I honestly don't want to say that we were naive to think that this was going to work, but....
feel free to stop me, cuz you know where this is going.
If children miss Elmo, they should bring him back. He annoys hardcore fans like ourselves because a) we didn't grow up with him, and b) the whole avoidance of personal pronouns thing. BUT the children of today ARE growing up with him, so of course they would be scandalized if he is gone. If Sesame Workshop thinks that Elmo actually helps kids learn, which they seem to, then he should stay regardless of whether we like him or not.
Firstly, I DID grow up with Elmo, but he wasn't all over the place. he was a popular character, sure. But he wasn't that big. It's not that I hate the character. I like Elmo. But not how they use him. I've said it before and I will say it again. I love Winne The Pooh, in reguards to the classic animated short films and the "New Adventures" cartoon. But I HATED when Disney exploited the character, and shoved him into everything to the point they weren't even making Mickey Mouse merchandise anymore. And Donald Duck? Forggeddaboudit!
Elmo has every right to be on SS and interact with the characters. But Elmo's world... well..
I don't mind if they keep Elmo's World on, I understand that kids enjoy it and that's fine. It's more how they remove the other characters that bothers me. The solution shouldn't be to cut out Elmo completely either, there should be a way to combine the old and new. To be honest, even if Elmo's World is popular, I don't believe it's as helpful to children. Elmo was a better character when he played off of the older characters.
I couldn't agree more. Unless the kids are 2. And even then it can't be beneficial because they don't take anything out of it until they are 3. Elmo's World seems to me nothing more than an excuse to have cashed in off the character's popularity at the time. Unfortunately it stuck. I feel deep down, SW wants to keep us happy, even though we are not their target audience. They wanted to try it, and it failed. I give them that credit. But the kids just want what they want, beneficial or not, it has to stay.
I've been lobbying for years that EW becomes its own sepperate show, while SS keeps its hour long run time. EW seems completely different from the show. It doesn't mesh well with the rest of the show.
And I do agree we need to focus on more characters. I thought there was an appauling lack of Big Bird. Unless that's somehow on Carol or Matt's end (unavailability?), I was a little disappointed. We still get some great stuff with Telly and Baby Bear. And we finally got to see Abby
really interract with the cast. But We really didn't have much of Ernie, much less Bert. Not too many new segments with Cookie. And we haven't had a Grover episode since last year.
Then of course, a lot of other characters were lost due to the fact they were going in a direction that favored more filmed segments featuring real kids (used and new) this season. I really hope that tested poorly too.