Elmo's Popularity?

[Mupp]

It's just one of those things I just don't see or agree with. I know they needed to get kids attention at the 3/4 point of the show, but they should have done what Abby and Ernie and Bert managed to do, take the characters out of their environment and have them go on interesting adventures.... I still say SS can get rid of EW, just replace it with Elmo doing something else for 5-10 minutes or so.

Yeah, that's what is nice about Abby and Ernie and Bert's new segments, they go on adventures and actually do interesting things.
On that note, I really enjoyed the Fairy School segment when they took a field trip to Colonial Trollumsberg. That was really interesting and fun to watch, and it gave a really good message.
And yes I would be really glad if they did something different with Elmo, having him actually go on an adventure and do something interesting.

 

[Drtooth]

There's a rumor going around that Elmo will have a new overseas show, much like Cookie's Munchin' Impossible... if anything, it promises to be shorter. I'd love to see them replace EW with that, or at least experiment with switching between it and EW for a season. I still say if you cut out the random counting, the let's see how you X segment, shorten Mr. Noodles's capering and above all, take the rest of it with pruning shears, you could turn a 15 minute segment into a shorter 10 minute or less bit without any effort. Hey! They trimmed the Murray segments of their guessing game openings. That shaved off a good 3 minutes or so.

 

[Mupp]

You know, I may not care for Elmo's World, but I LOVED "Cookie World"
It would be great if they could do that again sometime.

 

[beakerfan76]

Oh yes, a topic I've always wanted to elaborate on since I joined this forum.

First things first, I watched Sesame Street since I was a literal baby, but these were tapes that contained 70's/80's episodes. The Elmo I knew was a representation of a smaller kid, maybe a toddler, who liked to be a second banana to his/her older sibling.

Fast forward to the late 90's, when I was around 4-5, the Tickle Me Elmo craze began. I remember getting a variant with Cookie Monster back in 1997. Anyway, I blame this as the reason why Elmo pretty much is the king of the Street nowadays. Companies saw him as a marketable character along the lines of Mickey Mouse or SpongeBob.

Not to mention, the dumbing down of competing shows like Dora (Which i despise) and Boobah (Seriously, what the heck is that stuff?). Sure, there are good pre-K shows out there (Max and Ruby, Wow Wow Wubbzy, and Martha Speaks to name a few), but the weird, borderline trippy (I'm looking at you, Yo Gabba Gabba), and stupid outweigh the clever. Sure, Sesame Street is still good, still retaining the charm I assume many of you felt. No, Elmo isn't a horrible character. Sure he's marketable, but the Elmo's World segments are a bit of overkill.

When Grover was popular, the last chunk of the show wasn't completely devoted to him. Neither to Bert, Ernie, Big Bird, Telly, or even Guy Smiley, The Count, or the Yip-Yips.

Case in point, thanks to factors like the degeneration of children's programming mixed with corporate shenanigans and coupled with many veteran Muppeteers no longer with us/extremely busy made Elmo what he is today.

 

[Drtooth]

Fast forward to the late 90's, when I was around 4-5, the Tickle Me Elmo craze began. I remember getting a variant with Cookie Monster back in 1997. Anyway, I blame this as the reason why Elmo pretty much is the king of the Street nowadays. Companies saw him as a marketable character along the lines of Mickey Mouse or SpongeBob.

Not to mention, the dumbing down of competing shows like Dora (Which i despise) and Boobah (Seriously, what the heck is that stuff?). Sure, there are good pre-K shows out there (Max and Ruby, Wow Wow Wubbzy, and Martha Speaks to name a few), but the weird, borderline trippy (I'm looking at you, Yo Gabba Gabba), and stupid outweigh the clever. Sure, Sesame Street is still good, still retaining the charm I assume many of you felt. No, Elmo isn't a horrible character. Sure he's marketable, but the Elmo's World segments are a bit of overkill.

That's what I've been saying for years. We keep forgetting what happened in the 90's, well before Dora. The children's television industry was rocked by a none too clever show about an upper middle class suburban red school house, where the kids couldn't act, the songs were all stolen and cheaply synthesized, and a cheap Maroon Dinosaur suit was worshiped like a cult. A low quality home video series which could have been totally forgotten. The entire industry has been in free fall since. Remember the horrid knockoffs like Dudley the Dragon, Bloopy's Buddies (which was a very unfortunate career stop for Johnathon Winters)... even Sesame Street needed to call people in to combat this guy, and he was on the SAME network.

Fast forward to the late 90's and Blue's Clues. The first in an unfortunate and overcrowded array of lame TV shows pretending to be interactive. By which, I mean the characters stand around waiting to answer their own questions during an interminable (and oddly growing) period of silence.

As for Boohbah? That was a commercial failure. The characters were fugly, there was no attempt of making it interesting for anyone over the age of 1 that isn't on an illegal substance, and I couldn't make it through a whole minute. Tellitubbies at least had those rumors about the purple one being a symbol of Gay... and without that, I don't think it would have lasted half as long as it did. Boobah died a just death, if a lengthy one. NO ONE bought the merchandise. Waves of stuuff went on deep discount clearance. That's total fail to me. Even the Narnia 2 movie toys were tossed out with more dignity.

 

[Yorick]

That's what I've been saying for years. We keep forgetting what happened in the 90's, well before Dora. The children's television industry was rocked by a none too clever show about an upper middle class suburban red school house, where the kids couldn't act, the songs were all stolen and cheaply synthesized, and a cheap Maroon Dinosaur suit was worshiped like a cult. A low quality home video series which could have been totally forgotten. The entire industry has been in free fall since. Remember the horrid knockoffs like Dudley the Dragon, Bloopy's Buddies (which was a very unfortunate career stop for Johnathon Winters)... even Sesame Street needed to call people in to combat this guy, and he was on the SAME network.

Fast forward to the late 90's and Blue's Clues. The first in an unfortunate and overcrowded array of lame TV shows pretending to be interactive. By which, I mean the characters stand around waiting to answer their own questions during an interminable (and oddly growing) period of silence.

Right on! It was so weird (and sad!) to lean from "Street Gang" that my theory was EXACTLY right - Barney's popularity made everything change for the worst, including the negative changes to SS...all because "Kids love Barney, so we gotta make SS more like Barney" - well, when you learn how SS came about, (making better use of children's love of TV - due to a child staring transfixed at a test pattern or whatever) that pretty much says it all. Of course they love Barney - they love test patterns if you let them see them! What a shame