The most DATED thing on classic Sesame Street?

[Sesame Archives]

During Season 2, Sesame Street expanded its agenda to include identifying numbers up to 20. So there's a film of a boss in his office sending his employee (our very own Joe Raposo!) out to find a 20. "That's a 2 and a 0 together!"
They skip numbers 1 trough 10, assuming viewers are familiar enough with them.

11- Joe points to a calendar dated January 11, 1971. Not good enough for his boss.

12- on the face of a clock. But the boss demands a 20. So Joe goes out into the cold New York streets.

13- number of a crosstown bus

14- street sign of 14th Street, which in New York is WAY Downtown

15- 15 cents for a newspaper, (now costing $1.25) with the headline YOU'RE GETTING WARMER!

16- a runner with a 16 on his chest, who goes into a building numbered

17- gets on the elevator to the

18- 18th floor, and Joe follows

19- to Room 19, Joe enters and gets chased by a gorilla (!), but the big ape has a

20- mission accomplished!


They showed this clip well into the late 70's, until the calendar probably showed the clip's age too much. I mean once kids started watching who weren't even born yet in 1971, it seemed like time to put this one in the vault.

Then there are old fogees like me

It just so happens that I was born on that very date shown on that calendar! Was that the date that sketch was filmed? Also, who was playing the boss in that sketch, perhaps Jeff Moss?

 

[CensoredAlso]

I'm definitely going to go with "Disco D". Love the song, very catchy, hopelessly dated! Lol

But I agree with what someone said earlier, they show classic shows on TV all the time, and they're not just watched by adults. So why not put a little more faith in classic Sesame Street? I do not agree with the idea that older show can be somehow confusing or damaging to kids.

 

[Drtooth]

I'm definitely going to go with "Disco D". Love the song, very catchy, hopelessly dated! Lol

Hey... I said Disco in this thread 3 years ago....

But I agree with what someone said earlier, they show classic shows on TV all the time, and they're not just watched by adults. So why not put a little more faith in classic Sesame Street? I do not agree with the idea that older show can be somehow confusing or damaging to kids.

Not holding their interrest, maybe... Damaging and confusing, no.

 

[JLG]

Any old segment explaining "TELEPHONE" would never used be used now, I'm sure. There must have been dozens of those, be they cartoons (remember that cat chasing the phone as if it was a mouse? ["Telephone?"] Hubley studios I think), or the Two-Headed Monster putting the two halves of the word together, or the Yip-Yips checking out a phone through the window and ducking whenever it rang.

The concept of "telephone" is much more fluid and less specific than it was twenty years ago. Back then there were only telephones. Now there are cell phones everywhere (including in the hands of some Sesame-age viewers, which I find incredibly inappropriate), plus beepers, pagers, Blackberries, the internet, etc. Plus, it's very hard to find those "two bells on a stick"-shaped phones anymore. So I imagine most of those segments are permanently out to pasture.

 

[CensoredAlso]

Hey... I said Disco in this thread 3 years ago....

Oh sorry lol, good minds think alike!

Not holding their interrest, maybe... Damaging and confusing, no.

Not sure I even belief that. Very often what's on the TV doesn't seem to reflect the actual viewing public.

 

[ISNorden]

During Season 2, Sesame Street expanded its agenda to include identifying numbers up to 20. So there's a film of a boss in his office sending his employee (our very own Joe Raposo!) out to find a 20. "That's a 2 and a 0 together!"
They skip numbers 1 trough 10, assuming viewers are familiar enough with them.

11- Joe points to a calendar dated January 11, 1971. Not good enough for his boss.

12- on the face of a clock. But the boss demands a 20. So Joe goes out into the cold New York streets....

[other numbers snipped for space]

They showed this clip well into the late 70's, until the calendar probably showed the clip's age too much. I mean once kids started watching who weren't even born yet in 1971, it seemed like time to put this one in the vault.

Then there are old fogies like me

LOL...you wouldn't happen to have a movie file of that clip, would you? I was born in early 1969, so the first couple of seasons include a lot of great-sounding stuff I missed!

 

[Drtooth]

Any old segment explaining "TELEPHONE" would never used be used now, I'm sure. There must have been dozens of those, be they cartoons (remember that cat chasing the phone as if it was a mouse? ["Telephone?"] Hubley studios I think), or the Two-Headed Monster putting the two halves of the word together, or the Yip-Yips checking out a phone through the window and ducking whenever it rang.

