Your Thoughts: Sesame Street Season 41

[Oscarfan]

Holy cow, they're playing "I Gotta Be Clean"!

 

[Drtooth]

You see how good a story can be when Elmo actually EMOTES and is used as a character instead of a mascot? There's nothing better than Zoe's pet rock Rocko to bring out emotion in the little red fuzzball. I especially liked his little Seinfeld-esque "Hello....Rocko."

Other than that, as Oscarfan pointed out, the only other major highlight of the episode was the surprise "I've got to Be Clean" usage. That's a rare one... I only saw it myself a couple times.

I guess we should be thankful we haven't seen any Super Grover 2.0 three times in a season (unless they did for the "new" episodes made out of reruns), but they really dropped the ball in only making 6 segments. But I guess due to budgets and all that they had not much of a choice on that one.

I'd lose whatever Muppetistic integrity I've got if I didn't mention this... those "Do you see X hidden in the rock" segments? They're terrible. Really... just the worst thing on SS I've seen since Time to Play. Dry, not interesting in any way... if they at LEAST had a Muppet character narrate it, it would be significant that there's a Muppet narrating it. Yeah, my hopes (I said this posts earlier) are dashed... they made pretty much made a LOT of those lame things.

And really, anyone else dislike the segment about some lame kid's musician talking about emotions with footage of kids? Really, that seemed like something clear out of any other show EXCEPT Sesame Street.

 

[Oscarfan]

As for the film, I only liked it because they haven't been making many non-letter/number segments recently. Stuff like the "I Love My Hair" bit is what they should make more of; they have plenty sponsor inserts.

 

[Drtooth]

I agree they need more non-sponser partial non-focus curriculum segments. Though, even if the film were better done, I felt it was twice as long as it should have been.

I dunno... there was something sort of patronizing about the guy's tone that rubbed me the wrong way.

 

[Drtooth]

I can't freaking believe they showed TruMud AGAIN! This is getting pathetic.

 

[Wembleyfan]

I Have Seen 3 Episdoes So Far, And They Aren't Tha Bad Actually, Their Pretty Cool!

 

[Drtooth]

So, like... no comments on the last 3 episodes of the season? Especially since we had 2 Oscar plot lines in a row?

 

[PinballStewie]

I don't know if I'd count adult T-shirts... but I DID see him as a bus driver in a Learning Curve die cast vehicle. Unfortunately, it was just a sticker... and I swear he was on a kid's puzzle too.

Never thought of that... turning him into a generic monster... that would only be good for the fact we're seeing him and nothing else. Herry is a giant child that knows he's strong, but doesn't know to what extent... he's also a very gentle giant... a little tiny bit grouchy, but not a grouch. he is a very subtle character... maybe moreso than Big Bird. I really want the writers to find a vehicle for him, and again I suggest big brother figure for Elmo. Grover has that relationship of sorts... but almost an Inspector Gadget to Penny relationship... Elmo admires Grover, but in the end exceeds the master. We have Matt and we have Jerry... I'd love to see them try the character.

Sherlock Hemlock, however, I don't necessarily see coming back, but he SHOULD. Their has been a great resurgence of the actual character (the Robert Downy Jr. movie, the new PBS miniseries, even the Muppets and Tom and Jerry recently had encounters with Sherlock). I don't expect to see him as a major presence... but maybe a one episode shot like Guy Smiley had a couple seasons ago.

Realize I haven't been here in awhile, but your comment about Sherlock Hemlock made me think of ANOTHER "obscure" Sesame Muppet - The Amazing Mumford - being that there is now a BAND called "Mumford and Sons", they should USE Mumford (the Muppet) in a segment, perhaps singing a song about the letter M called "Little Letter M" (parody of "Little Lion Man"). I know the original song had a swear in the chorus, but if they can even ATTEMPT to get Katy Perry on the show, I see no reason Mumford and Sons can't be used, parody or otherwise!

