Sesame Street Season 45 Episode 4506 - Fifteen’s Quinceanera

[Phillip]

Episode 4506 - Fifteen’s Quinceanera
Monday October 6, 2014

Abby and Zoe find out that Number Fifteen never had a quinceanera, so they set off to plan one for her. She wants fifteen of everything so that’s what they get. There are a few problems that they encounter, but Mando helps them out by leading them to a compromise. In the end, they throw the best quinceanera ever!

Subject: Self-Regulation
Brought to you by: Z & 15
Word on the Street: Fiesta – The Spanish word for party.

If you've seen "Fifteen’s Quinceanera" please like this post and share your thoughts below.

 

[Drtooth]

This episode had some real potential, but it was downright painful to watch because of the number 15's constant tantrums. She manage to out annoying Penelope Penguin. She was that bad. I'm sure there's some real life context to the writing and someone has a story about some spoiled brat that got one of these and whined all the way. But if it was supposed to come off as funny, they managed to make it just downright obnoxious. It also sends the message to little kids that if you cry and cry and cry enough, you'll get what you want. A bad lesson for that age set. I get kids learn by repetition, but this was repetitive even for them. And everything other than the word of the day, alphabet song, and ETM was a repeat!

I know they're cheap and are making due with what they have with their budget. I'm glad it's been solved that we're seeing 26 new episodes. But there is NO excuse to reuse "English me/Spanish Me" this early in the season. It's barely been 3 episodes since they used it. A new record! Unbelievable.

The alphabet song was pretty good, I guess. I see that for the sake of music they repeated the song without any variation (except for Slimey's bit). Nice to see the only other new ETM this season so early. Great to see that Horatio the elephant gets an antagonist role.

 

[The Count]

What? That was today? Aw man, I missed it figuring new episodes would only air on Thursdays. That, and the fact that if 4506 aired today and 4509 with the Furry Potter CCP sketch is scheduled for October 30, I really have no idea when to regularly expect either 4507 or 4508 or any other new episode now.

Hearing Drtooth's review gives me cause to pause. Will wait to watch it for myself, but usually I've been happy with the Spanish heritage episodes they've been doing these last few seasons with the addition of Mando to the cast, last year's Spanish-Speaking Nations Block Party a prime example. To think they got something like a traditional girl's 15th birthday party wrong... BTW: It should be written as "quinceañera", with an "ñ", that's the Spanish language-exclusive letter that's an n with a squiggly half-curve above it. Maybe SW should look into doing an episode about that letter as both a featured street story and sponsor in the future.

Traditionally, a quinceañera is a young girl's 15th birthday, but it's also token as the Spanish culture's version of a debutant's coming out/joining formal or high society party. If they played it up like a spoiled numeric character's tantrum, it reminds me of the South Park Halloween episode episode where Satan was having similar reactions in staging his own "Sweet 16" party, somewhat of the English counterpart to a quinceañera.
However, at least SW did acknowledge the culture's diversity in dedicating an episode to said party. The only other show I've seen so far do that was the international culture-specific/stereotyping episode of The Cleveland Show.

 

[Drtooth]

Hearing Drtooth's review gives me cause to pause. Will wait to watch it for myself, but usually I've been happy with the Spanish heritage episodes they've been doing these last few seasons with the addition of Mando to the cast, last year's Spanish-Speaking Nations Block Party a prime example. To think they got something like a traditional girl's 15th birthday party wrong...

I really like how SW is doing some great stuff with Hispanic culture as of late. Among other things, we get episodes with Luis in them. I like how they started to talk about what a quinceañera is and how Maria was looking at old photos of hers. But the episode dissolves into how 15 wants 15 of everything at her party and goes into histrionics when there wasn't that number of somethings, mainly because they threw a party on the spot without planning because 15 was demanding a party in the first place. While I understand the repetitive need to count 15 is how kids learn, 15's non-stop crying was just obnoxious. A little diva-ish behavior makes sense, but it was handled badly. It's a shame that a Hispanic culture lesson took a backseat to a screaming, annoying Muppet Number.

 

[The Count]

On that issue, I have a few thoughts.

Something about the major plotpoint of the Muppet 15 demanding there be fifteen of everything for the party reminds me of the old animated insert of Princess Twelvia.

