Sesame "Muppet Diplomacy" in the news

[beaker]

And the oil! Don't forget the oil. I never said that the war was about oil... ego, father issues, politicking, the machinations of the so called Religious Right... but never oil.

But that's besides the point.

The one thing I feel bugs me about Sesame Street is that SW has the major guts to open up new co-productions in war torn places of the world, so the kids can grow up, again, to NOT be the bitter sheep robots created by their own greedy governments who could care less if they live or die. They have the unmitigated gaul to do something so brave and amazing in other countries... and in the US they're totally at the mercy of parental groups and quack child psychologists. Cookie Monster keeps having to stress eating healthy food? Rigid formulaic structure in every episode? Copying the so called educational content of vastly inferior one note wonder shows on cable?

Seriously... if they're brave enough to send valuable puppeteers to sometimes dangerous parts of the world to train people in the good fight, the're brave enough to have songs like "Everyone loves Ice Cream," an SNL style format (last time I checked, it's still on the air) and Cookie Monster eating everything in sight.

That my friend is a seriously good point.

Yeah I mean you see these documentaries, and Ganz and company are having SW reps go out and train people in really devastated war torn and disease/poverty/chaos wracked countries. Risking even their lives to provide this sort of
great hope for a new generation.

Yet here...PBS is under threat of defunding, everything has to be rigidly under the microscope of parent groups, watchdogs, "PC", etc.

It's gotten so bad that SW, in trying to appease us older fans with "Old School", had to freaking slap warnings on the shows.
Because...you know, showing inner city black children circa 1970's playing in less than upper middle class surroundings is OH MY GOSH SO SHOCKING! Hide Timmy and Ashley, poor black kids
are playing with used tires!
Look how they banned the Rosevelt Franklin character.

I'm not suppose to talk about this, but eh...whatever. Pretty much, the PILLAR of Sesame Street Caroll Spinney had to get a lawyer to protest this massive pay decrease Sesame Workshop was trying to impose as well as some of the things said to him and the way he was treated. There was also some backroom politics that I think a lot of fans here would be shocked at...alas, not all is rosy all the time on 123 Sesame.

It breaks my heart knowing all the layoffs that the Henson family and Sesame Workshop has made in the last decade, and I wish that JHC never moved from NYC.

But back to your point, overall I will have to say I think it cannot be overstated the importance Sesame Street has made and or attempted to make in many many countries out there.
So for that, I salute SW and the people behind the effort.

*As an addendum caveat, I apologize to some for the rather frank and ugly themes discussed in this thread. However, when you see The World According to Sesame Street, When Muppets Dream of Peace, or keep abreast of current events it's pretty clear we live in a seriously messed up world.*

 

[Drtooth]

Yet here...PBS is under threat of defunding, everything has to be rigidly under the microscope of parent groups, watchdogs, "PC", etc.

And competition from inferior garbage like Dora and Blue's Clues... Heck, when Barney came about SS had to scramble like crazy to be in his white suburban school house world. (I gotta get Street Gang and read the whole thing... not just flip through half a chapter every time I'm at a book store). I say it enough times, but NONE of these shows are fit to dent Oscar's can. SS does all this beautiful stuff all over the world, and Dora... well... she makes the AUDIENCE do all the work. She spends half the show listening to her own answers.

It's gotten so bad that SW, in trying to appease us older fans with "Old School", had to freaking slap warnings on the shows.
Because...you know, showing inner city black children circa 1970's playing in less than upper middle class surroundings is OH MY GOSH SO SHOCKING! Hide Timmy and Ashley, poor black kids
are playing with used tires!
Look how they banned the Rosevelt Franklin character.

But back to your point, overall I will have to say I think it cannot be overstated the importance Sesame Street has made and or attempted to make in many many countries out there.
So for that, I salute SW and the people behind the effort.

Those 2 paragraphs explain it perfectly... I'm gonna start another thread on it... but SS is a bold, amazing show that did so many things... and everyone treats it as just another kid's show... and that's why it became such. Again, I half expect 123 Sesame Street and Hoopers Store to be Bulldozed and replaced with Luxury Condos that never get funding and leave a rusting crane in the middle of it. That's how gentrified the street has become. I'd also expect Hoopers to be a coffee house with 5 dollar cupcakes that taste like various alcoholic drinks (cough cough cough... there's one like that in Somerville MA...cough cough). None of this is the same, dingy, dirty, lower class neighborhood that they were trying to reach out to in 1969. They've turned it into the cleaned up, upper class neighborhood where the parental group's heads live. Sickening.

 

[mikebennidict]

That my friend is a seriously good point.

Yeah I mean you see these documentaries, and Ganz and company are having SW reps go out and train people in really devastated war torn and disease/poverty/chaos wracked countries. Risking even their lives to provide this sort of
great hope for a new generation.

Yet here...PBS is under threat of defunding, everything has to be rigidly under the microscope of parent groups, watchdogs, "PC", etc.

It's gotten so bad that SW, in trying to appease us older fans with "Old School", had to freaking slap warnings on the shows.
Because...you know, showing inner city black children circa 1970's playing in less than upper middle class surroundings is OH MY GOSH SO SHOCKING! Hide Timmy and Ashley, poor black kids
are playing with used tires!

