Sesame Workshop lays off 10% of employees

[Drtooth]

Very sad to hear about the cuts at Sesame, but honestly it doesn't surprise me. Public television's funding has been drastically cut in recent years, Sesame itself films less episodes a season, and I wonder if the whole Kevin Clash debacle has made their funding drop as far as maybe parents not wanting to buy Elmo toys and products which as everyone knows who buys Sesame merch that the monies from the purchase go back into the funding of the show.

Kids still love Elmo, and the only ones not buying Elmo toys are the parents that actually bothered to get offended by the story.

The real problem is, kids just aren't buying toys anymore period. I did see the new TMNT line disappear from store shelves, though. But other than that, toys are getting very expensive for multiple reasons (a good portion probably because no one's buying them and they have to make that up, causing less people to buy them). The most damaging thing to toy lines now? Apps. Cheap, crappy little games that shut kids up better than a 15 dollar Transformer that they'd get bored of. While I do like Hasbro's handling of the Sesame Street license so far, they really haven't shown much initiative to expand the line by much lately. We need something like a under 30 dollar Tickle Me Elmo type thing that gets the 3 and 4 year old crowd excited to buy a Sesame Street toy again.

 

[Oscarfan]

As far as the AFFS stuff is concerned, they stopped production on those by season 42. We'll find out in September what the future of that segment is. We know there's a new Cookie segment, which would probably cost less than AFFS (maybe less than ETM even; I don't next to nothing about the content of it) and it's not know what slot it's going in the show. It may alternate with SG and B&E or it could alternate with AFFS; who knows.

EDIT: Ooo, ouch. According to a CNN article, they're intake last June went down 15%.

 

[Drtooth]

As far as the AFFS stuff is concerned, they stopped production on those by season 42. We'll find out in September what the future of that segment is. We know there's a new Cookie segment, which would probably cost less than AFFS (maybe less than ETM even; I don't next to nothing about the content of it) and it's not know what slot it's going in the show. It may alternate with SG and B&E or it could alternate with AFFS; who knows..

You can tell that AFFS was expensive because they reran the crap out of it. You know SW. If they can save money by reusing something, you darn well be ready to see character variants, cartoon segments, and whatever's not nailed down as many times as they can use it. I mean, look at homunculus Zoe. That was a very expensive small Zoe puppet to use just once as a mouse in Abby in Wonderland. So Zoe looks ugly and out of scale for a season. The episode where Telly takes care of a duck and randomly turns into was made purely out of the need to reuse the Telly as a duck puppet from Elmo and the Wolf.

Which is why it confuses the heck out of me that they're not using any of the remaining Ernie and Bert Great Adventures, and not redubbing (if they even need to) special American Character footage from different countries instead of just showing the same TV parodies and celebrity bits twice in a single season. Or in BEGA's case, the same Super Grover 2.0's over and over and over in a season. If there's anything that could save them some real scratch not at the expense of the show's quality, it's actually using these segments. Heck, translate some of the German Bert and Ernie bits if they have to. Much better than sitting through the same The Voice parody a second time.

That said, I wonder how far Elmo's Backyard and Munchin' Impossible went into production. If they only did the pilots, that's one thing. But if they actually filmed the entire log shows in advance waiting for them to be sold, that's probably the reason they keep coming into budget problems.

 

[MelissaY1]

Kids still love Elmo, and the only ones not buying Elmo toys are the parents that actually bothered to get offended by the story.

The real problem is, kids just aren't buying toys anymore period. I did see the new TMNT line disappear from store shelves, though. But other than that, toys are getting very expensive for multiple reasons (a good portion probably because no one's buying them and they have to make that up, causing less people to buy them). The most damaging thing to toy lines now? Apps. Cheap, crappy little games that shut kids up better than a 15 dollar Transformer that they'd get bored of. While I do like Hasbro's handling of the Sesame Street license so far, they really haven't shown much initiative to expand the line by much lately. We need something like a under 30 dollar Tickle Me Elmo type thing that gets the 3 and 4 year old crowd excited to buy a Sesame Street toy again.

Totally agreed, Dr. Tooth. I get surprised when I see toy commercials on TV these days at all, and oddly I'm finding a lot of them are infomercial products. It's very sad to me think that Toys R' Us and toy stores in general will be going the route of Barnes & Nobles, etc. Before you know it there won't be any need for physical products or stores in general at the rate we're going. And I agree, I HATE that kids are playing with apps and Ipads and stuff now. I see it too often, and even kids in my family are glued to the things. There's no imagination left, etc.

But I digress, I don't want Sesame Street to go away.

 

[Drtooth]

Totally agreed, Dr. Tooth. I get surprised when I see toy commercials on TV these days at all, and oddly I'm finding a lot of them are infomercial products. It's very sad to me think that Toys R' Us and toy stores in general will be going the route of Barnes & Nobles, etc. Before you know it there won't be any need for physical products or stores in general at the rate we're going. And I agree, I HATE that kids are playing with apps and Ipads and stuff now. I see it too often, and even kids in my family are glued to the things. There's no imagination left, etc.

I love the all the eggs in one basket bit that forces everything on the internet.

Here's the thing about the internet... the internet goes down. When the internet goes down, then what? iPads need to be charged. What are you going to do when that has to charge? What are you going to do with all those apps when you have to update to a flashier, more glitch ridden NEW iPad? I miss options. I miss being able to collect something physical. Hopefully that stuff won't go away due to the entitled class. Not EVERYTHING has to be an App.

But Sesame Street would gladly adapt to that. They have been looking at online options for some time. It's just far easier to sit kids down in a comfortable room to watch TV than to crowd around a computer, hunched over. I actually hate watching stuff on the computer. I do it because I don't have cable, and you can find a lot of stuff if you know where to look. But I still buy DVD's to collect a physical product. Not to mention, as I said before, the internet goes down.

 

[Oscarfan]

Well, to be honest, iPads don't need the Internet to charge or use most apps.

Unless you mean electricity going out too, then yeah, point is valid.

 

[Drtooth]

Well, to be honest, iPads don't need the Internet to charge or use most apps.

Unless you mean electricity going out too, then yeah, point is valid.

Yeah. I meant the power going out, the battery burning out from overuse (I'm told a huge problem with Apple products), or just the long time it takes to charge anything. As for the internet, that was a blanket statement. Not just an ipad, but there seems to be a higher reliance on having the internet than needs be. Especially the crop of video game systems that need 24 hr internet connectivity to single person play a game that you already bought.

It sucks that every industry is hurting because Apps matter more than anything else at the moment. What happens if the App bubble bursts? We don't think we do, but we need the competitive edge of multiple media platforms. And that includes good old physical books and merchandising.

 

[FrackleFan2012]

I'm so sad to hear about the cuts. I hope Sesame Street doesn't get worse.

 

[Oscarfan]

I'm sure some of the classic fans would say it already has.

 

[Drtooth]

Are they wrapped for season 44? Seems like only Season 45 would be horribly affected by this.

Oh frog.

The anniversary season is going to be a TREMENDOUS disappointment.