 

[Drtooth]

I'm really surprised no one's talking about this season now that it's more or less over (at least the entirely new ones, I'm not following the reused footage ones). But I might as well give a round up. And of course, it's going to have a lot of what I was saying the entire season long.

Super Grover 2.o was brilliant. It had an amazing feel of the original Super Grover segments, all the while mocking Super Hero revamps to make them edgier and darker (especially Chris Nolan's Batman movies). However, why were only 6 made? They should have made a few more at least, and while I'm going to discuss that in a second, it leads to multiple views of a singular episode in a supposedly new episode.

Ooh... SW sure spoils its young viewers... 3 new Abby segments after ones that aired 3 times already? Add to the fact the season expanded into 40 something episodes. There are just about 13 episodes of that segment... add it to last season and the extra episodes of this one... that's 70 episodes to fit 13 episodes into... you're guaranteed to see them all at least 5 or 6 times. Not counting reruns. They really made a HUGE mistake making it a daily segment, instead of an alternating one. No matter how many Michael Jackson or Zha Zha Gabor jokes they make, they're not funny or interesting after the 6th time. This is becoming the show's dead weight, and way before its time too.

Which gets me to the repeated footage. I said it so many times this season, but let's face it... they did it so many times. COOL IT with the repeat footage. You have 26 "new" episodes this season, and an additional 14 ones made out of old episodes. You have at least 15 years of newer footage that can fit into the extra slots and you wind up showing TruMud and Will I Am twice. I know there's an annoying budget problem over there, but there's no excuse for that.

All reused footage, especially longer 10 minute segments do is give kids the excuse to change on to one of a hundred inferior competitors. If they want to keep their viewership, they NEED to limit the reused footage, and put longer TV parody segments on a shelf for a year to be used season after the next. This isn't the first season where they could show snappy 30 second segments twice on a single episode like a commercial in one of over a hundred episodes per season.

Onto something a bit more positive, the Aniboom stuff was brilliant. SW needs to start recruiting more indie animators to do curriculum friendly segments. The in-house stuff they have (especially for double digit numbers) is becoming very weak. The "find the number in the pebbles" bit especially. Dull dull dull. I'm sure no kid likes or pays attention to something that dry and visually unappealing.

And above all, when the stories were strong they were VERY strong. When they were weak, they were VERY weak. How many the heck guessing games do we need in a single season? I'm sure there's some pressure on the writers to pump those out. The one with Bert's 2 second cameo was TERRIBLE, and just perfectly generic and exactly the same as Cowmonster Pair from last year (only not half as interesting). I'm really hating the nature initiative more than I hate the health one. Yes, different animals eat different things, sound different and yes... LOOK different. That's like a whole season (half of this and last year's) of similar episodes. The reused footage is one thing, but the identical plot lines? Even little kids WILL take notice and they'll lose more and more viewers to the inferior competition. I HATE initiatives. SW has always dealt with different subject matters WITHOUT shoving it down kids' throats so bluntly.

But then again, the episodes that were good were GREAT! Oscar's Grouch Mothers' Day? That's an instant classic. Iron Monster? We need to bring him back with Elmo as Wash Machine in 2 years. Big Bird and Snuffy were in some epic ones as well. We need more fun episodes like that and less "Which one of these animals is a specific species" junk.

Overall a very mixed bag, slightly better than last year.

 

[Daffyfan4ever]

So, like... no comments on the last 3 episodes of the season? Especially since we had 2 Oscar plot lines in a row?

Yeah. I noticed that, but I can comment on 'Dirtballs' now since I've seen it for the first time today. Overall, I thought that was a good episode. Oscar plots are always good because it's a twist from the usual plot. Sort of like in animation and in movies when the villian tries to wreck havoc, but the good guys prevail using the bad guy to wallow in his own misery. It was a shame they deleted the scene with Bert though. It would have been nice to see that. But it was good to see Susan in that ep. That's the first she appeared twice per season in quite a while. I also liked the Super Grover 2.0 bit.

Grover: It's like talking to a brick wall.

Chicken: It IS a brick wall.

I knew that joke was coming. : )