Where are the older humans?

[Mo Frackle]

Northern Calloway wasn't totally mentally stable. It made sense to let him go. He took it surprisingly well, from what I understand.

 

[OscarandTelly]

What makes me mad is Luis had just opened the bike shop, so I thought he was being worked back into the show as a more regular charachter, since once again he had a buisness right on the street again. Even without Maria there I could totally see him live on as Luis with the bikeshop.

 

[jonas92]

This is kind of like when "Around the Corner" ended, we had to say goodbye to a bunch of human characters, Ruthie, Celina, Carlo, Mr. Handford, etc.

 

[MuppetSpot]

Well with Ruthie she was in Season 30 but more as of an insert character. Here's a picture of the cast in season 30:

 

[DePingPong]

Welp, as the characters on Sesame Street might say, "Asking questions is a good way to find out things. And I did ask a question and I got an answer:

That was kinda hard to read, made me a bit sad. But that's how the cookie crumbles.

And like he said, at least we have 45 years of great shows with them.

 

[wiley207]

I had a bad feeling this would eventually happen. Look at most Sesame Street picture books (with a few exceptions) and other pieces of merchandising since the 70s; they mostly only focus on the Muppets. Same with the "Sesame Street Live" shows they've done from 1980 to today; they mostly just star Muppet characters. It's like the Muppets are pretty much taking over "Sesame Street." Now this may be a good thing to some people, and may be bad to some others. I like the Muppet characters and all, but the human Sesame Street cast was also important. I'm going to miss Gordon, Susan, Luis, Bob and Gina (and I already miss Maria.) I bet eventually, they'll get rid of Alan, and have a Muppet character take over Hooper's Store!

It's a far cry from the test pilot, where the only Muppet characters to appear on the show were Ernie and Bert, and in inserts only. But test results showed kids were more interested in the Muppet and cartoon segments than the main street stories that only had the human cast, so they decided to have Muppets live on the Street as well.

 

[Drtooth]

I have the strongest feeling that this is mostly due to budget. I still think the big picture isn't so much that the older cast members are being retired because kids would only pay attention to younger cast members, but rather less cast members on the payroll. Mando and Leela's absence is also a thing to note, especially how Mando was part of the huge roll out of the highly publicized Latino casting call. Corners are no doubt being cut these last 2 seasons, even with HBO's money kicking in the filming of season 47. It's not really as sinister as it sounds so much cheap.

 

[D'Snowth]

Well, let's face it, some of the castmembers have admitted over the years that the budget has always played a factor in their appearances on the show, or lack thereof. I mean, how often do we see all of the humans in the same episode? Usually only for special occasions like season openers or finales, because they otherwise can't afford to pay every castmember to appear in every episodes. Even Caroll noted how big a deal the "Goodbye Mr. Hooper" episode was for having all of the human castmembers on the show, when they typically just have two or three of them at most.

As I previously said, while I'm not entirely bummed about the loss of the older humans, because we know they're not going to be around forever anyway, it's the way they're all suddenly being let go like this that leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

 

[Katzi428]

About Gina not returning:
Although I stopped watching long ago, wasn't one of the biggest plot lines from Season 30something Gina adopting Marco from Guatamala? & they were supposed to show her raising him in the United States? (maybe I'm wrong.)

 

[Oscarfan]

Yeah, they didn't really do much with that, though. He only appeared in like 5 or so episodes since then.