Sesame Street Season 46 Episode 4614 - Enthusiastic Penelope Penguin

[antsamthompson9]

Thanks to On Demand, I saw this episode last night. The cold open was so-so. The song with Gwen Stefani was cool. It's nice to have almost all the core cast with a celebrity. It was interesting how they handled a Murray segment other than MHALL in the half-hour format.

 

[Drtooth]

Ugh. Why? Why? There has never been a Muppet that I actually wanted rip to shreds like Penelope Penguin. That obnoxious voice is like nails on a chalkboard.

While I like the episode's message of "HEY! Tone yourself down or everyone's going to avoid you at all costs," a message I could have used when I was a kid because people hate people who talk their ears off just as much as they hate someone who's not quite a mute, it's a terrible episode just for that obnoxious character. I know they had to reuse episodes, but this is one they could have skipped. As long as it's not "The number 15 throws a temper tantrum and gets exactly what she wants" which isn't just a terrible episode, but a horrible message for kids, especially during a self regulation initiative.

Glad to see the Gwen Stefani song is one of the few things HBO lets SW upload to Youtube. Seems there isn't much to miss here.

 

[Pig'sSaysAdios]

While I like the episode's message of "HEY! Tone yourself down or everyone's going to avoid you at all costs," a message I could have used when I was a kid because people hate people who talk their ears off just as much as they hate someone who's not quite a mute, it's a terrible episode just for that obnoxious character. I know they had to reuse episodes, but this is one they could have skipped. As long as it's not "The number 15 throws a temper tantrum and gets exactly what she wants" which isn't just a terrible episode, but a horrible message for kids, especially during a self regulation initiative.

Glad to see the Gwen Stefani song is one of the few things HBO lets SW upload to Youtube. Seems there isn't much to miss here.

As much as I don't like this episode, I do still really love the "Stop and Think" song.

 

[MikaelaMuppet]

I love the song with Gwen Stefani!

 

[CoolGuy1013]

I was really not looking forward to this review. This might be the most annoying episode I've seen thus far. I even took a nearly 2 month long break from reviewing to avoid this one, but I had to do it someday. I'm not even going to bother with a comparison, this episode just sucks. How bad is it? Let's unfortunately find out...

The episode starts innocently enough with Elmo telling us about what a friend is. This cold open will be seen in many (better) episodes I will review in the future, but it's just the calm before the storm here...

The actual nightmare - I mean episode - begins with Big Bird excitedly awaiting a visit form his pen pal, Penelope Penguin. And here's our first problem. Penelope Penguin is annoying as heck. She talks with a nasally, raspy voice (she sounds like an even more annoying version of Urkel) and is way too enthusiastic. Chris tries to help her by having her give "penguin pounds" to everyone she meets to gain friends, but it won't work. As something else that annoys me is how selfish she is. Look, I can be selfish too sometimes, but not passing the ball during basketball to give yourself a point is pretty bad. Luckily she learns her lesson, but not entirely. I say that because later, she puts fish on everyone's ice cream solely because she likes it. What the Frog Penny? After driving everyone else away, Chris teaches her to stop and think using a song. To be fair to the episode, the "Stop and Think" song is really good and catchy, but why does Penelope have to sing in it? She redeems herself in the eyes of her friends in the end, but it's too late for her to do the same for me.

Let's see if the rest of the episode can make up for that travesty (spoilers: it doesn't). First, the letter of the day, which is F. We kinda get a "letter" segment in the form of what follows (they mention the letter briefly at the beginning), But it's just mostly a celebrity segment.

The segment in question is Gwen Stefani's "Be a Good Friend", which she sings with many characters. I find this segment kind of awful with all the emojis and junk, and I can't even make out what she's saying half the time. Unfortunately, like the cold open, this segment is also shown frequently. At least the backgrounds are pretty cool.

Now for Murray's News Flash on Friendship Day. I'm gonna say right now they don't hold a candle to Kermit's old SST News Flashes, and these are pretty boring. Luckily, they're not used often. And that's all I have to say about that. Moving on.

Alright, number of the day time! Today's number of the day is 2, and we get nothing. Great. Guess it's time for EW.

Naturally, today's EW is the Friends one from 2006. Once again, there's nothing new to say, except for this...
Remember my review of Say Thank You to Your Face Day when I mentioned an old DVD I had as a kid with episode 4143 on it? Well the original appearance of this segment (episode 4109) was on it too. I really miss it, but luckily, all the episodes on it are now on HBO Max. I'll probably watch them all soon. But for now, time to wrap thing up.

This episode sucked on toast. If a thousand vacuum cleaners sucked a thousand vacuum cleaners each that sucked a toaster each, it wouldn't suck as much toast as this episode does. This episode gets the "prestigious" CoolGuy Seal of Failure, and a 2/10. Oh well, at least my next review is Birdie and the Beast. Can't wait for that one, if for nothing else than to forget about this disaster!