Welcome to the Muppet Central Forum!
Jim Henson Idea Man
Back to the Rock Season 2
Bear arrives on Disney+
Sam and Friends Book
You're right. I grew up in the Jim era when that was still respected in every aspect of the Street. The magic Sesame formula was creating educational children's entertainment that would appeal to kids while not talking down to them and retaining enough solid humor to effortlessly entertain adults. Post Jim and in PBS' Barney-era all children's entertainment was dumbed-down. It (along with SS) started to become the sort of kiddified media that contradicted the magic that Jim brought to the mix. Sesame Street was a trend-setter that eventually began to follow a fad. A terrible, dull, Barney-influenced fad. My thoughts on today’s Sesame are quite different than they used to be. I do think an effort is being made to revisit their roots, but then a focus-grouped character like Abby appears. Time will tell.
I actually see kind of compromise happening in the past few years. You see character lie Lulu and Murray come along in recent years, and they seem like they are genuine and crated the old way where the performers would play around with a character and who ever had the best fit for it would create and develop it with the writers and producers. Abby to me seems like a compromise. Okay, maybe he first season see seemed like she was out to sell merchandise., but it seems like her performer and the creative people were able to get to her and further in the development of a character that will last and not just be forgotten about down the line. I see good in both aspects of Abby. She can help the Workshop continue to be self supportive and she can be an engaging character that people can like. I forgot who said it; it may have been Christopher Cerf. But most of the Characters that end up last have some kind of obsession to a fault the humans can identify with.
Has anyone had a chance to read Michael Davis' new book Street Gang: The Complete Sesame Street History
I beg your pardon. All I meant was that the depth given to the pre-show was so incredible that I can't wait to see that same amount of depth in the chapters dedicated to the show itself. I too am "willing to learn about Sesame Street's history;" I'm enjoying the meat - but I want the fur too!
-spoilers-
I finally finished the reading the book. It was pretty good; I liked the fact they were branching out to other projects/tv shows that basically pioneered the way to Sesame Street. A LOT of good information, who knew the Captian (Bob Keeshan) was such a scrooge? And it seemed a sad situation with Northern Calloway, after reading the "Nashville incident", I really felt sorry for him. It was also a shocker that he actually came up to Alison O'Reillys high school and proposed to her. This book also changed my view on Micheal Eisner, since I always thought he was sort of a cool, laid back guy, wanting to expand the Muppets into other bigger projects without leaving the whole load on Jim. Instead he seemed like a greedy, selfish kind of guy who wanted all the money to himself, since he kept pressuring Jim to buy the SS Muppets as part of the deal, which we all know, Jim would never let happen. It's frustrating knowing that Eisner, as Cooney said, basically was one of the factors that 'killed him'. Richard Hunt's portions of the book were also interesting, espically his choice of "colorful words" he used to some of his castmates. He seemed like a fun guy to work with. I liked how they explain the whole 'Around the Corner' change thing too. Even though I liked it, I now understand why so many Classic fans didn't approve of it(though I still do not like the bashing of the set, I really don't). I guess the 90's were really a transitional period, not to mention the introducing of Zoe, which I must say, goes into good detail. It seemed as if her introduction was rushed, only really for marketing purposes and to outsell the 'Barney' folks. Let's not forget the whole "Elmo stole the spotlight from Big Bird" thing. I kind of accept it, knowing Elmo basically "saved" SS with the whole "'Tickle Me Elmo' craze". I could go on about the book, and how good it was. I highly recommend. It really goes in- dept about the history of the show (though it did take a LONG while to 'get to' Sesame Street), something fans have been waiting for a while to finally see. What a great 'experiment' this show has turned out to be.
*3/3 Big Birds*
Thank you, Mr. Davis.
As the book said, you either love Elmo or you hate him. Personally I think Elmo is incredibly huggable. LOL, even if I love the
Grouch! One of the things that amazed me, was that for a long time Elmo was a discarded puppet that no one knew quite what to do with.
Well maybe not so oddly enough, tat is the way Frank Oz described Miss Piggy. She just has this unapologetic bravado personality to her and she is how she is and some people liked her for it and some didn't. This was especially true during the hight of her.