Sesame went down hill when Elmo came on the scene

[Janice & Mokey's Man]

Bark! Bark!

*I* like Elmo!

Bark!

Okay okay, that's fine! I respect your difference!

Really!

I do!

*throws ya a bone*

 

[jeffkjoe]

Like him or not, he is going to be with Sesame as long as he remains popular with SS's core audience....NOT meant for anyone over 5.

 

[mikebennidict]

i've read some of theese posts and some of them without meaning to be disrespectfull of anyones thoughts or the kids watchingf the shows., 1 person said the target audience age dropped from 5-6- 3- whatever. well the earliest memories i have is at age 2 and remember watching SS Mr. Rogers and others back then as. well. i never had anyone wtch the shows with me. maybe sometimes. i still enjoyed them. on some other site researchers say kids have shorter attention spans wich is part of why SS has changed so dramaticly. wich as far as i'm concerned is society's fault.

 

[Erine81981]

Now I'm not wanting to bump this thread but man! I read one of my oldest post and man was I not a fan of Season 34 of Sesame Street. Now there were a few episodes I did enjoy but I was saying things like bring back certain older characters. I'm glad to see that a few older characters have come back since 16 years ago. Now yes I didn't care for Elmo's World but I never hated on Elmo or the segment. I just wanted the full hour of the show that I grew up with but I have gotten older and since then I have really enjoyed the show with it even being only 30 minutes long now.

But I would never put Sesame Street down no matter what happens. It's still being able entertain and teach kids but also entertaining adults too.

 

[YellowYahooey]

Nothing against Elmo, but I lost interest in the show by February 1985. Elmo was not the reason, though. One of the reasons was because of the easing down in the number of letter segments, but the primary reason was because of the letter pairings being consecutive letters for much of the first half of the season which made for a boring hour. That trend started to ease down by March 1985, but regardless, I was concerned that the consecutive letter pairings would be a daily routine for the whole season, plus the newer segments then were not appealing enough to me, which made me declare, regarding my interest in the show, the writing was on the wall, and my decision to cease watching the show was finalized in February 1985. Maybe it was a case of me outgrowing the show by that point.

I was also not a fan of Season 11 for the same reasons.

 

[LittleJerry92]

My honest opinion? The show never went downhill. It’s when I begun to lose interest is where I look into things.

In the end, Sesame Street is always fresh with new ideas that the kids will enjoy. For me, I pretty much stopped after 40.

 

[D'Snowth]

I'm kind of inclined to agree with the sentiments of people like Frank Oz, Joey Mazzarino, and such.

From Frank's perspective (and even others like Caroll Spinney, Ken Diego, and the like), one of the things that made SS so special back in the day was the camaradery among the cast and crew - you really felt like everybody was a big family, they really were your neighbors, and they felt like real people who really cared about each other . . . that did carry on for decades, but in recent years, as older people have left us for one reason or another, and other factors have been brought into play (such as dwindling the number of cast members), that sense of camaradery has weakened, and there really isn't much chemistry or a sense of family anymore. Not to mention, as people like KarWash and others have pointed out, the human actors feel less like themselves, and more like quirky kids show personalities: the Alan of today feels nothing like the Alan of the late 90s and early 2000s, even though he's still Alan Muraoka.

The other thing, I feel, from both Frank and Joey's perspective is SS has lost quite a bit of its charm as it tries harder and harder to compete in the ever-growing world of pre-school entertainment. Of course, it continues to keep up with the times, culturally speaking, but there's definitely a lack of "hipness" (as Frank has said) that actually made it appealing, and I'm inclined to agree with Joey that the drastic cutback on parodies, sly writing, and the like have really made SS lose its heart and soul. Yes, it was always a kids show, but the parodies and the bits/sketches/inserts that were written in a way to help offer older audiences with humor they could understand without it being inappropriate for kids is what really helped make the show what it was . . . without that, it feels like almost any other ordinary kiddy show. That, and to, as Shane has pointed out multiple times, there's really no substance to street stories anymore: they rarely have any actual engaging plot structure anymore, and they're, more-or-less, "random things happening" with some educational content thrown in.

To me, this is how and when SS has gone downhill.

 

[Oscarfan]

I've been much more tolerant of changes made that others opposed over the last several years because there was always still good stuff in them. Take the Season 33 format change - some things didn't really work, but hey, there were a slew of new, funny Cookie Monster sketches.

Since the season 46 changes, I'm finding it very hard to be as forgiving.

 

[D'Snowth]

I didn't mind the format change of Season 33 at all, in fact, I kind of liked the "structure" it gave the show, though I won't deny that having those couple of "experimental" episodes from Season 38 that reverted back to the magazine format, since those particular street stories were meant to be broken into chapters anyway did feel like a treat. Sure, it was a little disorienting at first, as were some of the short-lived cosmetic changes made to the street itself, but in the longrun, I wasn't as critical over the format changes like some people were, either.

I will say, though, that shortening the show from an hour to a half hour is part of why it doesn't feel like the same show anymore.

 

[BlakeConor14]

Let’s remember the most important thing
This show isn’t designed for muppet freaks... It’s for pre school kids

For a show to stay relevant and continue to grab the attention of people which it has for 51 years is because it has to change and adapt to the current world and if you don’t like it, don’t watch. You’re not the TA anyway and that’s something I’ve always found on here, people want it to be the same show and the muppets in general to be the ones they remember from 35 years ago which is never gonna be the case