Sesame Street Season 45 Episode 4503 - Proud to Be Me

[Phillip]

Episode 4503 - Proud to Be Me
Wednesday September 17, 2014

Segi, the president of the Sesame Street Snazzy Society, is leading a meeting by first doing the Snazzy Shuffle dance, then reading Snazzy Jazzy and the Snazziest Toy. She gets upset when she reads that Snazzy Jazzy didn’t think a teddy bear was snazzy because it was too brown, because Segi has brown skin. Leela, Mando, and Chris help her realize that they all have different skin and that it makes them special and unique.

Subject: Self-Regulation
Brought to you by: Y & 9
Word on the Street: Skin – Protects your body and can be used to touch and feel things.

If you've seen "Proud to Be Me" please like this post and share your thoughts below.

 

[Oscarfan]

I audibly groaned at the "young grasshopper" pun in the new ETM today.

 

[The Count]

Episode 4503: Proud to be Me.9.
Sponsors: Y,

Word on the Street: Skin.

Street Story.
So we kick off the episode with Mando doing some self-drawing, it kind of reminds me of when Hiroshi was part of the cast/street stories.
Abby, Elmo, and Big Bird start off the SST Snazzy Society.
Mando: Why do you have to say "snazzy" over and over and over? Welcome to our main complaint dude!
So Segi arrives as the club's president, starting off the song the Snazzy Shuffle.
Next up is the story of Snazzy Jazzy and the Snazziest Toys.
Ah, so here's the street story's conflict... Segi doesn't like that Snazzy Jazzy didn't pick the teddy bear because it was too "brown".
Yes... It is a book, it must be true! That's right kids, go ahead and do believe everything you read!
Chris called a goofball... *Chuckles.
I really like the song "The Color Of Me" sung by Leela, Mando, and Chris.
And now everyone's a member of the Snazzy Society.

Song: "My Beautiful Skin", this is another good song, something tells me this might be one of their submissions come Daytime Emmy time next year.

Muppets/Celebrity Word of the Day Explanation.

Muppets: Murray does his best reporter bit, asking kids what makes them in particular special.
I wonder if anyone besides us will recognize the radio sound effect for breaking news.

Cookie's Crummy Pictures: The Spy Who Loved Cookies.

Letter of the Day Dance: Y.

Song: "Why I Love The Letter Y".

Murray's Special Report: More kids interviewed by Murray.
Aaaah! That kid just said the P-word!

Abby's Flying Fairy School: Colonial Trolliamsburg.
This is actually one of the AFFS segments I've been waiting to see in its entirety.
Heh, all the musical puns for Garfunkle the Griffin were well-done.

Number of the Day Dance: 9.

Film: Kids counting 9 dancers.

Animation: The Adventures of Salty and Pierre: #9 Train.

Song: Dunno what this song would be named, but it's a fun sketch about Spanish Me and English Me sung by Mando.

Murray's Special Reports: More kids talking about what makes them special.
I feel Ovejita was underused by just having her say the Spanish word for "special" and nothing else.

Murray: "Stay special Sesame Street". An Anchorman reference?

Song: "Count Me In".

Elmo the Musical: Karatemaster the Musical.
Is this the first segment with Ryan's Elmo?
*Laughs at the patented use of "Patience young grasshopper."
The Ooze as our villain? Versus a martial arts master? I feel like someone's been watching the first Power Rangers movie.
The villain has a tragic backstory as demonstrated through song, another trope.
And they even used the line "Now the student has become the teacher."

Good episode all around, clearly from the story and song selections this was meant to be a self-empowerment booster. Would have liked it if they also used "Skin" sung by Baby Ray Franklin, but I'm pleasantly satisfied.

Now on to Threeview Night as we eagerly await Numeric Con tomorrow! ! !

 

[The Count]

I audibly groaned at the "young grasshopper" pun in the new ETM today.

But Oscarfan-san, do you not remember one of Grand Master Jim's ancient teachings?

"It may be a terrible pun,
But it is terribly perfectly suited for us."

 

[Oscarfan]

Song: Dunno what this song would be named, but it's a fun sketch about Spanish Me and English Me sung by Mando.

Elmo the Musical: Karatemaster the Musical.
Is this the first segment with Ryan's Elmo?

1. The song was actually done by an AM boy voiced by Matt Vogel and a bunch of other AMs as well; it's called "Spanish Me, English Me."

2. Yes, this was the first ETM with Ryan. They only filmed two for this season, unfortunately.

 

[The Count]

That was Matt? Wow, I didn't recognize his voice. Maybe it's because since last year started I'm predisposed into thinking a young-ish male voice speaking or singing in both English and Spanish is Mando.

 

[Drtooth]

It's great to see Segi in a street story. Sure, it was basically her lot in the show to teach self esteem, and I'd like to see her do more on the series besides that. But with this, she's becoming more of a character for the series.

YAY! And Big Bird was there too. Still think the Abby/Elmo pairing comes off as forced.

By the way, what the heck is up with the racist kid's books on Sesame Street? Between this one and the ones from Mi Amigo Rosita, you'd think they exclusively get books written by Uncle Ruckus.

I don't know what to make of the "You're Special" bits. Nice to see Murray interacting with kids and trying hard not to break that fourth wall when a kid had a quite impressive puppet. But the rest of it seemed off and odd flowing.

I really don't want to complain about Abby still being there another day, but it seems that both SG 2.0 and ETM have had their theme songs edited for time constraints, and AFFS still has its theme untouched (other than slightly reorchestraiting it every season). Not to mention that putting it at the second half hour opening makes it even more of a slog. The segment is a good 2 minutes or more longer than it needs to be anyway. It's on clearly for budget reasons and to fill out the hour, and that's it. I don't even think the show runners like it taking 9 minutes of time out of the show, especially when no new one will ever be produced again.

 

[Oscarfan]

The ETM theme has three different variation lengths depending on the time of the segment itself, not the whole episode run-time.

 

[Drtooth]

Figured that.

Forgot to mention that I really liked the one of two ETM's produced this season. Really? Two?

Though, it's not really what you'd expect out of a karate skit. Other than that Grasshopper thing, they really didn't make much of a reference to any famous karate based movie, TV show, cliche, or whatever. Didn't even manage to get an "Everybody was Kung Fu Fighting" song parody. I guess that's what happens when you have a violent genre for a kid's show. You can't really do much karate without hurting someone. Even though they did more of that with the Crumby Pictures Karate Kid parody.

Still feels like this could have been Sculptor the Musical without any major changes.

 

[Oscarfan]

I do like how the episodes have been committing to a theme for the episode and having run throughout - chickens, bikes and pride.

I'm also glad they got rid of that stupid "cube spin over the sidewalk" transition. Drove me nuts how often they'd use it.