Sesame Street Season 42 News

[ISNorden]

My Frog! That sounds like a VERY important episode, and the stuff SW SHOULD be doing. More people need to speak out about bullying, and what better place and time than Sesame Street for the younger generation. Kindergarten, sometimes preschool is when the archtype and the beginning of cliques start coming into play... that's a nice time to drill that into the kids' heads.

Darn right! Remember when the Workshop actually listened to kids talking about their own problems, instead of taking special interest groups' advice on heavy-handed curriculum initiatives? The bullying episode sounds like the kind of thing Sesame Street used to show when the writers consistently did their job well. Centering the story on Big Bird makes logical sense too; Elmo's and Abby's cliques can't be in the spotlight all the time, and neither group seems violent or intolerant enough to play the bullies.

Mr Rogers completely disappeared from my PBS market about a year before he died. Then, when he did, they felt obligated to bring it back... and they soon took it off the air the following season. It's not even getting the 5:30 AM on a Sunday treatment Reading Rainbow did. Still, I find the Kid's PBS digital channel a complete waste, showing shows that are currently on the air and randomly showing Antiques Roadshow and The Civil War once 5 PM rolls around. They run Julia Child, for crying out loud!

THIS is why Sprout needs a "Remember When Show" (or however they'd treat a retro programming block) by the time most preschoolers are asleep. Adults who can record the older stuff for their kids would get a chance to do it; those who can't (or who don't have kids) would at least get a good nostalgia fix.

 

[JEANYLASER]

Thanks for the info! I can't wait to see the new season of Sesame Street!

 

[BIGMuppetFan]

For anybody who wants to know, You can watch Full Classic Episodes of "Mr. Rogers Neighborhood" on the PBS Kids Website

I wish they would post Full classic "Sesame Street" Episodes online that be really cool

 

[Drtooth]

Darn right! Remember when the Workshop actually listened to kids talking about their own problems, instead of taking special interest groups' advice on heavy-handed curriculum initiatives? The bullying episode sounds like the kind of thing Sesame Street used to show when the writers consistently did their job well. Centering the story on Big Bird makes logical sense too; Elmo's and Abby's cliques can't be in the spotlight all the time, and neither group seems violent or intolerant enough to play the bullies.

I think that Elmo and Abby can be used for the same force of good, but they'd rather use the characters to play guessing games and screw around with the weather and stuff.

I know they manage to use Elmo outside of the program, like that Listen, Talk, Connect: We're ALL Freaking Poor special.... but Abby seems to have a lot of potential for explaining things that's completely untapped.

Somehow I want to see one of 2 episodes:

1) Abby gets very frustrated and completely quits magic. Not the "Oh, I don't think I'll ever get that spell right" type stuff... the "I feel like a failure" type stuff. Something that would actually deal with the emotional complications of not doing things right. But at the end, everyone basically says, "No one's successful at first" and "giving up is true failure."

2) Have either Zoe, Rosita, or another character get jealous of all her magic powers and gadgets, throwing a tantrum that it's not fair that they don't have those powers... something like that which gets that character into a horrible fight with Abby, causing them to not be friends anymore... leading to the adults saying that not everyone can have everything, and a true friend will always share when their friends don't have something. Basically a you're friends may have more toys than you, but that's okay type deal.

 

[Oscarfan]

http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Season_42_(2011)

Plot info on the first week of shows is now on Muppet Wiki! So far, they look very interesting, but wasn't the plot with Rocco sinking done in season 36?

 

[SSLFan]

First the Help-O Bots. Now comes the Shape-O Bots! Lol.

These episodes sound rather average, IMO. The only one I'm looking forward to out of that bunch so far has to be the Grouchology episode starring Oscar.

 

[ISNorden]

At least the money initiative isn't the center of attention that first week, judging by the street stories. Here's hoping the science lessons don't involve too many (ugh!) guessing games this time....

 

[Drtooth]

First the Help-O Bots. Now comes the Shape-O Bots! Lol.

Hoping I don't over-think this and make it sound better than it actually would be, but something tells me that Shape-o-Bots just maybe more than meets the eye.

Some of the episodes actually sound decent... human canon ball, Grouchology (could be ANYTHING)....

Yeah... wait for it...

I ALSO agree that if I see another 20 guessing games in a 26 episode season, I'll LOSE IT! I'm sure kids will too.

 

[Redsonga]

As someone with a life long disability (CP) to it's odd but..Linda was one of my favorite human characters growing up. If she taught me ASL (she didn't, at least not long term) or not isn't really the point, as I still liked seeing it done and she just struck me as a nice person, character, period.
To me it doesn't matter if a few characters are just 'poster' characters for certain disablites as we are real. We don't exist to make a point or necessarily teach or even be so good at one thing that it totally 'makes up' for what we can't do. We simply are, and I think this show of all places is a wonderful stage for that are-ness. Even maybe just maybe that many of us aren't the types that push our bodies in a battle to prove ourselfs but still live quite happy lifes .
I was actually disappointed to see them get rid of the girl in the wheelchair. As a child it made me feel that that place they lived in was just your everyday school away from school, just like seeing the children with much worst CP than mine in some of the older songs in the show...
I dunno what point I was going toward here but I guess just that we aren't just a group of people to only be added if the time calls for it, but at the same time only have worth as 'real' characters if it is a main character part :\ It would be nice to have more children's stories not have the end moral that all disabled people overcome body/mind troubles and then can climb mountains and the like . That actually isn't all that common. It's a bit like saying everyone can get good enough to be in the Olympics with working muscles:\
I know, I know, aim for the stars..but there is just as much joy to be found in the lower everyday realistic reaches of space, storytelling wise. Good stories. Big Bird stories...
You know, that is one of the reasons I always liked Big Bird, he is a very down to earth type .

 

[Drtooth]

To me it doesn't matter if a few characters are just 'poster' characters for certain disablites as we are real. We don't exist to make a point or necessarily teach or even be so good at one thing that it totally 'makes up' for what we can't do. We simply are, and I think this show of all places is a wonderful stage for that are-ness. Even maybe just maybe that many of us aren't the types that push our bodies in a battle to prove ourselfs but still live quite happy lifes .
I was actually disappointed to see them get rid of the girl in the wheelchair. As a child it made me feel that that place they lived in was just your everyday school away from school, just like seeing the children with much worst CP than mine in some of the older songs in the show...
I dunno what point I was going toward here but I guess just that we aren't just a group of people to only be added if the time calls for it, but at the same time only have worth as 'real' characters if it is a main character part :\ It would be nice to have more children's stories not have the end moral that all disabled people overcome body/mind troubles and then can climb mountains and the like . That actually isn't all that common. It's a bit like saying everyone can get good enough to be in the Olympics with working muscles:\

Sesame Street is all about diversity and representation.

But I have to say this, when the show featured some Down Syndrome kids talking to various characters and tumbling on the floor and stuff like that, they weren't addressed as "Oh, look at those poor kids that are different because something's wrong with them." Linda was never the deaf woman to me, so much as Bob's friend that just so happens to be deaf. But the girl in the wheelchair they fussyfooted around with. She was nothing more than a wheelchair character that did nothing and just nodded and agreed with characters. Again, I don't blame her, I don't blame SW for wanting to add representation... I blame the writers for just... being a bit too careful. Character traits are always under scrutiny and misinterpreted as negative stereotypes. And any tension or character flaws would be feared to add at the risk of imaginary letters everyone worries about. So we got a bland character that did nothing and disappeared when the writers got sick of squeezing the character into a plot that doesn't concern them because they find her too hard to write for anyway.

That's an example of doing it wrong.