Major Changes in store for Sesame Street Season 46

[Rugratskid]

Why not just crop the SD stuff, or add some bars? I've always thought that if you must make 4:3 footage into a 16:9 format, stretch the image 50% and crop it 50%. That way, not as much of the image is lost, and its not as odd looking when its fully stretched. Its just a thought though; I never tried it, and it seems no one else did either.

Looking at your list Oscarfan, there's a lot of stuff that hasn't aired in the US yet. Even if its not dubbed in English(if they were made for international SS), there's not really anything stopping them from dubbing them.

 

[Drtooth]

I made this to track all of the non-spoof, non-celebrity, non-format Muppet bits they have in HD; some of which have aired on the show, a lot that have only aired internationally. I'd love to see them wedge them into the show needed to fill up some time.

That's my feeling as well. There's a wealth of stuff made specifically for the international market taped in English here to get dubbed anyway. How come we saw "The Power of Yet" 3 times in a season? Two times a couple episodes apart. For a company that's strapped for cash that has to reuse so much footage to stay on budget, that's....well... dumb. Plain and simple. Wasting money one place while trying to save it somewhere else means you're still wasting money. These skits are already made and paid for, why aren't they on the show? Do they test poorly or something?

You know what this reminds me of? How when it comes to cartoons made for an American audience, America is always the last to get it. Like the new Transformers cartoon. China got the first half of it on a website in December. Sure. Australia got it a month before us, and they're airing it 2 episodes a week, so they're already well ahead of us. We got the 2 part pilot preview last week and the first new episode doesn't come out until April, where it gets a nice inaccessible time slot. Essentially saying "pffft! Screw the Americans that created the franchise/TV series. Their kids will get what we give them and they'll like it." It's sad that every channel that carries animated programming has that mindset, but for Sesame Street to follow that logic? Very disappointing.

Why not just crop the SD stuff, or add some bars? I've always thought that if you must make 4:3 footage into a 16:9 format, stretch the image 50% and crop it 50%. That way, not as much of the image is lost, and its not as odd looking when its fully stretched. Its just a thought though; I never tried it, and it seems no one else did either.

I'm starting to think that, correct me if I'm wrong, it's more about the conversion to HD than things being wide or full screen. I've seen a lot of trickery to get full frame shows work as widescreen. The worst is the stretching of the sides of the screen I've seen done with Married with Children, Seinfeld, and pre-wide screen Family Guy reruns on adult swim. The one I mentioned, putting letterboxing on the sides of the screen but filling that with logos, clouds (as in Toonami Dragonball Kai rebroadcasts), or BTL's stage curtains preserve the aspect ratio without ruining the footage. If Sesame were to do anything like that, I'd say the latter is the better of the two options. Put some sidewalk chalk drawings on the sides or something.

But I'm sure converting anything earlier than a couple seasons before the changeover would again be something that costs them money.

 

[D'Snowth]

Well, gosh, it shouldn't be that hard. I mean I'm capable of up-converting the master tapes of stuff I've shot to 1080p, I have a plain ol' commercial DVD recorder that's capable of doing such. Not to mention SW is able to post Old School stuff on YT in 1080p, so they shouldn't have a whole lot of trouble being able to convert older material into HD for the show.

If the show was filmed, it would be less of a problem because physical film has a naturally higher resolution than HD, but video tape is a different matter.

 

[Drtooth]

I'm sure they probably converted stuff that came out around the last decade. There's certainly stuff there they can use if they need to fill any gaps.

But it would be better to use the intended for international stuff they have just sitting around. I would imagine they're ration some of it as they usually do. But there's no excuse for so much footage to be unused when they need filler segments on the cheap.

As for the creation of letter/number skits, there's two things I feel they need to do. First off, have another contest for independent animators. The Lonely 11 segment came from that. I'm loving how there's more creative animations there, but there's no excuse for uninspired symbol recognition skits. Those need to go. Secondly, how about some Muppet/SS cast member segments that take place on the street like the old days? The only time care is really put into letter/number segments with Muppets is when it's some sort of parody of something. Why not have Muppet Cookie and Elmo host segments instead of flash animated segments. THOSE things intended for international markets they air.

 

[D'Snowth]

It took me a long freakin' time to figure out how to even browse Instagram (long story short, you can't "browse", you have to click on tags and browse through those), but I think I found one of the pics Oscarfan was talking about. Looks like a certain telephone logo that some old school fans are obsessed with is making a comeback, but there's a new addition: a "Free Wifi" symbol.

Wow, really? Sesame Street just now has a wifi hotspot? This street is always so technologically behind... remember when they acted like computers were a new thing in 2000?

 

[D'Snowth]

Curiosity is getting the better of me - has the entire facade of the tenement building been retroactively changed to resemble its old-school ancestor (only with the Laundromat still in place of the Fix-It-Shop), or is it just Hooper's that's been changed?

 

[Drtooth]

I wonder. What if they just made the opening street stories a little longer? I've seen ones this season that barely make it to the 10 minute mark. And then there are some that feel like they're rushed and wind up wasting their own potential. Like the Grouch Thrift Shop episode. Feels like there should have either been more Mackelmore or none at all. A couple extra minutes could have helped with that pacing.

 

[Oscarfan]

Curiosity is getting the better of me - has the entire facade of the tenement building been retroactively changed to resemble its old-school ancestor (only with the Laundromat still in place of the Fix-It-Shop), or is it just Hooper's that's been changed?

Not sure what you mean, but from what I've seen, only Hooper's is changed on that part of the block. The sign is changed too (though it's not like the old-school one).

 

[D'Snowth]

I meant the whole building that houses both the Laundromat and Hooper's, but you still answered the question anyway.

 

[Drtooth]

Actually, know what? I'd like to see better variety of episodes the next season. Not so much on the educational subject matter, but it always feels like they go to the same pool of episode concepts. Random Fairy Tale character pops in and needs help, celebration of the letter or number of the day, game show (which in recent seasons has mercifully stopped being guessing games and find the shape games)... stuff like that. A little less social issue awareness as well. We need more fun episodes without that educational curriculum backbone and more slice of life on the street, organic feel. Well, slice of their lives anyway.