Oh stop it!

you're being outrageous with that last statement and you know it.

 

[mikebennidict]

And competition from inferior garbage like Dora and Blue's Clues... Heck, when Barney came about SS had to scramble like crazy to be in his white suburban school house world. (I gotta get Street Gang and read the whole thing... not just flip through half a chapter every time I'm at a book store). I say it enough times, but NONE of these shows are fit to dent Oscar's can. SS does all this beautiful stuff all over the world, and Dora... well... she makes the AUDIENCE do all the work. She spends half the show listening to her own answers.




Those 2 paragraphs explain it perfectly... I'm gonna start another thread on it... but SS is a bold, amazing show that did so many things... and everyone treats it as just another kid's show... and that's why it became such. Again, I half expect 123 Sesame Street and Hoopers Store to be Bulldozed and replaced with Luxury Condos that never get funding and leave a rusting crane in the middle of it. That's how gentrified the street has become. I'd also expect Hoopers to be a coffee house with 5 dollar cupcakes that taste like various alcoholic drinks (cough cough cough... there's one like that in Somerville MA...cough cough). None of this is the same, dingy, dirty, lower class neighborhood that they were trying to reach out to in 1969. They've turned it into the cleaned up, upper class neighborhood where the parental group's heads live. Sickening.

Inspite the fact inner city kids were the target audience, I don't think they ever considered SS to be a slum.

Everyone had good paying jobs just like now.


I don't know what you're trying to prove by these obnocxious statements, I'm certainly not impressed.

 

[beaker]

Oh stop it!

you're being outrageous with that last statement and you know it.

A bit over the top yes, but how does one explain this?

On the first release, each episode is preceded by a newly made animated segment introducing the episode, featuring "Bob" (a blobbly-type human not related to Bob McGrath, done in the style of the era) telling his memories of the show, and how it developed; notably, the segment that precedes the first episode from November 1969 includes Bob reading a disclaimer warning parents that the DVD is aimed at adults and that these early episodes no longer necessarily reflect the most commonly accepted practices in preschool programming. This disclaimer is also used on Volume 2, where each episode opens and closes with new animated segments featuring the anthropomorphic typewriter created by Jeff Hale.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/index.html?curid=8266354

 

[Drtooth]

I don't know what you're trying to prove by these obnocxious statements, I'm certainly not impressed.

And I have no idea what you're trying to prove by being argumentative in EVERY single post of yours. Really. Calm down.

And pot calling the kettle black on obnoxious.

 

[CensoredAlso]

I will say I find their discomfort at showing kids playing in a junk yard disapointing. And the fact that they've made the showing generally more suburban and less inner city. Poverty in America will not suddenly stop just because Sesame Street stops showing it.

And "slums" may not be a pretty word, but they do exist. And Sesame Street was originally suppose to represent that. People in "slums" certainly have jobs, but that doesn't mean they're living conditions are the way they should be.

 

[mikebennidict]

And I don't think SS ever showed kids playing in a junkyard, that doesn't sound logical and SS is still set along an inner city street so it's not like they've moved away from status quo.

Think it's all in your head.

 

[CensoredAlso]

And I don't think SS ever showed kids playing in a junkyard, that doesn't sound logical and SS is still set along an inner city street so it's not like they've moved away from status quo.

In Sesame Street Old School Vol. 1. Though I should have said "construction site." Plus a couple of the early show openings showed kids playing with junk on the street. It's a fact of life for many inner city kids that they have to play in potentially dangerous areas. It was perfectly logical to show such things.

And just because the show technically still takes place in an inner city doesn't mean the overall tone of the show hasn't changed.

Think it's all in your head.

You're entitled to your opinion.

But clearly I'm not the only one who's noticed this.

When I said junkyard eariler I was probably thinking of Fat Albert, yet another well respected educational show for kids that wasn't afraid to show the realities of inner city life. And a show that would probably be scolded today for not showing a cute little suburban school playground. Again, just because kids shows aren't showing it, doesn't mean the problem has also disapeared.

 

[Drtooth]

When I said junkyard eariler I was probably thinking of Fat Albert, yet another well respected educational show for kids that wasn't afraid to show the realities of inner city life. And a show that would probably be scolded today for not showing a cute little suburban school playground. Again, just because kids shows aren't showing it, doesn't mean the problem has also disapeared.

Heck... if they showed Fat Albert in this day and age, he would be called Thin, active, Healthy Albert... and he'd probably be white.

And these days, the problem didn't "disapear"... it just got worse. SW is supposedly making a special Listen, Talk, Connect special about how the economy is utter trash now. Too bad it looks like the dingy, urban, crowded inner city style has been down played so much. It really could have stressed the point. And I never thought that it was a "slum"... just an inner City apartment. You know... back when inner city apartments cost less than buying a house.

I find it highly amusing in a sick way. In the World According to Sesame, they had to make segments for one co-production about what to do if you find an unexploded grenade... they have to drop the letter segment for it, so they don't favor one set of letters over another. And the original American production's biggest problem is not showing healthy food segments every 2 minutes... because it's certainly Cookie Monster's fault our kids are so pampered, fat and lazy.