Least likeable Sesame character?

[D'Snowth]

Don't forget George Costanza and "GEORGE IS GETTING UPSET!" or "Twix is the ONLY candy with the cookie crunch!" That last one is too hard to say with a straight face when you're angry.

RANDOM GUY: Which one has the swirling chocolate in the commercial?
GEORGE: They ALL got swirling chocolate in the commercials!
OLD GUY: Not Skittles!

 

[CensoredAlso]

Actually, I'm starting to wonder if that wasn't the intention after all. It also seemed to me Mrs. Finch wanted him to go to a traditional family as well... the mother/father2.5 children bit. so I WOULD think that Mrs. Finch's intentions were much purer than what came across, yet she was unaware that for the lack of a traditional family, he had so many friendly motherly and fatherly figures in the adults that lived on the street.

I don't know, I think it was still mainly about prejudice. She does say, "he's a bird, he belongs with his own kind." What changes her mind is that the residents of Sesame Street demonstrate that they've managed to live together with all different kinds and yet still be happy. She didn't think such diversity could equal happiness and stability until she came to Sesame Street. That's what I got out of it.

Plus the movie was made in 1985, kids TV shows would still be discussing issues of race. It's mainly in recent years that issues like "the traditional family" have started to be realistically discussed in society.

 

[WaiterGrover]

Back after a long hiatus... yep, Baby Bear was the character that inspired a "You're kidding me, right?"-reaction from me; at the same time, I was well beyond SS's target audience age upon seeing him, so therefore maybe not a totally fair call? The character I feel completely comfortable in detesting is/was Harvey Kneeslapper... hated him as a kid, feel completely justified in doing so now. Also, SAM the Robot scared the bejeezus out of me- was not sad to see him go, either...

 

[D'Snowth]

I think part of what makes Baby Bear so unpopular is because he's a new(er) character.

It seems to me that when you have a set group of characters for so long (until then, the core group of Muppets pretty much consisted of Big Bird, Snuffy, Ernie, Bert, Cookie Monster, Grover, Telly, Count, Oscar, random AMs, random monsters, random Honkers, random Dingers, etc), and then suddenly bring in random new characters, people aren't going to have such a completely positive reaction... much like the new kid who comes to school, and suddenly everybody's looking at him like "Where'd this guy come from all of the sudden?"

 

[CensoredAlso]

I just feel like some of the newer characters are from a completely different TV show. And then made Sesame Street more like the show they came from, and not always in a good way.

 

[D'Snowth]

Sesame Street's addition of new characters was a LOT of trial and error. For every new character character that stayed on the show, at least 5 others left. Baby Bear, Rosita, Zoe and Abby (so far) have stuck around... we've lost, to name a few, Lulu, Elizabeth and Little Murray Sparkles, Monty, Sherri Netherland, Humphry and Ingrid (shame... I really liked those two), Benny Rabbit, the Monster Clubhouse Monsters.... And some of them were pretty hit or miss characters.

The 90s and early 2000s were obviously a big era for that trial-and-error phase.

Just to name a few others: Ruby Monster, Merry Monster, Chicago the Lion, Kingston Livingston III, Roxie Marie, Joey and Davey Monkey, and even human characters like Mr. Handford, Savion, Carlo, Celina, etc.

 

[Drtooth]

I don't really tend to count the humans... but we've seen a lot of them come and go as well.

But it's all hit and miss. Some characters stay, some don't, some come back for a brief period of time, then disappear again (Mumford, Gladys, The Twoheaded Monster...) It all depends on the writers and the performers.

 

[CensoredAlso]

Off topic but even when I saw the older characters on Muppets Tonight, I was still turned off. The tone was just off for me. So it's not always about fear of something being new. Sometimes it just doesn't work for you.

 

[Drtooth]

Muppets Tonight was the same and different, actually. The main difference being SS gradually changed over time... The Muppets had to completely reinvent the concept to get back on TV. But in a sense, the same people were gone and new characters had to fill those gaps too.

You know something's up when even the writers don't know what direction they're going in. It took them until the last episode to find their direction. Some of the skits worked beautifully (Once in a Lifetime, Co-Dependence Day, Seinfeld Babies) and some just fell completely flat (BayofPigs Watch, Deep Dish 9)... and some of the best stuff (FTPD, Tubbs of Porksmith, Mr. Callahan) weren't even shown in the US.

As for the characters, this was coming at a time when Kermit had a much more diminished role. They didn't know to what extent they wanted to use him, and so the job of hosting was pawned off to another character. I still think Steve wasn't that comfortable being Kermit yet. The MFS commentary track where Kermit ducks out 2 minutes into the movie, and Rizzo takes over until the credits, and Kermit comes back claiming he was lost in The Phantom Menace commentary was a big clue. Likewise, some characters, Johnny, Sal, Pepe, Bobo, and VanNeuter stuck. Most of the other new characters made for the show ended with the show... though they did bring Andy and Randy back for that Cooking Show.

So any new additions are hit or miss anyway. Some stick, some don't... but they are created out of necessity sometimes.

 

[CensoredAlso]

The Muppets had to completely reinvent the concept to get back on TV.

And yet reinventing didn't end up working in their favor. The show didn't last too long and people outside the hardcore fans barely know about it. Franchises are always defending reinvention, but in reality it rarely helps.