Sesame Street Old School DVD's: Not For Kids

[CensoredAlso]

I do find the disclaimer on the Old School sets odd, but I get it. That Sesame reflects a different time with different ideas on what kids should see. And I fully understand dropping the pipe bit with Cookie Monster. I remember when the Mr. Potato Head toy lost his pipe. Different general value-system. But back then there seemed to be more mutual love on the street, not just Elmo's self love.

The only thing I would agree with is the pipe. Beyond that, I think we desperately need many of the values we had years ago, in place of the things that pace for morality in our culture now. But disclaimers like that make anything old seem irrelevant and best forgotten. It's not going to help in the long run.

Btw, I think we're having that post order problem again, lol. I wrote that post below awhile ago!

 

[CensoredAlso]

I do think there are obvious things that should be improved upon with kids that are barely being addressed. Video games in themselves aren't bad, but kids are positively addicted to them. In a similar way, I agree with the experts who say 1 and 2 is way too young to be benefitting from TV watching, possibly doing more damage than good.

Like I said before, it's part of a larger problem. Parents aren't supported in their jobs, they don't have time to be at home. When they are home they have no help, no time to rest. The society is just not supporting parents. And unfortuntately many parents just aren't being smart, partially out of guilt perhaps, they aren't teaching kids morality and common sense.

 

[Beauregard]

Sesame Street "unfit" says The New York Times

Found this on IMDb news this morning:

Early 'Sesame Street' Deemed Unfit for Today's Kids


DVDs of early seasons of Sesame Street bear a warning to parents that they may not be appropriate for small children, the New York Times observed today (Monday). Carol-Lynn Parente, executive producer of Sesame Street noted that in the early days of the show, a regular feature was a parody of Masterpiece Theater, featuring Alistair Cookie, played by Cookie Monster, who appeared with a pipe. "That modeled the wrong behavior," Parente observed. Oscar the Grouch appeared too grouchy. "We might not be able to create a character like Oscar now," she said. The Times also noted that in the DVDs (Volumes 1 and 2) Cookie Monster can be seen "in his former inglorious incarnation: a blue, googly-eyed cookievore with a signature gobble ('om nom nom nom')."

 

[TheJimHensonHour]

Yeah thats what made Sesame Street what it was amazing.
Not the elmo smooshy gooshy fest it is now. God I miss Jim so much.

 

[Drtooth]

YA WANNA HELP KIDS?

TAKE AWAY THE GARBAGE VIDEO GAMES THEY PLAY DAY IN AND DAY OUT! (Fighting games,etc (That would be a start!))


"Sesame street not for kids" YA OK,whats different about the kids of TODAY compared to when we watched in the 80s?

Ill tell you what: THE TRASH THEY ARE SUBJECTED TO WHICH IS OVERLOOKED AND INNOCENT THINGS ARE COMPROMISED INSTEAD! (Like classic sesame street,etc)


TOTALLY UNREAL!

I've said a million times. Right problem, wrong solution. That's like banning fast food places because they target the poor (which indeed somewhere in California is doing), and not trying to help raise the minimum wage or establish a cheap source of fresh foods so families don't have to resort to such.

The problem with SS, what I've been saying for a while now, is all about the the Child Psycologists forcing contradictory reports about things down SW's throats. Since these people helped them in the old days, SW still uses them. But some of their stuff is just rediculous, and doesn't fit together well. I wouldn't be surprised if one of the reasons why we don't see characters like Mumford and Sherlock is that some report said that kids feel stupid if they make mistakes, and these characters help exploit that (making this up, of course). If SW wants to put the show back the way it was, they have to start ignoring the contradictory psychobabble and use their best judgement.

I still think that the disclaimer should have said something about collectors and not "adults only." But hey, today's standard of "educational programming" is anything that shoehorns a moral into every story (in that case, South Park could qualify for e.i.). We're in an age where shows have to be "interactive" (code word for pretend to talk to an audience, ask the viewers a question, and wait five hours to aknowledge an answer not really given) to be kid friendly. And SW was corrupted by its horrible competition.

Plus, now that they made EW a part of every episode for the past 10 years, they can't get away from it even if they wanted to. They've created a Frankenstine.