The obnoxiousness of the character's hissy fits over not getting their way are reminiscent of younger children or "brats". Perhaps the problem is that we're expecting to be entertained/made to laugh with the funness of how we view Sesame nowadays versus what they used to do in teach life-lessons so that you'd recognize it's a life-lesson. That's pretty much in line with their self-regulation core concept for the season.

There are family stories of my infancy influenced by my then numerian obssession I'm glad I grew out of that perhaps make me look at the synopsis of this episode rather than just stay stuck on an obnoxious bratty main character. Probably what the Penelope Penguin episode lacked.
Thank you Sesame Workshop for making me think today. Now I need a good laugh after that.

 

[antsamthompson9]

Today's episode was pretty good. It's nice to see Carmen play a Muppet other than Rosita or Ovajita. The WOTD was fun. The new ETM was very good. I actually liked Horatio, because for his first 2 songs, he had a rockin' singing voice that's different from his normal voice. Maybe Horatio isn't so bad after all.

 

[Drtooth]

Something about the major plotpoint of the Muppet 15 demanding there be fifteen of everything for the party reminds me of the old animated insert of Princess Twelvia.

The obnoxiousness of the character's hissy fits over not getting their way are reminiscent of younger children or "brats". Perhaps the problem is that we're expecting to be entertained/made to laugh with the funness of how we view Sesame nowadays versus what they used to do in teach life-lessons so that you'd recognize it's a life-lesson. That's pretty much in line with their self-regulation core concept for the season.

The funny thing is hat if you look at the Numericon episode and then this, it pairs poorly. In Numericon, when something happened that disappointed everyone else, Elmo came to the rescue. And then when something went wrong for him, Leela sat down and give him a pep talk...err...pep song, and it was quite a good message for their self regulation curriculum. This episode played 15's crying as a joke, and the lesson was about counting to fifteen with a small helping of Hispanic culture thrown in. While I get the concept is it's supposed to make fun of spoiled girls who get these right of passage birthdays and want everything to be perfect to a controlling way, the execution was just bad.

Essentially the episode was like this.

"WAAAAAH! I'm the number 15 and I deserve a celebration about the number 15!"

"WHAT?!? You threw this thing on the spot to stop me from having a temper tantrum and you don't have [such and such]?!?! WAAAAAAHHHH!!!"

"WHAT?!?! You actually managed to scramble to find these things but there's not 15 of them?!?! WAAAAAAAAH!!!"

(repeat lines 2 and 3 over and over at least 4 times).

Now, if they played it that the 15 felt left out and was kinda depressed about things, it would have worked. If they called out and told her to calm down, it would have worked. But they basically just kept giving in to insane illogical degrees. At one point, after throwing a fit that they didn't have any food (Sesame Street be darned, food needs to be prepared or bought), they scrambled up 2 plates of food of fifteen pieces each (tamales and empinadas), she threw a fit because combined that makes thirty pieces of food. Now, yeah... for the sake of the math concepts they had to teach division and what 2 numbers add up to 15. But if there was 15 people at the party, that's only one piece of food per person. What is this? The WESAYSO company picnic? But the illogic continued with 15 demanding 15 dancers. not 15 party guests. 15 people dancing for her entertainment. So, the guest list is over 15 at this point, so there's not even enough food to go around.

Just... this episode rubbed me the wrong way. I really wanted Telly and Mando to march up and say "we're throwing this thing to be nice because we felt sorry for your first outburst. We're trying. This isn't your birthday, just your amount." Comedic effect or nothing, 15 was never called out on anything.

 

[sesamemuppetfan]

Maybe Horatio isn't so bad after all.

Like I once told you: the less he's been shown, the more respect I've gained for him. I see that it's working on you too.

 

[antsamthompson9]

Like I once told you: the less he's been shown, the more respect I've gained for him. I see that it's working on you too.

True. Now I don't dislike any of the Muppets.

 

[Drtooth]

Like I once told you: the less he's been shown, the more respect I've gained for him.

I liked seeing him in an antagonistic role, and I really enjoyed his number in ETM. I agree. He can be used well, but for the most part he was a bit gratuitous. I'd venture to say ETM was the best part of today's episode. Too bad budget limitations only gave them 2 episodes this year. ETM is a solid skit with very catchy music, and lightyears better than what it replaced.