening.
 
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Censored

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Or we could put it another way: If CTW had a throw away ageist mentality in the 70's, Will Lee would have gotten fired long before he died.

Sesame Street has been a great trend setter throughout the decades, but I never thought they'd be setting the trend for reinstating forced retirement.
 

Oscarfan

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CTW didn't think the show would last more than 10 years, of course they wouldn't have had that mentality because what would it have mattered?
 

Drtooth

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Or we could put it another way: If CTW had a throw away ageist mentality in the 70's, Will Lee would have gotten fired long before he died.
Maybe, but then again no one knew the show would have lasted 10 years, let alone almost fifty. I'd assume if Will did make it a few more years, he probably would have retired voluntarily. The thing is, I think we essentially forget how old this show is and how many cast members left it in its history. And the one thing I think we all can agree on is that any other show would have routinely replaced their Bobs, Marias, and Gordons every 10 years when they started pushing 40 with younger 20-somethings, preferably 20 somethings they can pass off as teenagers. Why, Maria and Luis and David seem to have been brought in to be the younger hip teen figures as Bob and Gordon were the youngish father figures back in the 70's. Same deal with Gina in the 80's and Gabi and Miles in the early 00's. Sesame Street never really replaced anyone outside of the odd child actor and Gordon a couple times after Matt stopped playing him and the other guy failed to connect with viewers. And we've had that Gordon ever since. On the one hand, we tend to forget all the younger audience members that leave because they have career opportunities elsewhere. Heck, it was Gedde Watanabe's only respectful role in the 1980's. And he was there, what? Two, three years.

Here's the deal with this. I hate it too, it does smack of ageism, how SW handled this was clumsy, callous, and fanbase enraging. But here's the howevers. While Gordon and Luis were still kinda prominent on the show, Bob just managed to pop up maybe once a season for a cameo. These older guys seem to have been phased out for the past 10 years now, but they still managed to appear a few times before the show focused mostly on Chris and Alan. The thing that honks me off is that they finally found a good place to put Luis, as the proprietor of a bike repair shop, even giving him a couple street stories, only to do this. But I think we're focusing too much on three actors, when the fact of the matter is, they let a few more actors go in the process. Mando seems to have left of his own volition for another career, but I don't see why Leela had to go as well. But the biggest however comes in the form of one word.

Budget.

The show was starting to really hemorrhage money for multiple reasons. We've had less regular cast members the past 10 years than we've seen in the show's history. That can't all be chalked up to ageism. Sure, some left to pursue other things, but if you watched the last 10 years of the show, the lack of budget and trying painfully to remain relevant when we have at least 3 cable channels devoted to preschool programming. All the budget seems to have gone to celebrity appearances to get parents to remember that Sesame Street is still a thing, and not the flashy loud cable toy commercials like Dora they can toss their kids at to shut them up. I don't want to go on that tangent, but come on...Sesame Street did not exist in a vacuum. This season of the show, before they even had the HBO deal, we only had 3 recurring adult human cast members. I can see the argument of kids not paying attention to characters old enough to be their grandfathers, but why did everyone else but Chris, Alan, and the new girl leave? I do not see why they couldn't keep Bob, Roscoe, and Emilio around as the once a season pop up and "I exist" before they disappear from the rest of the season, nor do I see the need for Leela just...disappearing the way she did. Other than their severe lack of money.

So basically it sucks this is happening, this is a very bad way they handled things, but on the other hand, 47 freaking seasons.
 
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