I actually feel sorry for SW. Criticism from fans all the time, criticism from silly educators and Psychologists, the commercial competition, and they really want to work hard to do the right thing. You can't please everybody.

 

[Ilikemuppets]

It sounds like that Guy in the review didn't know what he was talking about. It's like he was just going on what was reported and not everything by way of fact. Was he watching the scene with Sally and the "strange man"? Didn't he notice that he said that he she was a new student of his and that she came home early because of a parent teaches conference and that he was showing her around? Even through Oscar said something about her not knocking on strangers doors, she didn't and he knows that Gordon very well knows him.

 

[Drtooth]

It sounds like that Guy in the review didn't know what he was talking about. It's like he was just going on what was reported and not everything by way of fact. Was he watching the scene with Sally and the "strange man"? Didn't he notice that he said that he she was a new student of his and that she came home early because of a parent teaches conference and that he was showing her around?

First off, it was a woman. Just thought you'd want to know.

Secondly, rereading the passage in question:

Back then — as on the very first episode, which aired on PBS Nov. 10, 1969 — a pretty, lonely girl like Sally might find herself befriended by an older male stranger who held her hand and took her home. Granted, Gordon just wanted Sally to meet his wife and have some milk and cookies, but . . . well, he could have wanted anything. As it was, he fed her milk and cookies. The milk looks dangerously whole.

Wow... Fozzie, bow to that. that is a truely terrible attempt at humor. Some of this sounds like just the lame attempts at being a comedian of a columnest.

But a lot of that joke stems from the rotten child molesters and horrible other people that just happen to exist in our world. So what do we do now? Scare them? Tell them not to trust anyone so they can grow up paranoid?

How do we know that Gordon didn't know or meet the child's parents or anything before? There could be a hundred explainations why an adult is talking to a child as a friend, and sex offender isn't one of them.

The writer was over thinking for the sake of "Comedy" (or an unreasonable facsimilie). "That milk looks dangerously whole." Wit city...

 

[Ilikemuppets]

Yeah, I get it's a bad joke. Gut Gordon? It's hard to imagine that he'd cause harm to a child's life. I mean he's Gordon.

 

[Muppet Newsgirl]

You know, this semester I'm taking a course on children's literature. Tonight, we were having a long discussion on "ideal" roles in society, as portrayed both in children's books and in popular culture, and it veered into a discussion on how society keeps wanting to cast children as innocent, angelic little beings who need to be shielded from everything.

And you KNOW I chose that moment to bring up what we're discussing here. The prof's been following the issue herself, so we discussed the disclaimers for a bit. She added that her favorite character is Big Bird.

 

[CensoredAlso]

I actually feel sorry for SW. Criticism from fans all the time, criticism from silly educators and Psychologists, the commercial competition, and they really want to work hard to do the right thing. You can't please everybody.

I don't feel all that sorry for them. I know they get pressure from all sides, and that can be very difficult. But they have clearly rearranged their priorities, to the detrament of their audience.

You know, this semester I'm taking a course on children's literature. Tonight, we were having a long discussion on "ideal" roles in society, as portrayed both in children's books and in popular culture, and it veered into a discussion on how society keeps wanting to cast children as innocent, angelic little beings who need to be shielded from everything.

This image of children as angelic little beings...any kid who was teased and ostracized in school by his/her peers knows this is not always true. Kids aren't born evil. But neither are they born entirely good, in my opinion. They need to be taught empathy and compassion by example, or it is so easy for them to start ignorning it. One of the most important jobs a parent has is to help their child build a conscience.

I suppose it's possible for Elmo's World to teach about bullying. But then, they'd need to have a genuinely bullying character, meaning one that isn't always happy and cheerful and perfect, heh. (Thinking about, those characters often fell to Richard Hunt to perform.)

Like it says in the musical Into the Woods, "Children will look to you for which way to turn, to learn what to be. Careful before you say 'listen to me.' Children will listen." It's an uplifting yet at the same time ominous message...

I do not want my kids to learn that being grouchy is always a bad thing. Or that old things are meant to be thrown away and forgotten, regardless of quality. Or if you don't like the popular character, if you don't toe the line, you're out of luck.

I don't want them to see an unrealisticly perfect world without a soul. I'd rather have them see a slightly imperfect world that can be improved with compassion and learning.