Sesame Street Season 46 Press Kit; HBO premiere set for Saturday January 16, 2016

[Pig'sSaysAdios]

I think the site isn't done, the Mucko ep has the info about the Penelope ep.

Yeah,like I said earlier in the thread,the press kit is unfinished but I was excited so I didn't want to wait. It'll probably be done next month or the end of this month.

 

[Drtooth]

I'm pretty surprised myself. I mean...in the old days, a recycled plot would be from 2 seasons before. But nowadays, I feel like they're starting to going a little too far back.

More annoyingly, they're rerunning episodes from this last season. I don't think this is half the mistake we think it is. It seems clearly intentional. The HBO money keeps becoming better thing with each reveal.

Though they must be really desperate to use a full frame episode.

 

[Schfifty]

But again, this is very common in show biz: the execs always want younger people. SW's new staff sound like they're taking a much more corporate approach to the show.

If the executives prefer to use more younger people, what's wrong with having older folks on the show? I think the older adults (Bob, Gordon, Luis, Gina, ...basically anyone who was on the show before Season 30) should be there to balance the demographics on the street, if it doesn't mean they should appear in every single episode. I can understand how Bob and Susan and some older cast members have gradually been getting phased out recently, but they could perhaps portray the modern grandmother and grandfather (at least maybe Gordon and Susan could). I don't see why that couldn't happen.

 

[SpinneyBigBird1]

Now that the press kit is out, there's a lot of stuff that is worth talking about.

I love to see Stephanie, Jen, and Billy all being included with their new characters on the puppeteer bio page.

Nina now runs the bike shop. Does it say anywhere that she co-runs it with Luis or is she the sole owner now? Either way, it's nice that there's a female in charge of a business that requires a lot of repairs and dirty work, now that Maria is not there to fill that role.

In the photos that accompany the episode descriptions, it seems like Chris is once again (more or less) the human lead of the show now seeing as he appears in a lot of the photos. The only other humans I see in the pictures for the new episodes are Alan and Nina.

At least Bob and Gina are featured prominently in the "Afraid of the Bark" repeat episode. I guess that will have to do seeing as I'm not holding my breath that either of them will have much to do otherwise. I wish they would repeat episodes like "Super Maria" or "The Flood" because they prominently feature Susan, Gordon, Maria, and Luis and they don't even take place in parts of the street that have been remodeled so there's no continuity issues.

Speaking of, I'm surprised they are choosing to rerun the Bookaneers episode. It's not in the same definition that the show is in now, plus it takes place entirely in Hooper's Store which has been completely remodeled two times since that episode first aired. Any young kid who watches Sesame Street on TV regularly now has never watched an episode where Hooper's looks like that because it hasn't for so long...

Plus I mean, that's the risk of completely remodeling your set when you know you have to air reruns to make up the full episode roster. They are trying to make the street have more of a recognizable quality to it by focusing on certain characters, yet from day to day the kids watching will see a completely different-looking street itself making it harder for them to recognize.

I'm interested to see whether or not other characters' mothers appear in the Mother's Day episode, along with Cookie Monster's. We haven't seen a lot of Muppet mothers, so that could be interesting.

There are no fairy tale characters in sight!

According to the episode breakdowns, only one new street story has a celebrity in it (Alan Cumming in Mucko Polo) and it looks like they've done away with Word on the Street completely, because there are some episodes where there are no celebrities listed to appear at all. The celebrity appearances are now labeled as "song or special insert" which means that celebrities will be more of a surprise treat than a daily occurrence.

And hey, Prairie Dawn gets the lead in the Dress Up episode and shows up in the Dinosaurs episode! She's making a comeback!

 

[D'Snowth]

I think reruning episodes from a time where the set looked different isn't too much of a concern: remember, Season 25 was the first season of the brightened up and cleaned up set with the new ATC area, yet they had reruns from Season 23, when the set still had that urban grit look to it. Of course, those differences don't quite compared when you consider the entire set's been radically redesigned since the Bookaneers episode - but still.

 

[123Sunny]

And hey, Prairie Dawn gets the lead in the Dress Up episode and shows up in the Dinosaurs episode! She's making a comeback!

YES PRAIRIE DAWN MORE! I always thought she was a cute and sweet little character I hope she becomes at least a little more common.

 

[Pig'sSaysAdios]

Hey where's Segi ?

 

[SpinneyBigBird1]

I think reruning episodes from a time where the set looked different isn't too much of a concern: remember, Season 25 was the first season of the brightened up and cleaned up set with the new ATC area, yet they had reruns from Season 23, when the set still had that urban grit look to it. Of course, those differences don't quite compared when you consider the entire set's been radically redesigned since the Bookaneers episode - but still.

But remember, in those days there were 100+ episodes with the new set and just a handful of repeats. There was more consistency. This season has half of the episodes with the new set and half of the episodes as reruns with all sorts of different iterations of the set.

 

[Drtooth]

There are no fairy tale characters in sight!

Homer Simpson Eating Play-Doh and being told it's non-toxic: "That's a plus."

It's clear the decision to rerun episodes came before the HBO deal happened, as the entire 46th season was done while they were on a shrinking budget before that money bump. But the choices they made are strange. One pre-HD street story, and episodes from just this past season that were already rerun to death. That speaks desperation.

Other than that....

I don't really mind the fact they've focused on younger audience memebers because, well... let's not forget when everyone we all know and love started (minus Hooper) they were the youngsters. And as I said before, other than a small handful of recasts, they didn't constantly recast roles to keep the humans ageless. And thankfully, they still don't. Any other show would have done that, with various "you don't look like you" Marias and Bobs. It's a shame the older cast is being edged out, but demographically speaking, the adults on Sesame Street were always meant to be the young father/mother figure or older sibling/older cousin figures. Some characters were even that older teen young 20 year old that kids have inappropriate crushes on (face it... some of us have looked up to Maria and or Gina that way). They've always supplemented the older cast members with newer ones. Thing is, for a certain period the younger cast members were the ones that had a higher rate of leaving. I honestly don't know how to feel about older cast members being edged out. Only Bob, Gordon (the character, not the actor), and Susan were there at the beginning. And remember how long ago the beginning was. Though, I'd think they'd keep on Bob as a grandfather figure.

As for the Word of the Day, well, the press release for the last season didn't mention AFFS, but it was still there. Hard to tell if it's indeed done for due to the lack of celebrity names and the words they represented, or just not on the release because it isn't quite finished yet. Or third option, they're reusing words and celebrity segments, which I wouldn't put past them. But let's say the word of the day has indeed been done with. I say, good riddance. That was a very hit or miss segment, and while there were genuinely great celebrity/Muppet pairings that were actually quite funny, there's a lot of them that felt like they didn't know which show they were on, and they played the "celebrity isn't angry that Abby turned them into something" gag way too many times. Plus, those celebs don't come cheap. When they actually had to fly puppets and performers out to Hollywood to get some of those in the can, that couldn't have been too cheap either. And then there's the whole question of if kids even know who these guys are. Sesame always did have some level of celebrity, but the WOTS focus forced that painfully. Getting rid of it is a genius cost cutting move. That said, the less said about the first incarnation the better.

 

[DePingPong]

The Sesame Street YT account has posted the Season 46 opening and the new version of the theme is okay, nice shots of the set though