Why people dislike modern Sesame Street

[Pig'sSaysAdios]

"When did Sesame Street have the balls to use real traffic sounds?"

Now that you mention that, I actually kind of liked when they used the traffic sound effects, it helped add realism to the street.

 

[D'Snowth]

IKR? Seems like the mid-to-late 80s or so, they toned way back on that and you more or less heard birds chirping and kids playing . . . which is all well and good, but with this being an inner city street, you expect to hear, well, traffic. Seems like starting around Season 39 they tried to bring back some traffic sounds, but it was very, very subtle; occasionally, you'd also hear other sound effects like dogs barking, and even an elephant trumpeting (must have been Horatio hanging around somewhere).

 

[Drtooth]

When I think about it, it seems to me that people getting upset over scaling back of Muppet characters down to a "core six" is really not that big a deal, because when you think about it, prior to the ATC era, that's pretty much what SST's Muppet cast was like. Sure, there were always additional characters who served purposes in inserts and such, but when you really think about it, SST pretty much had a "core six" cast of Muppets for the longest time: Big Bird, Oscar, Ernie, Bert, Cookie, and Grover; as the 80s progressed, Telly and Elmo ended up being incorporated into the "core" cast.

I've been very mixed about the core cast, as I've stated many times before. On the one hand, let's face it. There were actually too many characters especially in the ATC era. Like Benny and Natasha's family stuck around for a while after. Baby Bear did too, but I still say that was because David needed a signature character. And let's not forget before then, the endless parade of recurring celebrity parody Muppets from the 80's. I love my Alphabeats (yeah, I kniw they debuted in the 70's), Placido Flamingo, and the rest of them. They seemed to be the street puppets that filled in for the other Muppets that were only in studio skits. Like Grover, Ernie and Bert, and the like. None of those guys really stuck around much either, though to be fair Richard kinda died and most of those characters went with him.

I mean, sure...the Elmo thing has been happening since the 90's, but there was a revolving assortment of characters since then. Some to try and add female characters to the show that never lasted. And as I've been saying for a while, the last few seasons passed off regular characters for teaching certain concepts (engineering and self regulation) with loud, obnoxious, sometimes unfunny fairy tale characters.

But on the other side, having a revolving number of Muppets wouldn't hurt either. I don't like how Ernie and Bert fall outside the core six since, well, they predated Big Bird. I get that they'd have a smaller Muppet cast for merchandising and budget reasons, but I really think we need Telly and Baby Bear around as well as the Elmo, Grover, Cookie,Big Bird, Oscar and Abby crowd. Though, on the plus side, Grover, Cookie, Oscar, and Big Bird have bigger roles. Some more than recent years. I can't say "BOOOO" nor can I really say "YAY!" It's...half and half with me.

Now that you mention that, I actually kind of liked when they used the traffic sound effects, it helped add realism to the street.

The thing I've been having trouble for recent years is how Sesame Street is basically Gentrified and has been for the past at least 10 years (so there's a nice little in universe conspiracy as to where Gordon et al went that's kinda depressing to think about). I've complained of using Yoga unironically. As in before Leela was added in to at least give a nice "it came from Indian culture" spin, it was something that only yuppie parents forced their kids into. The street is hardly the lower end of town with litter and dusty looking buildings it was in the 70's, but it's been significantly cleaner as early as the late 70's. But then again, it's very much a realistic street in a neighborhood that got cleaned up and up scale. It's kinda on that sad part that you know one 5 dollar cupcake bar going under signifies the end of the street's Yuppie cred, just before it falls into disrepair yet still has the insane rent costs and all the stores leave. I've seen that happen to too many good neighborhoods.

 

[D'Snowth]

If SST really wanted to "have balls," they should have played ambience like this back in the 70s, considering at that time, SST was inspired by ghettos and hoods:

 

[D'Snowth]

I know this thread's been bumped recently, but I somehow don't even remember being the one who started it, unless somebody else did and their OP was deleted.

 

[Drtooth]

That's what happens when you're on one of these long enough.

As for the subject at hand, I see it this way. No matter what show you've grown up with that's still on the air, if you stop watching it for a while and then all the sudden catch an episode, they're going to be smacked with the differences that were subtle for those who were still paying attention.

To me, Sesame Street achieved perfection on the late 70's right up until 1990. And even then, those were a series of misfortunes beyond their control. And as I've said multiple times, that's when there wasn't so much competition for preschool/educational television. Heck, my PBS ran boring, terrible Canadian filler shows when the big gun shows weren't on. It took freaking Magic School Bus to be the first animated series on PBS, and that was the mid 90's. Let me put it that way.

The thing that we all seem to forget is that Sesame Street doesn't exist in a vacuum. And I bring it up a lot, but it still seems to be lost on some. Even if it did, a show cannot sustain itself that long without things changing gradually. I've seen shows that basically change drastically in the second season so bad, that the show disappears as a result. I really think they nailed the format in between those decades, shedding off some of the aspects that didn't work. Especially the lecture type bits that were basically there because there really wasn't much point of reference of what a kid's show can do, so they just said "let's throw in this one thing from previous kid's shows." More Muppets, more animation, more funny skits and more detailed animated segments.