The most DATED thing on classic Sesame Street?

[MeWantCookie]

does anyone else agree with me that Cookie's "Healthy Food" rap was enough of a disclaimer that he eats other foods besides cookies? They could have just re-aired that instead of using "A Cookie is a Sometimes Food" to make people think Cookie was being turned into Veggie Monster...

 

[ISNorden]

does anyone else agree with me that Cookie's "Healthy Food" rap was enough of a disclaimer that he eats other foods besides cookies? They could have just re-aired that instead of using "A Cookie is a Sometimes Food" to make people think Cookie was being turned into Veggie Monster...

"Healthy Food", in my opinion, is another good example of older material doing a better job...and I might add, if they needed to update the musical style, why couldn't they have remade the song with Cookie Monster as the star (not some human rapper)? That should've been enough to drive the lesson home: balance and variety, not over-reliance on specific foods, makes a diet healthy. Remember the long list of healthy foods in that rap? Not all of them were fruits or vegetables; and none of them was labeled an "anytime food" either. (Trust me, there is no such thing...I got mouth sores from eating lots of fruit as a kid!)

Sesame Workshop needs to stop reinventing the wheel, and start looking at what has already worked: they've taught nutrition before without preaching, over-analyzing, or giving kids misleading information. They've also done it without sacrificing other content on the show; I hope that they're able to continue doing the same.

 

[CensoredAlso]

Remember the long list of healthy foods in that rap? Not all of them were fruits or vegetables; and none of them was labeled an "anytime food" either. (Trust me, there is no such thing...I got mouth sores from eating lots of fruit as a kid!)

Absolutely! People at gyms I've gone to remind me that fruit is also a "sometime food." For instance, orange juice is good for your immune system. But too much of it means too much sugar. Same with Bananas.

On the other hand, cookies have little to no nutritional value, lol. At least fruit is sometimes useful!

Yeah I don't understand the need to reinvent things, and the sudden distrust of older material.

 

[MeWantCookie]

Sesame Workshop needs to stop reinventing the wheel, and start looking at what has already worked: they've taught nutrition before without preaching, over-analyzing, or giving kids misleading information. They've also done it without sacrificing other content on the show; I hope that they're able to continue doing the same.

Even though the studies have shown that younger viewers have lost interest in the show (therefore making "Elmo's World" the main attraction), they should consider what points they would like to get across on a given episode and dig deep into the archives to see which classic sketches/songs, etc. would best suit the interest of the audience. Say, if I were putting an episode together with the theme being healthy food, I'd include songs like "Healthy Food," Joe Raposo's fruit song (see the Sesame Street Films thread if you don't know what I'm talking about), and even "Cereal Girl"....anyone with me on this?

 

[Fozzie Bear]

I think they should have kept Hooper's Store green, and never let go of the Fix-It shop. The toaster joke, I don't care how old, was always funny to see them working on toasters!

But, can anything on SS really be dated? I mean, why can't it be called 'tradition' instead of being called 'dated?'

 

[ISNorden]

I think they should have kept Hooper's Store green, and never let go of the Fix-It shop. The toaster joke, I don't care how old, was always funny to see them working on toasters!

But, can anything on SS really be dated? I mean, why can't it be called 'tradition' instead of being called 'dated?'

Hmmm. On one hand, real-life shops in real-life cities do change over the years; on the other, Hooper's and the Fix-It Shop have become cultural icons for a lot of people who grew up watching Sesame Street. So I can understand the stores getting facelifts...although Hooper's could have kept a storefront more similar to the old one. (I agree that the Fix-It Shop should have stayed in business; when a store changes that drastically and the show offers no explanation, that feels just plain wrong.)

As for "datedness" versus "tradition", I see both sides of the issue there too. Sesame Street's phones and mailboxes shouldn't look as though they've been unchanged since 1969; and the cast shouldn't dress as if they belonged on "That 70s Show". But keeping the general layout and decor of the "old" street set would help preserve a sense of tradition for viewers of all ages.

 

[MeWantCookie]

One could call the clothes/hairstyles in the really old sketches and films "dated" but like you said, Fozzie, there are the SS traditions that they should keep for seasons to come...even when my generation grows up and has children and watches SS with them we should be able to see things and be able to say, "Hey, I remember that from when I was a kid!"

 

[Drtooth]

does anyone else agree with me that Cookie's "Healthy Food" rap was enough of a disclaimer that he eats other foods besides cookies? They could have just re-aired that instead of using "A Cookie is a Sometimes Food" to make people think Cookie was being turned into Veggie Monster...

Well, the disclaimer for me was when he ate foam rubber letters and numbers, whole trucks piece by piece, and brick walls. When a child imitates that kind of behavior, then you should worry.

I think they should have kept Hooper's Store green, and never let go of the Fix-It shop. The toaster joke, I don't care how old, was always funny to see them working on toasters!

Well, to me that was dated. The idea of the fix it shop was created at a time when people actually cared about their stuff and would have their appliances fixed when they were broken. now in our instant everything society, why go help a small business that has increasing obselesence when you can go to the big corporately run chain stores, and buy a new appliance made in Mexico or China for a fraction of the cost of fixing it?

It's nice for nostalgia, but I think the Mail-it Shop was closer to reality. And reality is what SS is all about, Better or worse.

Though I will say by bringing it back, they are teaching kids good values by helping out local owned businesses, and to reuse things whenever possible.

 

[JLG]

Pagers and beepers are out of date as well. There was some TV show that made fun of it, and I can't remember what it was. I think it was Arrested Developement.

Heh. Try telling that to the IT guy at the newspaper I worked at last year. That man never slept, because his pager was constantly beckoning him out from his bed and back into the blasted office where he'd always have to fix some crisis or another at the wee hours of the night. The guy had rings under his eyes the color of plums. All the time. So for him, pagers are very much relevant!


[/quote]Yeah, I don't know what to think of it either. Personally, there are 3 reactions to how an old film would be percepted. one is no reaction. The second would be "This film is old! I can't relate and therefore I don't have any interrest." and the third would be "WOW! An old film. It's interresting to see what things were like years ago."[/quote]

Once I was old enough to understand the concept (perhaps around age 5 or so), that's exactly how I reacted.

[/quote]I just can't believe kids being confused. 2 year olds maybe, but when I saw something that was old, I knew it was old, even when I was 3 or so. I just didn't care.

I will say in this day and age, all the filmed footage does look old, due to the film's graniness. You can imitate film on a digital camera. It looks pretty inorganic, though. The "filmed" inserts of today will hold up better in the future, due to the fact they are digital, and can't really degenerate like film does. That said, I'd rather see film that looks like film. Even (and especially) in animation. But that's another discussion for another day.[/quote]

I think exactly the way you do about this. I love the look of film, and for some reason all my life I've been fascinated with the graininess and odd color of so much low-budget footage shot between the mid 1960s and the early 1980s. "Sesame Street" is just one of the places where this turns up, but it's like a big flashing sign that blares "70s! 70s!" As a kid in the late 80s and early 90s, I was intrigued that here was a very recent, familiar-looking past, but looking like it was a thousand years old because of the grain and dust. (Same goes for that flat, muffled kind of sound mixing that turned up even in many Hollywood feature films of that era. It sounds incredibly odd, almost like a halluncination.)

 

[CensoredAlso]

The Fix It shop never seemed odd to me, even though I most likely never saw one in real life. Lol ::shrugs::