The concept of "telephone" is much more fluid and less specific than it was twenty years ago. Back then there were only telephones. Now there are cell phones everywhere (including in the hands of some Sesame-age viewers, which I find incredibly inappropriate), plus beepers, pagers, Blackberries, the internet, etc. Plus, it's very hard to find those "two bells on a stick"-shaped phones anymore. So I imagine most of those segments are permanently out to pasture.

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.

But the only thing that keeps telephones dated are the use of rotary phones, and phones that "ring" instead of have those prolonged beeps.

Not sure I even belief that. Very often what's on the TV doesn't seem to reflect the actual viewing public

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."

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.

This brings back memories of a long posted thread I'm too lazy to bother looking up. This was wa-a-a-a-a-ay back. Some parents on Amazon bought an out of print video from the 80's in 2003 (or so) and actually complained how dated the features looked, and how it actually didn't hold the child's interrest. Of course, the child was just over a year old. You can see the same sort of complaints from parents that use SS as a baby sitter all over Amazon. my favorite? A complaint about Sesame Road saying the songs didn't keep the kid as entertained when he was listenting to an all Elmo CD. Of course. I don't think the 18 month old would have gotten the reference to Billy Idol or Joe Cocker.

 

[CensoredAlso]

This brings back memories of a long posted thread I'm too lazy to bother looking up. This was wa-a-a-a-a-ay back. Some parents on Amazon bought an out of print video from the 80's in 2003 (or so) and actually complained how dated the features looked, and how it actually didn't hold the child's interrest. Of course, the child was just over a year old. You can see the same sort of complaints from parents that use SS as a baby sitter all over Amazon. my favorite? A complaint about Sesame Road saying the songs didn't keep the kid as entertained when he was listenting to an all Elmo CD. Of course. I don't think the 18 month old would have gotten the reference to Billy Idol or Joe Cocker.

Yeah I've seen some of those. Of course I don't know that person's situation. But it sounded like it was more the parent who was upset about how dated it look. The child may have been disinterested for other reasons (One-year-old is a little young).

Plus, I've also seen a ton of Amazon reviews where parents say their kids love classic SS as much (and sometimes more) as the modern show. But there's little opportunity to see it. Everyone's different and have their own tastes, that's fine. I just wish everyone's interests were being represented. If Elmo's not your favorite (and there are kids who feel that way), you're out of luck. To me, if a show's main intention is to be educational, it shouldn't cut off a portion of its audience.

Even at 3 years old, kids are being taught that unless they like what everyone else likes, they're out of the loop and wrong. When I have kids, I don't want them learning that lesson.

 

[ISNorden]

You've already beaten me to the most obvious answers (traffic/pedestrian signals and phones)--but what about the TV sets with dials? They'd be considered seriously out of date by viewers who cared about clips being too old.

 

[Drtooth]

Yeah I've seen some of those. Of course I don't know that person's situation. But it sounded like it was more the parent who was upset about how dated it look. The child may have been disinterested for other reasons (One-year-old is a little young).

Plus, I've also seen a ton of Amazon reviews where parents say their kids love classic SS as much (and sometimes more) as the modern show. But there's little opportunity to see it. Everyone's different and have their own tastes, that's fine. I just wish everyone's interests were being represented. If Elmo's not your favorite (and there are kids who feel that way), you're out of luck. To me, if a show's main intention is to be educational, it shouldn't cut off a portion of its audience.

Yeah, i love the reviews that say "My child enjoys these old episodes more than he enjoys current Sesame." But the bad reviews are always a riot. Like they miss the point entirely. There are some kids that like older SS, but some kids that love Elmo. I always see the occasional goofy review in which the parents buy something either out of date, or that's geared to a child older than the one they have, and then wonder why the kids lose interrest.

Firstly, a 18 month child would probably rather be walking around, crawling around, exploring the environment, because it can. No matter what you do, some kids are pretty hyperactive. Secondly, if your kid likes Elmo most of all, you'd be better suited to get an Elmo's world DVD than an out of Print VHS that was made before the character was popular. It's tantamount to someone not liking the classic SNL DVD sets because they're a bigger fan of Will Ferrel, and really should stick to the Best of Will Ferrel videos.

But I digress, as this is getting way of topic.

To every decade of SS, there will be skits that are timeless (even despite having obsolete technology in the backgorund, or featuring a Muppeteer or cast member that's no longer with us), but there are a lot of dated pieces. That's why SS is different from, say Mr. Rogers. They use (and always have used) pop culture as a backdrop. Psychadelic stuff from the early 70's, the Disco era, 80's song and TV parodies, 90's celebrities... everything like that eventually causes it to become dated in the long run. The most dated thing in Current SS was the "Joe Hundredguy" skit. That was dated the day it aired, as thankfully that show was pulled off the air.