Should Sesame Street continue after season 40?

[Drtooth]

Look at it another way. The show as I remember it (a main street story interrupted by various short clips) is no longer on air, so as far as fans who know it that way are concerned, it's not on anymore.

You could easily say the same for SNL. Really. Just because Jane Curtain and Dan Akroyd aren't on the show and it's completely unfunny to me, wanting to cancel it for everyone else is very selfish. SS is a show that transcends being a kiddy show. look at all the stuff it's done internationally... even now even here. It's an institution. And as much as it's unbearable for old school fans to watch... well, look all over Youtube and Sesame's website. You can always find old clips.

Yeah, I completely disagree with most of the decisions they've made in the last 20 years... but that's what happens when children's programming as a whole slid down a very deep slope and continues to. Face it... Dora, Blue, Barney... those things didn't exist in 1969, but when they came into being someone somewhere felt they were the end all be all of educational content. And of course, SS had to absorb some of that gunk. And it seemed to work, which is even more unfortunate.

Media has changed completely in the last 5 years alone. I'm sure someone said kids wouldn't get the reference to commercials do in part of Tivo, and they ran with it. Now they wanna turn a hour long show into an hour block of programming for some reason. Another dreaded Nick Jr. influence. I don't like it, but they're probably not going to have it for long. Maybe it'll come full circle, and things will one day go back to the way they were, or close to it. It's not that they didn't try. They did a couple seasons ago and it tested poorly. it happens.

 

[animalrescuer]

I think Sesame Street should continue for as long as they can go on even after 40 years or maybe 50 years. I have to admit it, they need to bring the classic clips back on the show like they did around season 30 to about season 35 or 36, I miss those. The street stories need to be longer in my opinion, the street stories nowadays are way too short and some a little bit ridiculous, not all of them are, but there are some that are just plain ridiculous.
Also, I think Murray Monster needs to be in more street stories rather than just introducing segments. I like him becuase he's pretty funny.

 

[Davina]

Yes.. though I'm not a huge fan of what they've done with things over the years, my 2 and a half year old grand daughter (step.. i'm only 36 after all.. heh..) just loves it. And there is no way I want that taken from her.. for me (and for her as well) I have the old school sets (they need more of those, btw.. full seasons would be nice, too..)
we just have to hope that, as those of us who grew up with the old school stuff "come into power" we can use our influence to bring back some of the classic style things. And influence our kids! Make sure they know and experience these things, too.

 

[Gelfling Girl]

What kind of a question is this? Sure it's changed very much, and Elmo's pretty much taken over the show, but it's a part of our childhood that's been passed down for a few generations. Of course, it probably will come to an end eventually, as all things do, but why should that time be now?

 

[GonzoLeaper]

Sesame Street still easily holds the record for longest running American show (certainly in children's programming- and I think in programming in general)- I'd hate to see that record gone. I'm happy for Sesame Street to still be on the air- as far as I'm concerned, it's one of the best shows on TV at the moment (and one of the few I like.)- I'd love for it to be around to introduce my own children to someday (somewhere in the future whenever I might get married...)- Sesame Street has always changed with the times and it's going to keep doing so. Even the Sesame Street of the '80s is not quite the same as that of '69 and the '70s. The same is true for Archie comics for that matter- both Archie and Big Bird and the gang have always been on top of current trends but the core of each has always stayed true.
And I hope that will continue for a long time.

 

[ISNorden]

I may be a hardcore Old Schooler with no children of my own, but I'm also a realist. Sesame Street was created to teach preschoolers by imitating the TV programming style they saw on other networks; to stick by this basic idea, producers have had to change the show's format. The result may not always look familiar or comforting to adults, but it grabs the intended audience's attention just as much as Old School material did in 1969.

For example (and this is just a minor one): Long shows with commercial-interrupted plots are rare now, and people tend to skip over ads when they do appear. Few of today's pre-kindergarten kids would "get" the original comparison between letter/number clips and commercials. If "brought to you today by the letter ___ and the number ___" had not become such a well-known tagline, chances are good that Sesame Workshop would have dropped it 10-15 years ago.

As for whether Sesame Street should continue: it's evolved from a mere "new TV show for kids" to a pop-culture icon around the workd. No network executive wants to go down in history as "the man who canceled Sesame Street". The public (both children and adults) would react intensely, on a scale even bigger than the New Coke fiasco. With a future like that, odds are good that the only thing that will kill Sesame Street is a medium which completely replaces television itself.

 

[Oscarfan]

I may be a hardcore Old Schooler with no children of my own, but I'm also a realist. Sesame Street was created to teach preschoolers by imitating the TV programming style they saw on other networks; to stick by this basic idea, producers have had to change the show's format. The result may not always look familiar or comforting to adults, but it grabs the intended audience's attention just as much as Old School material did in 1969.

For example (and this is just a minor one): Long shows with commercial-interrupted plots are rare now, and people tend to skip over ads when they do appear. Few of today's pre-kindergarten kids would "get" the original comparison between letter/number clips and commercials. If "brought to you today by the letter ___ and the number ___" had not become such a well-known tagline, chances are good that Sesame Workshop would have dropped it 10-15 years ago.

I couldn't have said that better myself!