What year did it all change for the worst?

[JimmyGillentine]

Hello all..... I was wondering what year did Sesame Street change and they gave up over half of the show to Elmo?grouchy: ) I tried to watch it the other day and couldn't stand the thing. I grew up in the 70's when the show was still fun and funny at the same time. But when did it go down hill?

 

[superboober]

I wouldn't quite say it went downhill over the course of a single year. The changes were a somewhat more gradual process to the Elmo-centric show of today. It seems to be a somewhat basic consensus that the last real "old school year," to term it, was 1989. Then there was a first transitional period up to about 1992 when many of the old clips were put out to pasture, and then a second transitional period that went on till roughly 1995 while they found their current indentity. Elmo rose to the top of the heap about the year after that. The final changes were solidified around 1998. I hope this is helpful to what you're asking.

 

[minor muppetz]

Elmo's World was introduced in 1998, though Elmo had already been a major character before then. The format changed in 2002.

 

[JimmyGillentine]

Thanks for the answers. I do understand the reasons behind what they did. Because of the popularity of the 'Tickle me Elmo' doll exsplosion in the early 90's was the main reason why the dreaded Elmo taken over happened. Elmo has become Sesame Workshop's main cash cow and they just played into it. But I guess the show has just lost something because of what they have done.

 

[JLG]

Superboober: I disagree----despite Henson's death, I don't think much really changed at all after 1989. The only significant thing that changed in 1992, as far as I remember, was the theme music. I don't recall them retiring a lot of old material around that time, since there was still quite a lot of it floating around.

It's possible that the tone of the Street segments themselves became a little more sanitized and toned-down during the 90s, moving toward where it's at now, but the other stuff they were showing was the same. Heck, as late as 1997, they were still playing some Kermit and Ernie/Bert clips from 1969. (I had never knowingly seen anything from the first year then, but in hindsight I recognize them) Right up until 1998, the format and much of the stuff they used was unchanged. What changed beginning with '98, besides Elmo's World, was a significant reduction in the number of featured Muppet characters (getting rid of a large "underclass" of secondaries like Roxie Marie and Betty Lou), a dramatic cutback in the amount of older stuff shown, and an overall narrower focus. And of course, in 2002 they finally overhauled the format, though recently they seem to be slowly creeping back towards it.

I defintely think that any changes during most of the 90s were minor---1995 was still an "old" year, in my mind.

 

[Censored]

I really think it was a combination of Jim Henson's death and Northern Calloway's departure and eventual death that made 1989 the end of an era for Sesame Street.

 

[Cookie fan]

Do you think that the passing of Joe Raposo contributed to the "decline" also; I admire his work on a lot of the songs he made for the show. I think he also passed in 1989.
I am not sure when Sesame Street started making "sweetened" versions of animated clips but I never liked the idea of re-airing animated clips and putting an updated musical score in the background...I prefer the original clip as it is. I think that this also had a negative bearing on the show.

 

[SwedishChefCook]

There's a few other things that changed in 1989. Those Classic Colored Barrells in Big Bird's nest area were taken out, also as of 1991 Richard Hunt's charachters no longer appeared on the show in any new material, due to Richard Hunt's illness that he passed away of in 1992.

 

[Cookie fan]

Oh yeah, how could I have forgotten about Richard Hunt, his characters were so great. Gladys the Cow, Forgetful Jones, Don Music....and the list goes on. All the great masters have come and are going. I just wish they could have the same basic formula that has kept the show going for so many years.

 

[mjb1124]

For me, the theme song change in 1992 signified the end of an era. That's also about the time that they started introducing obnoxious (IMHO) new characters like Zoe. Granted, I suppose the writing was on the wall when Henson and Raposo passed away, and the spirit of the show (along with a lot of the material) remained "classic" into the mid-90s. But as a kid (admittedly a slightly older kid than SS's target age), that theme song change seemed like a sign that things were changing for the worse, and in retrospect, I'd have to say that I was right. For the record, I stopped watching the show regularly around 1995, when I was 10.