Your Thoughts: Sesame Street Season 44

[antsamthompson9]

Yeah. That is sad, unless Kevin comes back to do some work for Muppets. It would be nice to see another Kermit/Clifford interaction. You never know.

That would be wonderful.

 

[Drtooth]

Well, the season finale was on today. I guess they were waiting for the first day of Spring to tie in the whole plant theme... but they really make you wait for the last episode of the season that way.

Anyway, we close the season with a good Stinky the Stinkweed storyline. Zoe's there too. I don't see why she's so underused. Not to mention Luis got an episode in there. And there's a good fan joke about a Muppet character being left out of an encyclopedia in there. Joey really milks the crap out of his performance as Stinky, especially in this one.

And suffice to say, other than the word of the day, a cute cartoon about a mouse planting a strawberry seed, and a Letter L Rube Goldberg device, everything else was reused footage. Like, Jason Mraz's "Outdoors" reused. Kind of a shame there wasn't any other new stuff they would have saved for the last episode of the season.

I got to admit, this has been a pretty good season. Could have used a little more Big Bird, but Cookie's Crummy pictures is the best thing to happen to the show in a long time. Even better than Super Grover 2.0. Other than a few weaker episodes (Judy and the Beast especially), we've seen some really good stuff this year. Including that Ernie and Bert based street story. Next season looks good, but usually these anniversary seasons are hit or miss... though, admittedly because we feel the need to build them up to something.

 

[antsamthompson9]

Today's street story was funny. Stinky cracked me up when he said "Christopher". The WOTD bit was good. Anna is cute. Also, it's nice to see Elmo, Abby and Murray together. This season was amazing! We got lots of great street stories. My favorites were the Jerry Nelson tribute and Lights, Camera, Bert. Ryan and Matt have proven to be perfect performers for Elmo and the Count. There were lots of great inserts: Rhymes for Mando, That's Cooperation, the Sesame Street Alphabet, Me Encanta Mi Cabello, there's too many to name. Mando is a nice addition to the Street. It's too bad he never worked with Kevin though. Cookie's Crummy Pictures is a great new segment. Every one of them was hilarious. The new Elmo the Musicals were good as usual. This season was much better than the last two seasons. I cannot wait for next season!

 

[cahuenga]

I liked a lot this season, but I think season 42 it`s one of the bests since at least season 39..

 

[ssetta]

I think this has been the absolute worst season so far. Every single clip in HD except that one sketch with the CGI twiddlebugs from Season 38. It isn't the same show anymore, and it never will be. I know I've said this before, but this is how I feel. I think they're doing a good job, but I'm not happy.

 

[Oscarfan]

I think this has been the absolute worst season so far. Every single clip in HD except that one sketch with the CGI twiddlebugs from Season 38. It isn't the same show anymore, and it never will be. I know I've said this before, but this is how I feel. I think they're doing a good job, but I'm not happy.

Let me ask you something: how is the quality of something new based on how much old stuff it plays?

 

[ssetta]

I am just an overly nostalgic person. I went through a period of time when I didn't watch the show much, but one day in Spring of '97, SS was all that was on and so I watched it, and I saw this clip that I remembered from when I was really little, and it got me hooked on the show all over again. The only reason why I kept watching was because they were still showing clips from my childhood. So I feel like there's no need for me to watch it anymore. I know most people probably won't agree with me, but that's how I feel. It's all I'm saying.

 

[Oscarfan]

You could just watch it for the, you know, new stuff they make. It's actually good.

 

[ssetta]

Some of it is, but whenever I think about how good the show used to be compared to how it is now, it makes me sad, and I just can't seem to enjoy it.

 

[Drtooth]

Saying the show is lacking in quality for the lack of older skits which you can find, like... virtually everywhere else anyway just doesn't make sense. If it's an actual basis of show and the quality of the actual content, that's a logical debate. Even if SW did its darndest to hide classic content, I'd agree to some extent... but they don't.

If you don't like the show for it's new content, there's no problem with that. But also, it means you probably should stop watching (unless you're insanely loyal...I totally still watch the Simpsons and Family Guy after all... that's loyalty right there). There's plenty of classic content on the internet for those who don't like how the show is currently.

That said, I can't abide by this being the worst season due to the lack of classic clips (they'd all be 90's ones meaning we'd have to suffer "kids painting a number Mural" or worse... Alphaboy). There were plenty of reasons this season was quite good, and some of them are pretty hefty changes that made the show better than it was currently. They had Rosita-centric episodes where she actually was explored as a character and as an ethnic character as well. Not "that other friend of Elmo's that's a girl that's not Abby or Zoe that we only keep around to keep Carmen on the payroll." We actually had some pretty strong street stories that didn't focus too much on Anvilicious curricula. The Hispanic Heritage and Self regulation focuses were delightfully nuanced and done entertainingly. Unlike the health and especially the nature initiatives that gave us such classics as the same guessing game episodes over and over. There are things that the season lacked, like new Abby cartoons and Super Grover 2.0's (adding to the insane repetition of segments), and a couple weak episodes... but overall, a very good season for a recent one.