See I don't see those as bad results. They were just human results. We can't always rush in and make sure kids are "all right" 24/7 and never upset. That's not real life. Kids have every right to be angry and upset during a divorce. It seems to me the only people benefiting from kids not panicking are the parents who are trying to avoid guilt.
I just don't think it makes divorce real enough. A kid might see this Abby segment and think "Well divorce is something that happens to other people and they're fine now but it's not something I need to worry about." But if divorce actually does happen to them, it's a very different story. It's a lot harder to handle when it's actually happening to you.
Taking that to the extreme, though, kids can always think, "Well, it happens to someone else" unless they go through it themselves. I sure see enough of that with people who - if they ever did do a will or estate plan - it was in their 20s when they named a guardian for their kid, and now they're in their 80s and that kid who the will names a guardian for is a 50-year-old Executor. People don't like to think about death or divorce. And, adults don't want to be blamed either - divorce is so comlpex that kids could think it's always one way when it's not. (Plus, adults don't want to take blame for things, sadly.)
WHen you think about it, the Abby approach is the same as Mr. Hooper's death - we don't see him in the hospital on life support. We don't see him calling all the grandMuppets and dying a few minutes after talking to Big Bird one last time, and Big Bird saying, "If I hadn't talked to him he wouldn't have died!" (An actual quote from my then 7YO cousin who knew our grandpa was calling the grandkids to say goodbye one last time. She thought he was waiting till he talked to everyone and so if he hadn't talked to her he'd have stayed alive)
That's the kind of misunderstanding kids make, and while it would have been good to tweak the Snuffy episode to talk about feelings a little more, you'd have still had the problem that - unless they broke the fourth wall and explained to kids that it wasn't going to happen to them just becasue their parents fight - it would be hard not to scare them needlessly. (Although I should add that, having not seen the Snuffy ep., it's possible that they *did* have another character say, "But, my parents fight and they never get divorced.")
Children need to be eased into things. This is a good start. Maybe later they can have flashbacks - I would think if you frame it a certain way kids say know "this was in the past" - in the Abby story so we can know it had a beginning, middle and an end just like a storybook. Once the concept is explained, *then* they can go over more of the raw emotions.
It would have been too scary if Mr. Hooper had called the grandMuppets and said goodbye hours before his death, like my grandpa 14.5 years ago. However, it would have scared kids needlessly (callings omeone won't kill them) and painted an unrealistic picture (not everyone gets the chance to saya last goodbye). Afterward, though, in a flashback or remembering it after the fact of his deth has been set up, maybe it could hve worked.
Some of this is, of course speculation - I don't know how how a tweaked Snuffy Plan would have worke. However, I do know that there's one very good reason I think they used Abby, one that I'm surprised nobody on here has mentioned yet. (Someone did bring up the bird with two nests, though, which I also recalled.) It's a reason that I thought would be the first thing they'd have thought of.
Magic can't solve it.
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Divorce is a long, painful process that will last long after the episode ends.
