Sesame went down hill when Elmo came on the scene

[LittleJerry92]

It’s a case where people aren’t accepting of change. Which is tough **** cause everything is changing.

 

[sesamemuppetfan]

Something else to consider is that SS has been facing competition for the last 20+ years with other popular shows that target the same age group. Name one other kid's show besides SS or the lesser-known Captain Kangaroo that ran for an hour.

 

[D'Snowth]

Or any network shows, for that matter, aside from perhaps daytime soaps and primetime dramas.

 

[datman24]

I blame three things for making Sesame Street what it has become today:

1. A certain singing purple dinosaur.
2. A certain blue dog and his clue-solving host.
3. A certain bilingual explorer.

 

[LittleJerry92]

Only one of the three I also enjoyed.

 

[DatH]

Bear in mind Sesame defied children's psychologists initially by merging Muppet and humans in the same scene, with the results drastically making a better show. It led to character attachment and relations, and seeing some of the humans grow alongside the Muppets was neat
Nowadays humans are feeling incredibly detached, or "sugarified" like Snowth said...it's like we're reverting to hyper safety by separating the Muppets from humans very slowly
Also the show wasn't strictly for Preschoolers back then. It was for a range of 4 till 7. After the 90s with the competition of "you know who" it got dumbed down gradually for toddlers to "fit in" like you said. It's not actually benefiting children, and if it regresses more, it'll potentially be the equivalent of static noise

 

[datman24]

Only one of the three I also enjoyed.

And I have a feeling I know which one.

 

[DePingPong]

I blame three things for making Sesame Street what it has become today:

1. A certain singing purple dinosaur.
2. A certain blue dog and his clue-solving host.
3. A certain bilingual explorer.

Blue's Clues was different enough from everything else, it was pretty cool. I think Barney was the biggest push for change cause of how popular he was getting.
I don't think Dora was really competition for anything, honestly.

 

[D'Snowth]

Dora (and similar shows) actually affected much of the show today: for one thing, Sesame Workshop had a turn-over in staff recently, with some people coming from Viacom, which always took a far more corporate approach in handling things, which is what's been going on SS in recent years (one of the things that rubbed Joey the wrong way). You'll notice Dora has a small cast of core characters, as do many other pre-school shows these days, which is one of the reasons why the cast of SS in terms of both humans and Muppets has been drastically reduced in recent years.

 

[LittleJerry92]

And I have a feeling I know which one.

Barney just creeped me out to no end, and while Dora had its (as in the show) moments, it was an instant “NOPE!” for me.