Sesame Street Season 46 Episode 4611 - Abby's Fairy Garden

[Phillip]

Episode 4611 - Abby's Fairy Garden
HBO Premiere: Saturday March 19, 2016
PBS Premiere: Monday April 17, 2017

Abby is going to teach Elmo how to garden, but a gnome takes his seeds and flower pot. Abby and Elmo need to play memory games in order to get them back. Also featuring Murray Has a Little Lamb-Gardening School and Elmo's World-Flowers, Plants and Trees. Brought to you by the letter G and the number 17.

This episode features an all-new street story.

If you saw "Abby's Fairy Garden" please like this post and share your thoughts below.

 

[Oscarfan]

Neat, I guess. I think one of my issues of the season so far is that they introduced all the set changes and haven't really taken advantage of them (unless the episodes were written in advance of the redesign, or knowledge of it). We've gotten one instance of Oscar using another can, but where's Cookie living above Hooper's? We've only seen Big Bird in his nest really once. So, it's nice to see how Abby's new garden works.

I still don't like tacking on an Elmo segment at the end of the show, as they're forcing letters into segments that probably wouldn't need them. The garden film? Could've just been a film about gardening without the "G for Gardening" intro. Or like that "H is for Healthy" cartoon earlier in the season; no H words stressed other than "Healthy." The only ones that have worked are the ones actually about letters (the Traceee skit, the "D for Dinosaur" song).

 

[D'Snowth]

The episode wasn't actually on HBO today, but since they go ahead and release episodes On Demand the same day, I just watched On Demand.

And it was a really meh episode. I agree with Oscarfan's point, with as many changes to the set this season, they're not really utilizing them to their full potential, and we end up with these "Bottle Episodes" that take place in only one location on the street, and it seems like Abby's Fairy Garden has gotten more exposure than the rest of the new set this season, which is also kind of disorienting, because Abby's Garden is perhaps the most radical change to the set, and we're not really used to it yet.

That said . . . . . . I know I'm always complaining about the unnecessary excessive use of chromakey, but this seemed to be the most unnecessary example we've seen yet . . . I mean, couldn't they actually just tape in the garden, they had to superimpose them in front of a green/blue screen of the garden? The superimposing of some of the plant Muppets in the background (like Stuckweed) looked horrible and tremendously fake. I liked Jerome, though, he was a fun little character; has anyone besides me ever noticed that Joey's characters' singing voices always differ noticeably from their speaking voices?

Elmo's World today was a prime example of what Drtooth and I mentioned in the past: the cropping in widescreen is terrible: both the cactus and the tumbleweed constantly had their mouths cut off by the cropping, so it almost looked like they were doing Kilroy impressions.

So, eh, not really the best episode so far this season.

But, hey, I see the updated version of THE ELECTRIC COMPANY is following suit and will now be on HBO soon as well.

 

[antsamthompson9]

This episode was okay. I liked the songs. Jerome is a fun character. I hope they planned ahead and gave him a new performer after Joey announced his departure.

 

[Pig'sSaysAdios]

Geez, what an earworm...
"Dance with a plant, dance with a plant, dance with a plant, dance with a plant, dance with a plant do the plant dance, dance with a plant do the plant dance"

This episode was okay. I liked the songs. Jerome is a fun character. I hope they planned ahead and gave him a new performer after Joey announced his departure.

Joey's sure gonna leave a big hole in the show. Not only was he playing Horatio, Papa Bear, Murray and Stinky, but now he's added two more recurring characters to the show this year.

 

[antsamthompson9]

Joey's sure gonna leave a big hole in the show. Not only was he playing Horatio, Papa Bear, Murray and Stinky, but now he's added two more recurring characters to the show this year.

That's right.

 

[Oscarfan]

I liked Jerome, though, he was a fun little character; has anyone besides me ever noticed that Joey's characters' singing voices always differ noticeably from their speaking voices?

But, hey, I see the updated version of THE ELECTRIC COMPANY is following suit and will now be on HBO soon as well.

At the end, his singing was done by Tyler Bunch instead. Not sure why; I'm guessing they needed to re-do his vocals but by then, Joey had resigned.

And TEC has been running on HBO Family since the new season of SS began; it's just in the afternoon.

 

[Drtooth]

I still don't like tacking on an Elmo segment at the end of the show, as they're forcing letters into segments that probably wouldn't need them. The garden film? Could've just been a film about gardening without the "G for Gardening" intro. Or like that "H is for Healthy" cartoon earlier in the season; no H words stressed other than "Healthy." The only ones that have worked are the ones actually about letters (the Traceee skit, the "D for Dinosaur" song).

While I haven't seen this episode, that's been my biggest problem with the season so far. Film segments have to take up the slack of the alphabet segments that get cut for time. The Elmo segments are clearly there for returning audiences as first time audiences don't know they're supposed to be there. Sesame Street has a major fleeting demographic, and I'm sure those who would be upset if the last 10 minutes of the show wasn't usurped by an Elmo segment are about to grow out of the demo anyway. I know there are certain marketing purposes to keeping an Elmo segment on the show, and this is clearly the decision by SW's new head (whom I still rather don't like), but to utilize the most out of a now 27 minute show (less if you don't count the opening and closing), they should make all the segments rotate at the end. Close the show out with a revolving selection of characters instead of just Elmo, and free up some time for actual letter and number segments and films to breathe.

The kids that grew up on Elmo's World are long out of the demo. Even when it was still on the show a few seasons back, that audience has moved on.

 

[Pig'sSaysAdios]

Only 8 of the remaining 24 episodes of the season contain new street scenes.

 

[Drtooth]

Somehow I feel the adults will feel more ripped off than the kids who probably haven't seen them, considering this is a cable first show now. Hopefully HBO's money will remedy that next season. This season basically telegraphed how much they needed that partnership already.

To be that desperate to bring EW back to the show? Yeah, that was something motivated by cost.