So, Elmo Steps in for Super Grover (what a lengthy title). Believe it or not, in a season filled to the brim with repeated street stories, this is only the
second one. Just wait until this snowflake becomes an
AVALANCHE! Only making things worse is that it happens to feature one of my least favorite SST Muppets. Great. But with those complaints of my first impressions out of the way, is this episode super, or is it just a menace destroying the city? Let's find out.
The episode starts with a cold open featuring Super Grover (they're using Grover in a
lot of cold opens this season) attempting to jump over a penguin, only for her to jump over him instead. The twist at the end (where it turns out she's a superhero too) is fun, but the penguin looks and sounds a lot like a certain one-time character infamous of this forum. Her debut episode will actually be repeated in not too many episodes, so I'll rant about how annoying she is there. In the meantime, I'll say this is actually a pretty decent cold open.
The street story begins with Elmo telling Chris his toy airplane is stuck in a tree. Luckily for him, Super Chicken and his sidekick Robin (I see what they did there) come to help. Super Grover does as well, only for the birds to save the day before he can do anything. This gets him fed up, wishing he had a cute little sidekick of his own. Enter
one of the most annoying nuisances in Sesame Street history Horatio, who wants to try out for the role. Grover obliges, and Horatio gets stuck in a door while going the wrong way from an emergency. Since Super Grover is busy trying to get him out, Elmo goes to help instead, and we see Baby Bear is trying to rehearse for an all animal quartet, but one of the members is missing. Elmo quickly finds out BB himself is the missing animal, which should've been obvious because he's wearing a bowtie similar to all 3 other members. Meanwhile, Chris, Super Grover, and a Honker finally (and unfortunately) free Horatio. Back with Elmo, he now runs into some kids whose basketball is stuck in the hoop. He suggests they use another ball to knock it down. After they inform him they don't have one, he suggests
he should knock it down like another ball would. He gets Chris to lift him high enough to knock it down, and succeeds. SG and Horatio arrive to help, only to be informed Elmo already saved the day. Horatio then gets stuck in another door, and then quits being Grover's sidekick. Grover asks Chris and Elmo if either of
them want to be his sidekick, but both reply negative. He then decides to just continue working solo. I can't blame him, because if he did get a sidekick, they'll eventually demand a car because "Chicks dig the car".
Overall, Horatio was really annoying here (because when isn't he?) But at least unlike some later repeats, the story still flowed naturally, and whatever cuts they made didn't affect it too much.
But enough about that, time for the letter of the day, H. We don't get a segment even
barely relating to the letter this time, which gives me time to ask, why H? I get that H is for "Hero", but when they did this kind of theme again in season 49, the letter was S for Superhero. It worked a lot better there, so why not here too? Both episodes have similar content anyway.
Now that I'm done with that mini-rant, I can review what
actually follows the LOTD, a song featuring Aloe Blacc called "Everyday Hero". I assume
this is the only reason the letter isn't S, but if they just removed it, it easily could've been. That said, this song is probably one of the better ones so far this season, and the implications are my only
real problem with it. Other than that, it's a really solid song about how being kind makes you an "everyday hero", and serves as nice (although likely unintentional) foreshadowing to next season's theme of kindness. Too bad they never used it then, because it'd be perfect.
Oh well, time once again for my favorite recurring segment, Cookie's Crumby Pictures! And this time parodying the MCU in "Aveggies: Age of Bon Bon". The premise is simple, Bon Bon wants to ruin all the healthy vegetables by covering them in dessert, and only the Aveggies (or as the announcer calls them, a whole bunch of heroes) can stop him. Onion Man has Bon Bon's "chocolate ship" (an obvious pun, but a great one nonetheless) following him, and wants Cookie (as Dr. Brownie) to turn into the Hulk parody (who is never named) to eat it. Captain Americauliflower (did I mention that I love all the members' names?) tries to protect Cookie with his shield, only for Cookie to get distracted and eat it because he thought it was a cookie. This causes Captain Americauliflower to get covered in goop from the ship, ruining his new outfit (which I loved). He then does the same to the Mighty Corn's hammer, which causes him to get creamed too (his line about it is priceless). To make matters worse, Onion Man's radar gets jammed (he is literally covered in jam), and they only have 1 chance left to defeat Bon Bon. Zucchineye gives Cookie an idea to use pretend binoculars, but not before we get my favorite line in the whole segment:
: Cucumbers cool, you zucchini.
Zucchineye: Hurtful.
Anyway, Cookie ultimately turns into the nameless Hulk parody, eats the ship, Bon Bon makes a great line, and to top it all off, Cookie asks if they want shawarma.
This is probably my favorite one yet, but it might not be for long. After all, the next episode has Star S'mores in it...
After that comes the number of the day, 1. We get nothing.
Now for another really good part of this episode, the first new ETM of the HBO era, Superhero the Musical. First, I want to say that the format works better for segments that are already shorter, as opposed to editing down an existing one. It's also a welcome break from the EW repeats that I've seen nothing but for a long time. But how's the segment itself? Let's see:
It starts with Elmo imaging himself as a superhero (Mighty Elmo) for today's musical, with the power of super strength. Unfortunately, a supervillain named Baddy McBad (a name I'd complain about, but then again, this
is Elmo's imagination, and he's only 3, so it's fine I guess) arrives, and she happens to rival Mighty Elmo in strength, pulling a giant rock out of nowhere to block the entrance to the playground. Mighty Elmo throws the rock away with ease, so she gets into a powerful robot suit and grabs an anvil to block the entrance. Mighty Elmo couldn't move the anvil, which causes Baddy McBad to laugh maniacally until her robot suit falls over, leaving her unable to get up. Elmo, for whatever reason, decides to help her up, and she (like me) asks why. It turns out it's because Mighty Elmo's not only the strongest, he's also the kindest (a bit cheesy, but OK). After the civillians sing about how kind he is, Baddy McBad decides
she wants to be kind too, and moves the anvil.
All in all, there were some stupid (although justifiable) moments in this segment, but it worked much better than the repeated ones nonetheless.
As for my final thoughts, I really liked the CCP, ETM, and the Everyday Hero song and cold open were good as well. My only real complaint is that the street story just
had to use Horatio. I get this was from a few years back, but why couldn't they have used someone else back then? That said, the positives are enough to get this one a 7/10. Well, that's all for now. See you in the next review.
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