Sesame Street Season 56: Major changes and yet another format change

[80sMuppetFan]

Sesame Street Getting “Reimagined” for Season 56 (Exclusive)

Sesame Workshop will drop the magazine-style format of the long-running children's show in 2025 in favor of a longer narrative-driven style, paired with a new animated series 'Tales From 123.'

www.hollywoodreporter.com

Any thoughts on this?

 

[CrashMon24]

Even tho people don’t like change Sesame Street has been through changes like going from an hour to 30 minutes and new sets but sometimes It’s not a bad thing I think it’s a good change not only they been working with magazine type style stories for almost 55 years i think it’s a good idea that they want to focus more on the narrative side and split the sesame muppet story to story a and story b with a new animated segment between it this is something new that we can hopefully test and like and plus we would get a longer story firm in muppet form in season 56 with the narrative side the characters are still gonna be the same the songs are still gonna be the same I think it’s an ok change I’m a little excited to see the muppet storyline being longer each 11 minutes each is good with a new animated thing between it but most shows don’t stay the same so I’m a little excited

 

[mbmfrog]

Forgive me for asking this question, but wasn't Sesame Street originally a one-hour themed narrative show with shorts in-between them ? So wouldn't this originally be back to a somewhat normal format for the series ?

 

[beakerboy12]

Forgive me for asking this question, but wasn't Sesame Street originally a one-hour themed narrative show with shorts in-between them ? So wouldn't this originally be back to a somewhat normal format for the series ?

Narrative with shorts in between is "magazine format". This is what they are stepping away from. What the news reports on the matter seem to imply that it will be narrative only, meaning no interstitial sketches, animations, etc. The biggest implication that could be extrapolated from it all is Sesame becoming serialized. I don't think that is the case, but either way its roots are not in the now-all-too-common structure of kids television.

I do think this is more of an HBO mandate or something to that effect rather than something grounded in academic truth via Sesame child development researchers. I could be wrong, it just feels off-base. Are young children still not the most fickle media consumers? I feel like attention-keeping is still so prevalent. It would only make sense to maintain a sense of kinetic energy with sketches still. But what do I know?

I was fine with the switch to half-hour, but this is totally different, and gets me real cheesed off if ya' know what I mean. Hopefully, everything works out for the best, but the pit in my stomach is not a good sign imho.

 

[Muppet Master]

This feels like the end of an era, but I don't think it's necessarily bad. There's hardly enough time for in-between bits anyways given the main story takes up 10 minutes and Elmo's World takes about 5 too (plus theme song and credits).

And they phased out most of the good bits a long time ago. I don't recall seeing any Grover and Fat Blue shenanigans or even any Bert and Ernie skits in recent episodes.

 

[80sMuppetFan]

This feels like the end of an era, but I don't think it's necessarily bad. There's hardly enough time for in-between bits anyways given the main story takes up 10 minutes and Elmo's World takes about 5 too (plus theme song and credits).

And they phased out most of the good bits a long time ago. I don't recall seeing any Grover and Fat Blue shenanigans or even any Bert and Ernie skits in recent episodes.

You're very much right we are at the point where they only have time for a few inserts per episode now and I have to say ever since the show went to a half hour it's felt pretty rushed. This is probably a necessary change as for the past 8 years theyve been trying to cram an hour show into a half hour. Seems like the new way it's gonna be more like a half hour show that's actually meant to be a half hour show.

 

[Muppet Master]

What's funny is that Sesame Street is basically adopting the format of the average PBS Kids show despite being on HBO Max now. Most of the shows on PBS (Arthur, Clifford, Curious George, Martha Speaks etc.) have two, 11-minute stories and some semi-related bits in the middle (whether it be real-life people or cartoons).

This whole thing just feels like a slow march towards death though. First they cut it to half-hour, then they made it a streaming exclusive, and now another format change that cuts what made the show unique to begin with.

 

[ssetta]

The only thing the article doesn't state is whether or not they're renewing the contract with HBO. Somehow I hope they don't. All I care about is more classic episodes being available.

 

[datman24]

The only thing the article doesn't state is whether or not they're renewing the contract with HBO. Somehow I hope they don't. All I care about is more classic episodes being available.

Yeah, that's probably not going to change regardless of whether or not they stay with HBO.

 

[Daffyfan4ever]

This feels like the end of an era, but I don't think it's necessarily bad. There's hardly enough time for in-between bits anyways given the main story takes up 10 minutes and Elmo's World takes about 5 too (plus theme song and credits).

And they phased out most of the good bits a long time ago. I don't recall seeing any Grover and Fat Blue shenanigans or even any Bert and Ernie skits in recent episodes.

True. Fat Blue seems to have been seen more lately, but for different reasons non-Grover related. I was thinking it was going to be more like the old pre-season 33 eps too, but now I'm thinking it's more like "The Super Mario Bros. Super Show" with an animated story in between the live action story. Makes me wonder if they'll do "The Legend of Gabi" on Fridays. (She was the first female character that came to mind. )